Hi troy, like the guys that been thinking this out for more years than us, it might be easy’er too buy old broke chipper shredder and then rebuild it, Building a bigger than usual shredder would be interesting too see. if reperpose parts were available, used steel should be going back down sooner or later. It would be neat too have at least a skid size shredder machine, Home made is the only way too build a big shredder without suit cases of cash, dont get caught with more than 10.000 cash or your money can be taken as drug money from lawless enforcement. GOOD LUCK,
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Troy I totally vote for the tractor/ PTO options. If you just need the engine and PTO there should be units with bad rubber, rotted rims, broken front ends dying for repurposing and made for the work… My Ferguson was running perfectly when I bought it and cost $800. She’s only 28hp but still. I also tend to agree with chris that you should char then grind much less energy intensive. But hey, your business model. Best of luck with the build.
David
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Ok, after considerable thought and warning from various folks, I’ve decided to wait on the big unit… Not sure if I will attempt to build my own in the future, or save up for an older unit…
However…
I am going to build a mini-shedder like the one Gary is talking about, and like the one seen here:
It looks like it would be a fun project, within budget, and useful for more than just shredding wood… This same guy has a string of video from concept to completion on the mini-shredder.
Also, with a small set of teeth like this little unit, the power source can be considerably less than something like the Muffin Monster… True that you’d get more done with a bigger unit, but you also need more power…
I’ll probably buy an electric motor and use a v-belt, or gear reduction if I can find it down here.
I’ll keep you all posted on my progress, and will share CAD files for anyone else interested.
Watch those fingers!
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Here is another unit that more closely resembles what I have in mind:
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And there is Jean Pain
Try feeding your chips into a hammer mill.
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Have you thought about a machine such as this?
Although it will be more labour intensive, in your area that wouldn’t be such a problem. A machine such as this also allows use of young, otherwise low value material. Build should be quite simple, power requirements rather low. I could imagine a motor powered by wood gas driving such a unit.
For reducing large amounts of heavy timber into good quality chips, I agree with using a pto driven machine. Valmet, or a similar Swedish manufacturer makes such a unit, appears to be very high quality.
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Troy, I spent 10 years driving around Mexico and know the place pretty well. If you buy something here, they will really charge you heavily at secundaria. It might even double the price. Tractors in Mexico are real expensive. You are better to start out wth a truck. They are much more common. The common engines are Perkins, Detroit and Cummins. I’ve worked on chippers for many years and know them very well. The higher the horsepower, the wider the blades. You can use 12 inch blades with a gasoline 6 cyl. It’s just slower. You must have a blower if you are going to have much of a discharge chute. I have a chipper flywheel here and it weighs about 300 lbs. It was mated to a 361 CID Ford. It also had a 200 lb drum. The newer chippersd are auto-feed that restricts the feed speed. The older, more dangerous chippers fed at whatever rate the drum and knives could pull in. They sell for cheaper here.
If I were going to make a chipper in mexico, I would start out with a truck. I would weld the spider gears to lock the axle. I would cut open one pair of the duals and fill them with concrete. I would bolt the u-joint to the differential with 1/4 bolts so that they would shear if something jammed. I would run it in low gear to keep speed down and just depend on flywheel weight to do the cuting.
The second problem is holding the knives. The old chippers used 12 in to 16 in diameter drums and fairly high speed. The new chippers use a bigger diameter drum and lower speed. I would definitely go with a bigger diameter drum and lower speed. The old knives were clamp-in but, the newer knives are bolt in and much easier to mount.
http://www.baileysonline.com/shop.axd/ProductDetails?item_no=WPCK%20900990200&utm_source=googlepla&utm_medium=cse&id=155014097785&gclid=CLnWm_LH88gCFRRgfgodPdgGpw
It’s all do-able if you have a good engineering sense and a good welder.
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Thanks William… What you mentioned is what I had in mind. A truck is cheap down here, and has a lot of power. That power—with the proper skill set and design—could be transferred into some kind of chipping/shredding mechanism.
The truth is that I’m not much of a mechanic, or fabricator, and I don’t think I have that skill set. I would need to see a well-documented similar project for me to emulate, and even then, I would need to bring in some local welders and fabricators (also very affordable) before the V8 project could ever take place. I’ll come back to this for sure… Might be a year or two, however.
For now, I think it’s smart to focus on the small shredder. All the parts would be water jet / laser cut, or purchased. Pretty easy to assemble too.
In the meantime, I’ll keep my eyes out for V8, DIY chippers and shredders. If something comes along that is similar to what you describe, I’ll be sure to jump on it fast. I still think it could be done for around $2k… When you consider the cost of an industrial chipper down here, that’s at least 5-10 X the savings…
I really like your post, and how you laid it all out… If you ever decide to build it, let me know!!
Thanks!
