Firewood on a Hakki Pilkie 1x37

[mudfarmer]

If you have any marinas or popular snowmobile destinations nearby they are usually a good bet for non ethanol. We get enough boat and sled traffic locally that it is available at the middle of nowhere and the middle of town regular gas stations.

[GRANITEstateMP]

still going on firewood. The ole Pred is plugging away, trying to get me to either tear out more hair, or what little I have left go gray all at once!  She was acting up again a month back, would start for a bit, then stop. I thought (that don't happen often) that it was fuel delivery. I was sick of issues, so I replaced, plugs, fuel line, blew out tank, 2 fuel filters, hose clamps. Yeah, that weren't it   Ended up being the magic oil brain box thing. Ended up unplugging that and off she went.  My buddy's dad was a huge help, he kept me sane. He was concerned that I wasn't buying a new oil level/pressure brain box. I told him how much I hated the engine, and that if it blew up, then I'd have to buy something better  . I do check the level every time before start up and when fueling.

I did a couple cord myself the other day, it was fathers day weekend and my buddys had more important stuff to do!

 
Since I was a one man band Sunday, I stacked the deck low, and with the straight-est logs I had one hand.



 
The ole HockeyPuck 1x37 ready to make big pieces of wood into little pieces.  I had a cord of 18in and a cord of 22in to do.



 
It was a nice morning to work up some wood.  I was done before 11 and up to the farm for father's day with family by noon.

[GRANITEstateMP]

Here's the 22in cord, still sitting at the landing 2 days later. I guess some people aren't really ready to get all there firewood at once...even if they tell you they are!!!



 
nice, steady, much needed rain, "cleaning" this fresh cut cord. Can I get extra $ for freshly laundered cordwood?

[doc henderson]

I think you can unplug that oil sentry thing, if you dare!  I think it opens a ground (to the coil).  so you can also just run power to a light, and use it as the ground and viola you get a light for low oil, and not kill the engine.

[barbender]

I've found that once I get to the point that I'm wishing death on an engine or machine, our relationship is unsalvageable😊

[cutterboy]

Sometimes the biggest problem selling firewood is the customer.
Last fall a local guy bought my last full box of firewood and noticed that I had a small pile of wood left in the barn. He asked if he could buy it (about half a box) and he would be back in the afternoon to get it. I loaded the wood in a box and set it out for him. Two weeks later it was still there. I transported it back into the barn and early this spring I burned that wood in my woodstove.

[Spike60]

I like Doc's light idea, but really not a big deal to disconnect the low oil sensor. All ya gotta do is check the oil before you fire up the machine.

Thanks again for the continuing pics and updates, and hope you had a great father's day.

[Corley5]

As the oil sensors on my Hondas both big and small have failed I've 
by-passed them.  Internal combustion engines survived for decades without such things.  We as operators keep an eye on oil levels.  An engine running remotely without human supervision would benefit from low oil shutdown sensors but a low oil level shutdown probably means the engine has other issues that need addressing beyond adding oil.

[mike_belben]

Same.  Check oil, maintain oil and filtration, run machine.  If it sounds or smells bad shut it off and dig deeper.

[GRANITEstateMP]

but a low oil level shutdown probably means the engine has other issues that need addressing beyond adding oil.

That's what I was thinking, if it's lost oil pressure, and I checked the level an hour before, might as well run her til she pops cause I'm not tearing down this Pred!

Check oil, maintain oil and filtration, run machine.  

Mike, I use a good Toyota oil filter, from my dealership days, and the finest bottom shelf discount oil I can get my hands on!

[GRANITEstateMP]

Thanks again for the continuing pics and updates, and hope you had a great father's day.

Spike,
I'll keep em coming as long as I don't bore you all with my little operation.
Father's Day was great. My birthday was the day before, so I got to sit in a comfy chair outside and sling the bull with the family. Kids (cousins) all played around outside and had a blast too. Heck, I didn't even have to man the grill!

