Here is a pic of my wood chunker. I will attempt to post a vidio/link for you to watch. Please bear with me while I try to figure this youtube thing out. If it dose not work I will keep trying.
Ron H
Ron, You’ve got the video set up as private so we can’t watch it. If you set it to unlisted we can see it if we have the link, or set it public so everyone can see it.
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Andrew, Thanks for the info I think I have it now. It is set at Unlisted if not I’m sure someone will let me know.
Ron H
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Hello Ron .
Great video , Thanks for posting
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Yep, we can see it now. I had wondered about putting saw teeth in the cutter wheel, so am anxious to see that work.
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Andrew, everything here revolves around the weather. Hopefully next week I can post a video of it working. I did chunk about 500# the 1st time. Then put maybe 6/7 teeth on it and it did much better. This will be the 3rd evolution with even more teeth, so I’m hoping for the best.
Thanks Ron H
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Andrew, adding more teeth was a bonus for this machine.
I wish things were different and I had a junk square baler on hand but this is the junk I had so that’s what I used. The build took me 5 weeks and about $350.00 to complete and I am more than pleased with the out come. This chunker does not like splitting big chunks of wood. I do cut the wood to about 24”, then split it to around 2” on my wood splitter. Much better than using a chop saw and way faster.
If anyone wants to know anything about this chunker Please ask.
Thanks Ron H
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Ron It would have been easy to press “LIKE” for your post but I think it deserves much more credit. Excellent build. You have shown the necessity for a good strong anvil, which is something I keep saying is necessary. I may have to give some thought to the “saw” teeth in the cutter on mine. You say you could really see a difference when adding them? What in particular did you get by doing this? I really like the “flat belt” drive on the tire. So much better than the other methods I have seen. Do you have a regular flat belt splice link in it ---- the wire ends on each end of the belt held together with a metal rod? How thick and big around is the blade on the chunker. Again excellent job. TomC
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Tom C. Thanks for the kind words. Without the saw teeth, my chunker worked much like everyone else’s, it just cut through and spread the end grain. Which was good for the drying aspect, but on this build it seemed to be a little too violent for me/and machine. So I tried a few teeth and BIG improvement, so I put more on and now it just slices right on through. No more jumping/slowing down. The flat belt is off an old square baler I junked out a few tears ago (bummer I did that) think it was a John deer. So it is a factory one-piece belt, no splice link. I built everything around the length of that belt, if that makes sense to you. As for the chunker blade it was made from scrap ¼” plate, made the same way I made my fire tube, on my 30 ton press. It is 14” in dia.
Did I forget anything??
Thanks again
Ron H
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Looks good Ron. Using what one has is an important thing. The other important thing is you can make fuel efficiently. It’s amazing the stress the equipment takes when processing wood. It can be seen in the video you provided.
Great job
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Hello Mr. Ron.
Thanks for the video , good job ( I watched it a couple of times )
Looks like it is doing a good job.!!
I haven’t chunked any wood in a while and trying to work down and dry a huge pile that needs drying and bagging .
A few weeks back I added a small vertical shoot on the top side of my chunker . I think it will be OK to handle small limbs and strips. I haven’t really given it a good test yet but will soon because I have several logs I have promised to saw. I like to chunk the slabs soon after sawing before they have time to dry ( I don’t like chunking dry wood )
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I forgot to mention two very important people in both my chunker and truck builds, @Terry_Lavictoire and @Max Gasman. I Thank You two for all you’ve done for me.
Ron H
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BillSchiller, My chunker gas engine will run like all day, on 1 gallon of gas, way more than I care to work it at one time. Like I said before the stress on it is minimal after I put the teeth on it. You can’t see it very well but I built/installed a truss that runs under the frame from right to left which helps keep it from torquing up on the right side. I think that is what you are seeing. I would have rather built one like you and a few others BUT like a dumb ---- I scraped it out a few years ago for gas money of all things, BAD ME!
Ron H
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I hear you Ron. If it’s metal or wood, I can’t throw it away anymore.
I’ve thought about making my blade like a serrated knife but I think the way mine separates the wood will give it more surface area for the reduction zone? I’m not even sure if that’s a good thing yet.
Anyway, I like your chunker. I’m glad there’s another version out there. We all can learn that way.
Thank you
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Very well done Ron. That should give years of service, I guess N. Idaho means you won’t be coming to Argos, but I’m sure that chunker will be an attraction anywhere it goes.
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Carl Zinn, Argos is more than 4000 miles round trip for me, so I don’t think I can make that happen in the near future but sure sounds like a lot of fun/educating time. Wish I could make it happen.
“I’m sure that chunker will be an attraction anywhere it goes”. To make a long story short Carl, I am known for making some very cool stuff out of junk. BUT since I started this wood gas project there have only been two people that still come by to check things out. I believe the rest of them think I have lost my mind. Which in turn has cost me my business (Custom Metal Fab). Taking them for a ride in the Dodge, explaining things the best I can makes no difference. So all I have is DOW. “THANKS”
Ron H
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Howdy Ron,
You are very welcome!
Good to see it’s working for you, keep them videos coming 
TerryL
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I just got done chunking some “box elder” that was trimmed from our old tree. Some was dead wood and some was green. I noticed that while trimming the branches off the limbs by hand, just how much easier it is to work with green wood than dry. When I started chunking the green stuff I thought it would cut like butter ---- but it didn’t. So I went back to the shop and reground the edge to a very sharp edge. ( original grinding, I left it a little blunt because I thought if I ground it to a sharp edge, it would tend to roll under.) While I was at it I put some “teeth” sort of like Mr. Wayne and Ron H recommended. Great improvement. Thanks guys. TomC
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TomC, I just looked for one of Jonathan Collins earlier vid’s and couldn’t find it, but he is the one that gave me the idea of putting teeth on my chunker. If you look at Mr. Wayne’s chunker his blade is very well used and worn from chunking tons of wood. It act’s like a saw blade, not to mention it is made out of thin metal (truck rim, that is hardened steal) not 1/4" or better thick like mine and others. With this said anyone that builds a chunker should think about doing it like Mr. Wayne (at least using the thinner hard steal of a truck rim). A different way to look at this is a splitting maul is heavy blunt and used on the end grain. Where as a hatchet/axe is thin sharp and is used for cutting cross grain like our chunkers. Anyway I’m glade it is working better for you, and who knows maybe all this talk will help someone else out in the future.
Ron H
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I also think wayne may have heat treated the blade egde on the rim. The anvil is just as important as the blade remember that.
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