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Troy, where are you? Bad soil and jungle sounds like the Yucatan, maybe Quintana Roo or Chaipas. If you are anywhere near Veracruz, you can look aroung the places where they scrap out ships and boats. It would be perfect if you coud find a sheave from an old flat belt drive like this;
You would overlay this on the original steel wheel and mount the blades to the face. Then, you have to build a striker bar and an enclosure. Some chippers use a wheel with cutters on the side. You could build a turntable like a merry-go-round right off the ground and have the cutters on the edge facing upwards. The truck tire would sit right on top of the turntable to friction drive it. They made some brush hogs like this.
Good luck.
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My two cents. I would fill a tire with water instead of concrete. The water will flow in the tire and automatically balance it. TomC
Hello Mr. Tom
Would filling a tire with a fluid vs a solid decrease the flywheel effect ?
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Maybe if it had shallow paddles inside?
N0 Mr Wayne The flywheel affect is just dependent on weight. diameter, and speed (I think). Now the water may be a slight bit lighter than cement but the advantage is in the balance. If a cement wheel is a little out of balance it is out for ever. The water will slosh around a little bit as the tire starts to spin, but in a short time the water will start turning in the tire at the same speed as the tire. At this point the water will be out to the furthest diameter of the tire and will BALANCE the tire perfectly. As I understand it it doesn’t just balance the tire it balances the tire/ rim/ and brake drum.
They use to sell a hool a hoop That was partially filled with a liquid. It mounted to the rim flange on trucks and would balance the tire Haven’t seen them in years. I don’t think the plastic held up. TomC
I would think that for your tire to automatically balance and retain the flywheel effect, that you would have too put multiple (+/- 8?) baffles inside the tire. I have no idea how a guy would successfully put the baffles in though… :/. I think that a plain water filled tire would lose a lot of the flywheel effect (as Wayne said), because when the flywheel encounters a sudden load, the water would keep spinning while the flywheel slowed down. It would probably help if you made your water into a syrup like consistency, but it would still have a “soft” flywheel effect. You may also have problems with being too far off balance at startup. (if the tire was not entirely full, then the fluid would drain to the bottom side and become lopsided.)
L’Chaim
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I had the same thought… There would have to be some sort of paddle system / baffles inside the tire. But it would still have to have enough room on the edges, or near the tire wall for the water to be used for the balancing effect.
It’s a very interesting proposition, but I would think that if you were to go about the trouble to include a baffle system, you might as well go the concrete route, and use a traditional tire balancer to get a perfect balance… Seems like a lot less work.
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I agree, concrete would be a lot easier. I assume you would cut a hole in the top of the tire to pour the concrete into?
If I am understanding you right, you are describing a concrete flywheel and a water flywheel side by side on the same shaft. If so, I am not sure that the “water-wheel” would balance irregularities in the drive train and concrete-wheel. It makes sense to me that a water wheel would balance itself, but I don’t see how the said wheel would know how balance other irregularities in the system. Maybe I am missing something.
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I am building a mechanical hatchet for splitting up rounds sort of like Herb Hartman’s setup and I planned to pour in 1/8th inch screened stones in a tire for the flywheel. That will not set up like concrete but will that act like water then and loose the flywheel effect?
I think you could make your “stone-wheel” work pretty good if you bolted a few fins to your rim, and then filled your tire as chock full of stones as possible. I think stones would have an advantage over concrete as they would be denser, so long as you can keep them from moving around in there. I rather doubt that the stones would self balance, although tha would likely be unnecessary especially at lower RPM’s
If you add the fins could you not add calcium to the water for greater density like you do for standard weighted tires?
Guys you are over thinking this water flywheel thing. For 75 years we have been putting water/calcium chloride in farm tractor tires. We do it for additional weight and better traction, BUT, I can tell you from experience, that it also smooths out the ride when you are running on the road. Most tractors for some reason will develop a “lope” when going down the road and the water in the tire will eliminate that. Yes the tire is our of balance for a few seconds, but it very quickly gets up to speed with the tire.
Don; your stone idea anint so good. The dry stones will not spread out into the whole tire, they will have a tendency to stay in a clump. Sand would be better but again, sand will be slow to spread out. Stamp sand mixed with some water has been used in earthmover tires. The problem was the grit of the stamp sand wore the inner liner of the tire out, making them loose air. Water is the best and add some antifreeze if you live in Michigan. ( kidding Don Any place that sees freezing weather
Now the question that none of you have hit upon, and I have been concerned about, is “Hoe do you get water into the tube?”. I looked at my adapter last night. ( been 30 years since I last saw it.) It is made for inner tubes that have a core as all tubes do but, the part that the core screws into also is in another piece that screws into the basic valve. So the threaded part that goes onto the tube is larger than your normal auto valve stem. On the other end of the device is a female thread that fits a garden hose. Between the two is a solid piece that has a hole drilled in from the side and a simi hollow screw goes into the hole as a bleeder valve to relieve the “air” pressure as the tire fills up. The valve stem has to be in the UP position when filling to relieve the air pressure. You will have to stop adding water when the tire gets inflated and remove the water hose to let the air bleed out. Then reinflate with water until the tire is almost full.TomC