Grinding Slabs

[Tim/South]

Growing up, the local mills always gave their slabs away or burned them.
I have been putting what slabs I had on a pile of fence row I had pushed up.
A friend who normally grinds construction material and uses it for erosion control, asked if I wanted the slabs gone?  He came over and made short order of them.







What do others do with slabs?

[campy]

I am amazed at how small a pile you have left from that big pile of slabs.
Were any of the slabs too big to fit into the chipper?
How long did it take him to chip everything?

We make firewood out of ours.  It heats our house and we sell what we can.  People burn it to keep warm and because they like having a fire in the fireplace.

[Tim/South]

The picture was taken when he first began. He had to back up and make another pile once it was up to the conveyor.
It took almost an hour to grind the slabs. The slab pile looks big but there is a pile of brush/fence row under it.
It was all pine, not good for fire wood around here.

He can grind 17" wide. I do not know how thick. He threw them in as fast as he could. There were some butt cut offs several inches thick.

[TinMan]

Usually burn mine in my wood stoves, but its a pain in the a!@ to cut em up. I like your idea better. ;D

[Banjo picker]

That looks like a Vermeer, but I can't make out a model number.  Would you be able to come up with the model number?  I have been looking for one to clean up around jobs where the power company has cut down trees.  (Free saw logs for the clean up.)  Also want it to be able to do what that one is doing,  chip slabs.  Wonder it there is any way to get it to blow the chips a little further, like into the back of a 40 van trailer.  Tim

[Mike_Barcaskey]

firewood, for me or to sell

[Russ]

Don't any of these wood waste generators buy slabs ? They got folks grinding up brush and selling the chips, slabs got to be good for something.

[Tim/South]

That looks like a Vermeer, but I can't make out a model number.  Would you be able to come up with the model number?

It is a Vermeer. I tried to call him, will find out tomorrow what the model number is.
His is not a chipper. It is a grinder with hammers. I had never seen one before. The hammers spin in a drum until the material is small enough to be pushed through the grating. I believe it is powered by an 87 HP Cummings.
He stopped at a circle mill not far from here that saws RR Ties. They sell their hard wood slabs to a chipper mill.

[Sawyerfortyish]

I grind all my slabs into mulch. I sold slabs cut up for years for 5 and 10.00 a pickup load. People always left a mess where they loaded while there kids ran out of control over my log piles. That was an accident waiting to happen. I finally bought a rotochopper grinder that runs inline with my mill and is fed by a vibrating conveyor. Now all my slabs are sold theres no mess to clean up and no kids on the log piles. Instead of of getting 10.00 a pickup load I can load 3 yards of mulch on a pickup and get 20.00 a yard.

[stumpy]

You can load 3 yards on a pickup? ???

[Cedarman]

If you take an 8' bed that is 6' wide x 1 1/2' tall that  72 cubic feet.  Round it up pretty good and you will have right at 3 yards.  81 cubic feet

[Tom Sawyer]

I burn my in my OWB. Even pine slabs have some heat in them

[MrMoo]

I cutup my slabs and split them for kindling and use it in the woodstove. I burn a decent amount that way.
Last fall I gave a guy some for use in making maple syrup.

[Sawyerfortyish]

I have a 1 yard bucket on my skidsteer and 3 buckets fit nice on an 8' truck bed. I 'll make 30 yards of mulch a day or more so if I didn't grind the slabs after a week I would a huge pile in the way.