As long as the wood is structurally sound, meaning it is not half rotten, I have put thousands of lbs through my gasifier and could not tell any difference.
Dry hard wood gets processed with bandsaw and hatchet which makes for more work, but then ready to use
hi bob mac i watched you chunker vidio and it looks like blade is a flat rotor shape, just woundered if there is a bearing on each side of the blade, it seems i might be less app too bend the shaft. then again them gear boxes look heavy enough with out outer bearing support.??
Hi Kevin, the gear box on the square bailer is very heavy duty. It also has one stationary straight blade and one that rotating curved blade when the wood comes in contact with the straight blade the spring loaded plate in front of the blade move back exposing the blade so there are two cutting edges like in a rebak cutting mechanism. The action is a chopping slicing action, great for chopping/slicing dry wood and fracturing. Cuts green wood like butter. Cherry wood is very hard wood when it dry for a couple of years.
I think the shaft is 3 1/4" shaft.
Bob
Thanks Bob Mac is the botton blade power turning or just on bearing, thats one big gear box back in those days.
If you have ever looked a bailer arm, it is attached to a stuffing rod and plate that packs the hay into a square bail. I cut the arm off and welded the cutting blade to the remaining piece that is attached to the shaft. The bearings are huge because of the forces in the bailer. Cutting wood uses less force than bailing hay.
Just go back to the beginning of the building thread and you will see what I have done.
Bob
Thanks Bob Mac i caint seem too find that perticular picture. Would it be hard too draw the set up of the bottom rotor blade location too the top blade, I am trying too get a basic cut away view. All the farm feilds around hear are all scraped out of the older bailers, never really seem one in person.Thanks.
Yup you do see them but most of them around in this area are not bailing hay anymore. This one was given to me to just haul it away. I like that kind of price tag. We were buying hay from the farmer for our goats. And I saw the bailer setting there rusting away.
Bob
Good morning Bob mac , i am looking at your bailergear box and it looks wider on the pulley, the pulley on mine is 22" accrost and 4" wide, is that what your bailer gear box measures, thanks.
Hi bob mac nice working chunker, i am not sure what your cutting blade arangment is i am looking , my phone is slow loading pics, back looking for final blade detail. Ok i see the blade, it is hard too tell the size around the blade is? i gess its off set conected too the arm for the cutting action.Thanks for sharing this design, i think i will try this type cutting arangment and see how it works, it seems its useing the bearing load the way it was designed.
Hi Kevin, here are some pictures of the fly wheel and pully system on my build.
Thanks bob on the pulley gera ratios and big pulley size, And thanks for the neat vidios on your chunker, Did you have any problems getting the wood chunks too fall past the gear box, cutting with the blade and no pipe for cutting force in other direction.
I decided to do some wood chunking today. I have let the wood pile sit there all summer drying. Burned some of the larger pieces in the fire pit making charcoal. When I chunked some bigger pieces that were 5" to 6" diameter I test the them with the moisture meter. 30 % + right in the center. The 4" diameter was around 5% to 15%, smaller pieces were 1% to 5%.
That is some gnarly wood for chunking, hard to get out of the pile and must kick a lot when feeding it.
Your chunker really splits the chunks well, should dry quick and burn hot.
My chunker would have stalled on any of those pieces, unless green 30%+ mine will stall at 1 1/2 inch
With the right camera angle your chunk pile resembles Wayne’s
Good morning Bob Mac,That chunker chunks some big branch’es, im with Mike gib, mine stalls on smaller wood yet, do too our drive motor is about half what should be too chunk full speed ahead,I snaged a 4 horse double caps off a air compressor at auction yesterday for about 35 bucks including the auction 16 percent sale charge,how is your gas motor working, should i say is that a good enough size gas driver, or are you thinking bigger or smaller gas motor next time,change.Thanks for the wood chunking wood check.
Hi Bob, don’t you just love how the wood fractures to almost like a loaf of bread! Put that high moisture stuff out in the sun for a day or two now and it will be down in the ‘‘driving’’ range. I use dead trees that have fallen. Even though they have stood for several years dead, when I split the wood for fire wood, it is still too wet in the center to burn right away. TomC
Hi Bob Mac,
You are proving well that wood most rapidly dryes out of the end grain versus the outer-edge cross grain layers.
Double reasons be best to chunk up early while still green n’wet.
S.U.
Hi Tom, yes it really Fractures the wood as long as it is not to green. Even in this dry cold air it dry out as long as it doesn’t rain on it. When it is green very little fractures are formed, that brade just slices through the 5" and 6" inche pieces. The dried out dead wood fractures into pieces.
Bob
Hi Michael, my fly wheel is a heavy one. This bailer was a gas driven one, not a PTO driven one. It also produced the longer hay bails with wire tie. I am using a 10 hp. The wood from pruned fruit trees is gnarly indeed, this is why I chose the straight blade. But you half to hang on to the wood, it can jerk around.
Bob
Hi Steve, you are Right about that. 6" dia. Dried out wood will shatter into many pieces, but with a little moisture like 21% it cut it nice with fractures. We are blessed with low humidity in the fall for dry wood. But soon the rain and snow will come to stay.
Bob
Hi Kevin, I think a 4 hp. Is a little small for the big pieces I am chunking. I am full throttle when chunking the big ones and with smaller pieces I can run it idling. It doesn’t slow down at all.
Bob