[hedgerow]

GRANITEstateMP  Glad to see your back to making firewood. Spraying around here is finally winding down so we have gotten back to bucking some hedge logs from last year. Was planning on splitting them Saturday but we had a inch of rain over night and maybe some more tonight. We needed it. Been very dry and hot. Glad the old HF motor is still going. I have only seen one of those low oil devices save a engine. Had a buddy that called last summer and said he couldn't get his 13 HP Honda started on his spray tender trailer. I said being smart you know does it have gas and oil. Phone went dead for a second. He said it does have gas maybe I better check the oil. He hadn't checked or changed the oil in ten years of running the pump on the tender. He changed what oil was left. Fired it back up and its still running today. I have several engines around the farm the low oil device is unhooked but I check and change my oil. 

[GRANITEstateMP]

hedgerow,

Glad to hear your back up to cutting up some logs.  If you wanna send a bit of that inch of rain over ere to NH, we'll take it. First hay cutting is done, and cow corn is coming up, but we're still short on rain for the year.

[GRANITEstateMP]

Sorting.  My little processor can be a picky eater. Over the years I've found certain trees that it doesn't want to eat .  Depending where I source my wood from makes a difference in how much sorting I got to do.  If my load comes from a 60 acre select cut, I'd say 90% of the wood goes into the processor, the rest is hand cut.  If it's a 2acre house lot, a right of way, etc, then I got a bunch of sorts.  I like my processor wood 12-16ft and under 15in (max diameter for the machine), that's sort 1. Next is anything meeting the diameter, but under 10ft, that's sort 2. Next is oversized, crooked, or super knotty, those go into the chainsaw pile and we hand cut them and run them on the hydulic splitter, that's sort 3. Sort 4 is pine or softwood.  It's normally in it's own load, but again if it's a house lot and the price is right... Sort 5 is the ugly stuff. Rot, crotches, bugs, real ugly, that fun stuff.  That gets set aside and when I've got a big enough pile, it goes to the farm or my wifes uncles place.  They both have outdoor boilers, those will eat anything, as long as it fits through the door! 



this is sort 1, real nice load of mixed hardwood from a local family logging outfit. Most are 16ft and can go from there drop pile, right onto my brow for processing.  Sometimes, I'll have to cut off a 22in (length I burn) butt flare and then I can move the log to the brow



Sort 2, the "shorts", good wood, just won't go easy on my little brow so when I have extra help, these get loaded onto the machine with the tractor.



Sort 3, oversized and not straight enough logs.  We buck most of this stuff to 22in long. My house and 3 of my helper/buddy's all burn that length wood. We sell another 8-10ish cord a year in that length also.



 
The ugly.  Some real gems here.  We also bin up the real short pieces, they go to the boiler too.

Sorting takes time, but makes the actual firewood production go way quicker AND easier.  I don't have help very often, so when they're here, I wanna make big sticks into little sticks, not mess around with ugly logs

[mike_belben]

Thanks for taking the time to share that.  Ive been thinking collecting and sketching literally for years on how to make a machine that will eat 90 of any forest's cull wood efficiently enough to profit at $150 a cord.  Quite a challenge.  


What are the reasons in order of severity that your machine wont run a stick?  I assume its mostly failure to feed issues?   Any information on what it wont do would be helpful to me really and id greatly appreciate it as im getting close to starting soon. 

[stavebuyer]

Thanks for taking the time to share that.  Ive been thinking collecting and sketching literally for years on how to make a machine that will eat 90 of any forest's cull wood efficiently enough to profit at $150 a cord.  Quite a challenge.  


What are the reasons in order of severity that your machine wont run a stick?  I assume its mostly failure to feed issues?   Any information on what it wont do would be helpful to me really and id greatly appreciate it as im getting close to starting soon.

