Bob's Wood Chunker

I have the main flywheel drive part of chunker at the house now, it was followed by the rest of the baler minus a few parts and the gas engine. I think I can use most of baler to build the trailer and chunker. I just have to look it over and come up with a plan. The flywheel turns nice and easy it seems to be in good shape.


Now it would be nice to have a shop to put this in for a winter build project. Some day I will be saying “Keep On Chunking Wood”.
Bob

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That will keep you in scrap metal for a long time
And it has turn signals
Way to go!

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Yup Michael, good old HF $9.00 + tax. Did it again and they are the magnetic ones. Been looking at it more closely. I can leave the gear box right where it is and use that part of the frame it stout, open it up on the side put my cutting wheel in . Mount the motor on top where the engine use to be . Built a conveyer drag chain inside where the hay stuffer channel is. The chopped wood will go out the back where the hay bales use to go, instead of under the chunker and on the ground. It could go up a channel using a drag chain and into my wood crib. All the parts are there. Just need do some reconfiguring on the lay out. Cut the axle down to legal width there is even room for wood storeage box to put wood in. Take it to the wood pile and fill it up with wood chunked.
Bob

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That looks like the way i wood work at makeing one.I i will be wishing you lots of fun building ,and i will copeing some ideas ad your build moves along. Wonder what years they made that style bailer.?? Swem.

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The model and make plate is on it. New Holland Serial No. 12054 , Model No. 282
New Holland Machine Company, New Holland, Penna.
In 1963 they went to the two letter state abrivations. They have five letters for the state. Hope this helps Kevin
Bob

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I was out looking at the New Holland Square baler at dark with my flashlight. I think I can have this chunker up and running with very little modifications made to it. I can do all the fancy stuff to it later. Get it Chunking will save me a lot of work before the rain and snow comes.
Question: To anyone. What size hp. Gas engine would you use to make it run real good Chunking wood. And later it will be run conveyor belts or drag chains to move the wood. I will be (Dark Siding it with a Charcoal Gasifier) so I can run it in places with out electrical power. I need your input on this DOW Members. Thanks
Bob

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Great find! As l remember the tractor doesent work so hard powering one of these things, but have no idea what the chunker will need. What style will you go for?

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I used to bale hay with a similar sized square baler on a 30 HP tractor, not sure what HP was at the PTO. In light dry hay the tractor doesn’t strain but in heavy greener hay it would be all that tractor wanted to do to pull itself along and bale at the same time for an extended run. I don’t think a chunker will use nearly as much power but part of the HP choice will be how big the wood will be and will the flywheel have time to recover. The flywheel provides stored power to punch through a heavy load but it also has a safety built in in the form of a shear pin bolt. If the load is too much the shear pin breaks and that nice heavy flywheel disconnects from the drive and load and spins away its energy rather than break something on the baler. I would try a five HP or bigger, whatever I could scrounge for a test. I love the idea of a conveyor to dump the chunks out at a good collection point and that part should use very little HP compared to the chunking operation.

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Electric motor needs about 5 hp. On gas I’d bump that to 10-15 hp. You can get by with less, but you’ll be constantly waiting on the flywheel to spool back up.

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The tractor I us for chunking is a 20 hp . I estimate that it is using less than 25% of it’s power (5 hp ) .

I usually chunk about 60-70 cycles per minute.

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My chunker is powered by a 60 hp tractor with idle as low as possible, l guess about 2hp or less, no flyweel and it never stalled. I chunk hard wood up to 2". I was amazed to see those chunkers actualy arent so power demanding. Look whats JOs chunker doeing on les thain 2hp!

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My 1.6 hp stalled from time to time. I upgraded to a 3 hp. The belt slipping is now my “safety pin”.

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For new, maybe a Harbor Freight 22HP twin or 13HP single Honda clones. For used, my old Kohler 12 hp vertical single has a lot of “chug power” once it is running. I am not sure how well either would run on wood gas. That’s a big flywheel! (what Chris said about spin-up time). You guys with farm tractors know that they are very conservative in the HP ratings, and they have a lot of flywheel action built in! :slight_smile:

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Thank you all for the input. That gave me good information especially if I am going to Wood gas it. I might do wood gas off the truck and also have a charcoal gasifier on the chunker. Just need to find the right engine to couple up to it.
Bob

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Looking the New Holland over some more. I looked at Chris’s build and he has his Chunker over the axel, or just in front of the axel. Mine is out in front by feet, the back of the baler is keeping the tough off the front by weight balance . So after the trailer frame is built, I will relocate the baler from where it is now, to more over the axel. For now I will just cut the packing arm off and shove it up in side the baler and cut some of the top structure off that is over the axel. Should be able to remove about 500 lbs. of weight. Working on a new design with this one. It is going to automatically feed the wood into the chunker, using gravity and upward leverage. The cutting anvil will be on the top. After each cut the material will drop and by gravity the wood will advance forward into the chunker to be cut again. The speed of the blade turning will cause the cuts to be longer or shorter. Also the angle of the hopper shoot will be adjustable. It’s all just in my head right now thinking it all out on how it will work.
@Chris I noticed when watching your video on your chunker it turns the opposite direction of the flywheel arrow is pointing. On my baler it turns the same direction as yours, in the opposite direction of the arrow. Just little things I notice, that all.
By the way what size is your pipe cutting blade. Still looking for a suitable engine to run on this thing.
Bob

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Mine is a 12" x 3/8" pipe. Yes its almost directly over the axle, this makes it balance on an otherwise lightweight trailer. The sliding axle has two positions, to compensate for heavy cargo on the back.

I chose to run the gearbox backwards rather than feed on the flywheel side, or turn the whole thing upside down. With good oil levels and lots of Lucas, I’m not worried about insufficient oiling.

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I don’the think it matters. On my baler it turns in the opposite direction for normal use to bale hay. Thanks for the measurements.
Bob

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Bob
Both Joe hauler and myself use brake drums off semi trucks. The price was right Free just had to show em the truck. They even loaded. :slight_smile:

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Hi Tom, I have one but the diameter is to big, it will not fit inside the baler area, where the packing arm goes back and forth. A 14" diameter would be pushing it. 12" diameter will give it more power to cut wood. Thanks for the suggestion.
Bob

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I need to get this off my garage floor and put where it will do some good.



I think I found a spot to put it.
Note to myself: Bob stop driving the truck and get busy on this project.

Have lots of wood to chunk to travel. DOW
Bob

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