Coarse Cutting Wood Chippers

Tried to get it apart but could not get the ring gear assby. out of the housing(just would not fit).Screwed around for hours and finally decided to try to reassemble if possible. Got it back together almost and seems to work. Guess i will leave well enough alone. Dan

Hey Danny,

I snapped a couple of pictures for you.
My chunker is a single speed but is a heavy axle. The bolt circle is about 17 inch diameter Measuring around the bolt circle is about five feet.
The big axles are usually single speed and the trucks have from ten to twenty gears in the drive train.
This is from an over the road semi.


That’s a big 10-4 on the axle. I drive and operate a 22 ton boom truck.It has 10 speeds and double deep reduction. Usually only use 8 gears in normal driving.I considered stealing one of the rear axles but did’nt think I could get away with it.I was told that my axle was from a tree company chip truck. Well, the axle is back like it was before I decided to waste my weekend.L.O.L. I don’t know why the ring gear would not fit through the opening,never seen anything like it. Dan

Hello

Plans are available here:

It’s a free download. Just click stahnout button.

Also available in DOW download section (forum/files).

BTW, I’m also trying to assemble a small wood chunker because it’s easier to make and IMO safer. The question is will a 150HP Ford Scorpio rearend be strong enough to survive chunking 4 inch branches?

If someone wants a permanent difflock, just weld the gears in rearend. It’s commonly made in Poland for drifting. Nobody buys new diffs, we just weld them.

See picture:

p.s. Plans are good, machines made according to them are sold in Poland and Czech. Best material for the knives is a leaf spring steel that you can buy almost everywhere.

Good Morning Mr. Stelmach and welcome aboard.

A four inch green pine or soft wood can be chunked fairly easy . If it has dried out it can be more difficult. Four inch hardwood ( hickory or oak ) can be tough and if the four inch hard wood is dry I won’t try them in my chunker . Instead it would go for house heating.

It takes a lot of force to shear a four inch hardwood straight across the grain. The axle and differential I am using is from a big truck that normally hauls 30 tons or more . It’s not legal but some go across the scales at 50 tons !!

Isn’t it significantly easier to cut/sheer across the wood grain at an angle, around 45 degrees? Wayne’s spiral-cut blade sort of does this by only slicing through part of the wood at any given time, but I’m not sure that is the concept I’m trying to get at. I don’t know the official terminology for what I’m trying to describe and I’m having a hard time thinking of unofficial words to get my idea across. It was a long night lastnight… Think like a beaver’s teeth/bite. It doesn’t chew right into the branch at 90 degrees, but slices off chunks at an angle.

Basically, if one moved the base/anvil “down” and “forward” then the blade would be cutting into the wood chunk at a reverse angle, sort of pulling the wood into the blade. I’ll try to draw some pictures in MSPaint to get my idea across.

:EDIT: Here’s what I drew up to describe what I am trying to suggest to lessen the required load/stress for a chunker cutter. Re-watching Wayne’s chunker video, I see that he does a partial of what I’m suggesting. The top edge (the first part to be cut) of the piece of wood enters the chunker at about 90 degrees but the bottom edge (the last part to be cut) of the piece of wood is cut at a slight angle, probably around 75 degrees which is better than a 90 degree/cross-cut.

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Hello Brian

Raining here but in between showers I ran out and took a couple of pictures.
The first two are from yesterday.

The other two I took just now and show how I cut into big wood. It is tough to cut like picture # 3. Instead you feed it like pic#4 and then rotate 90%. When cutting 1 and 2 inch wood you have to go back to pic#3 so the chunks will be more block type vs. chip like.
On YouTube I have several folks telling me I should put a gravity shoot on the chunker to feed it. Right away I knew they haven’t chucked any wood in all the verities I use… The gravity shoot was the first thing I had to burn off after building.




Thanks for the tips Mr. Keith.

In Poland using wood gas is illegal on open roads. Also making electricity from PV is illegal.

I need a chunker to prepare fuel for heating. I have an orchard, so mainly it’s wood from apple, plum and also some wild growing “weeds” like alder, maple, poplar. It’s only wet wood. Thicker branches I cut with a chain saw.

Oh, that’s a real shame. Why did they outlaw woodgas?

Alexnader: Is stationary (generator) use of woodgas illegal?

Stationary generator is half legal. You can use it for heating. Producing electricity is illegal. Only government company can make it.
As for driving on wood gas, if you get caught, you must pay penalty tax for stealing money from government. Usually it’s at least 2000 USD.

Gasoline in Poland cost 1,73 USD… per liter.

If you don’t know what’s it all about, it’s all about the money.

What about electric cars and hybrid technology. I would expect something to happen here in the US regarding the road tax as hybrid vehicles become more commonplace. That may be a ways yet but Im sure it will happen here.

I am late to this party but, I can tell you that on a “standard” differential, if you lock up one wheel the other will spin at twice the speed. I worked for a tire company and often we were sued for a tire coming apart and tearing a fender of the vehicle. It turns out if you get stuck in the snow and “gas” it up to 70 or 80 mph on the speedometer, with one wheel locked the other wheel will be turning 140 to 160 mph and a passenger tire will not take that. (neither will the fender when the steel belt comes off.)

Hi Tom; I know what your saying about the tire spinning from my days in the Michigan winters.Seems like the tire on the ice spun crazy fast. I tried to get my axle apart to weld, but ring gear assby. would not fit out of the casing. Never saw anything like it,don’t know how they put it together. Oh well, back together now and working fast as ever. Dan

If you scroll to about 1:03 of this video you can see a safety screen and delimber for the counter rotating shear chunker.

I also really like this high speed chunker. It uses a single drum set to a high enough speed that it throws the chunks through a discharge chute.

Here is a low tech variation on a Laimet chipper.

Hello Mr.Stelmach,

I am interested with this machine. Please help me for the wood chipper complete CAD drawings?

Best regards

Ozden SIRMACI

@Aleksnader Stelmach Id love to have a look at the drawings pls. Thanks

Aleksnader Stelmach never said he had a chipper, did he? The photos at the top are Wayne Keith’s chunker.

A picture of my Laimet HP-21 chipper at the factory. It is on a ship on it’s way to the US. I can’t wait to try it out and am tracking the ship on it’s way here.

That thing chips wood like a beast. Do you know what size the chips are? That may be a factor on your build.