I ran a Dyna and I sorted the wood much the same. Crooked wood doesn't feed on a chain/trough system. It also causes issues at the "cutting" area which is a "constriction point". A crooked piece in effect "enlarges" the diameter and will hit the top or sides of the cutting trough or holding arm.
For my market inside stove wood outsold "boiler wood" 10-1. My boiler customers were mostly farmers who were getting a little older and had some health issues that kept them from being able to continue processing their own wood. The relevance is that when you get much past 10" diameter you either have to step up to a major sized machine that will handle a 12way+ wedge($100k) or a bunch of re-splitting. A light-weight 20-40hp machine doesn't have the engine hp, hydro pump, or steel to handle even knotty 4-way splits let alone a 12 or 16 way wedge.
Also wood being what it is, crooked also often means the heart will not be centered in the block; and if it is the round will not be when it encounters your wedge so your 4-6 pieces could end up very oddly proportioned in size.
I had a dump trailer and delivered some loads but quickly decided I was dollars ahead to discount the price and let them fetch it. If you have an efficient splitting set up you can process faster than you can deliver. Your volume in TN will be people looking for cheap heat. They will find a truck or trailer to come get your wood for a discount that you wouldn't want to deliver for.
As an observation, I ran three machines. The Eastonmade 22-28 which would eat anything, the Dyna SC14 35hp Kohler which could handle a 4 way wedge in reasonable sized and not overly knotty wood, and a kinetic Super Split HD for most re-splits.
The Dyna was set-up with a 4" cylinder and regen circuit for a fast cycle time. The Eastonmade ran a 5" cylinder at a higher pressure/two stage pump so it was capable of tearing itself up if you didn't pay attention.
The rub is for one size fits all you need to choose between oversize which costs more to build and operate, speed which requires ideal feedstock, or tonnage/versatility which sacrifices speed for power.
In the end maybe modify a more open Dyna deck/saw system and then weld an Eastonmade type log lift and splitter chamber onto that you could easily access at working height to position blocks resplits etc.

[mike_belben]

Thanks SB.  Lot of good info.  

I still have my conventional 5" vert/horiz 13hp splitter and my manual limb rack for non splits.. Nothing hydraulic will outpace that thing.  

I think im set on building a sliding chute thats slaved to the split cylinder with one way snake fangs to advance.  I will probably put an atv winch on top with a hammer cleat for anything that fusses about feeding that way.  


Still on the fence about conventional or box wedge design. Plusses and minuses everywhere ya look.

[GRANITEstateMP]

Mike, Stavebuyer brought up a lot of good points!

My biggest issues are:

Diameter, Max is 15in. Any bigger and you'll hit the bar and chain when feeding. Also, with any of the larger diameters (11-15) we usually have to resplit once anyway (4 way wedge, not enough umph to use the 6 way much)

Crooked Wood - The longer the stem I feed in, the more cuts before lifting another log on. 12-16 ft wood is great, but sometimes I need to trim up a 12ft piece into an 8 to get it to feed easy. Yeah, maybe I could have fed the 12 in, but if you wrestle that stem for 10 minutes to feed so you get 3 extra cuts, it's not worth it time wise.  I'll process the 8 and hand cut the 4, no waste and keeps the efficient machine happy too.

Knots/Ugly - sometimes you just look at a log and say your going to the hand cut pile! If its got big knots, or a large branch was trimmed off, I sort it out. Again, I could split it with the machine, but why take the chance snapping the wedge for a piece of wood you know is gonna come out ugly, just do it on the regular splitter and come out ahead in the end.

I got better at sorting what it likes and don't like after making a bunch of mistakes. Good news, I actually learned from said mistakes!  Some of its trial and error too. One thing we still fight is when we're cutting bigger diameter wood and it falls into the split chamber, sometimes. it'll bounce back ups and knock the chain off. It may happen once every 5 or 6 cord of bigger stuff, or three times in one log, it's just one of the quirks with this machine, once your aware of the possibility that it can happen, you try and prepare for it.

I'd love to have a better processor that can do bigger diameter wood, do it faster, and do it more mechanized, but what I've got works for now (and it's paid for) and when I looked at taking the next step up in machines, it was too big a leap, maybe soon, maybe not

[jimbarry]

A lot of good points made here with running a smaller processor like the hakki pilki 37easy. That's what we have. Runs ok most of the time. Straight into the back of the truck we can do a cord in about 1.25 hrs between the wife and I.



 

The big knarly stuff goes to the other log deck for putting through an EastonMade 12-22. 
Time wise, we can do a cord on the eastonmade just about the same time putting a cord through the processor.



 

[GRANITEstateMP]

Jim, I like your raised brow for loading.

We average pretty near the same, 50-75 minutes a cord for 16-18in wood, a bit less when doing 22's.  We've had some sub 40 minute cords doing 22's, but the wood was "just right" and the mechanical gods smiled down on us that day!