Chipping.

[BargeMonkey]

 Anyone on hear who can explain the chip market to me ? I'm about 1hr from Albany, and half contemplating a BIG chipper. Is there any money in it ? Not looking to go huge, but testing the waters. Starting to chase more clearing work and chipping seems like the logical way to go.

[starmac]

I wish we had a chip market here, the amount of material left in the woods here is totally unreal.  We do have a couple of schools that burn chips for heat. A small sawmill between delta and tok has the contract to supply them. They chip all their slabs and also chip the tops on their logging sales (at lest some of them) they also burn them themselves to heat all their buildings and dry kilns.
As far as I know they are the only ones in the interior with any market at all for them, and if the price of oil stays down, I would assume that one will disappear too.

[BargeMonkey]

I get on alot of smaller lots where the landowners want 0% brush left, and I've been getting more clearing work lately, the handwriting is on the wall in NY to limit burning so we have been talking about it. I've never done much "fulltree" but lately we have done some just to see what it's going to take. I've got a big delimber and a slasher, I'm just not looking to go wild like alot of these guys you see up north. I've got an 18" Vermeer chipper right now but it's really not set up for something like that, or loading a chip trailer. Seen a few guys do it down here but it's never taken off, that's why I'm wondering. I could probably sell 500+yd of colored chips thru a nursery I'm tied in with. I hear guys talk about "clean chips"s and diff specs, that's what I'm trying to find out, there is a limit on how much iron I want to dedicate and if it's worth the added fuel cost. 100 gal of fuel doesn't get me to far anymore.

[Firewoodjoe]

There's a lot of guys around here that do do it but the wood has to be cheap. You burn a lot of fuel and have to produce a lot of loads. Some do 10 or more 40 ton loads. Last I knew the cogen' we're like $18 or so a ton. The clean ships bring more but way more per ton for round wood. The way I would do it is slash the logs and good getting pulp then chip the rest. But I don't think I would consider buying one. 200-300 gallons of fuel, knives and van trailers. No thanks.

[HiTech]

Perhaps a tub grinder would fit your needs. You can make mulch with it and get a better dollar for than than chips. Just a thought.

[OntarioAl]

BargeMonkey
Up here "clean chips" (bark removed)  is feed stock for the pulp mills it is a high volume low profit margin game.
The "dirty chips" is a low profit volume game again being that the only local market for "hog fuel" is the same pulp mill that buys the "clean chips" so they make sure that their is little profit in it.
Oh and I forgot to tell you that the contractors work on the Pulp Company's Goverment Timber licensed area so its the company's way or the highway.
Trucking is a whole issue in itself if you are selling to a single mill and it has a chip dumper(s) you can get by without self unloading trailers but that would be a mistake as it ties you hands.
My advise for what is worth is stay away from full tree chipping, if the landowner wants 0% brush than charge them for chipping it and leaving it on site or the added expense of blowing the chips into a covered dump truck and hauling it to a landfill (preferablbly one that uses chips for composting).
My nickles worth (no more pennies here)
Al

[xalexjx]

right now the chip market is flooded like most everything else, theres clean chips (debarked before chipped) and dirty chips, there are a few markets locally that were buying dirty chips that were recently shut down and the other just lowered their prices, the clean chips is a good market but the you have to be producing the volume to cover the cost for the chipping, if it were me i'd steer away from an investment with the markets the way they are, text me and I can get you a number of a guy that will chip and truck what ever you want,

[timberking]

The market down here is going the other way.  We have been chipping hardwood for years the to supply the Domtar mill in Ashdown, Ar. but they are re-configuring to produce fluff from pine.  Hog fuel can be a nightmare unloading.  No money made just servicing the sawmill.

[loggah]

I used to chip ,i had a 1850 bandit it was a nice little machine 250-300 h.p. unit . basically chipping got me jobs,but chips around here are going to be hard to get rid of now. one of the plants i sent wood to is shut down the softwood pulp market in Maine,and N.H. is going down hill. No great answer. don

[CTL logger]

Barge Monkey  a bit of advice I worked for a chipping company for 5 years some good times mostly bad. By bad I mean the markets not taking chips this week they have 2 other jobs to get to then they will be on yours the chippers constantly broke down and these weren't rundown old chippers the oldest one had 6k hrs on it. 7 chippers in total we could make any chip you wanted clean, dirty, pull in a Peterson 4900 debater and make clean chips with a dirty chipper. These chippers basically self destruct the maintenence is outrageous. If I ever went back to chipping I better check into the nut hut first.

[BargeMonkey]

 I appreciate the info, yeah it does sound like a dangerous way to spend money. I missed a cheap decent Morbark a few yrs ago, been looking for something but not desperate.

[deastman]

CTL Logger is exactly right, I've owned two Morbark chippers and they're money pits. You constantly have to work on them to keep them running and they can and will self-destruct at any time. The pocket's and drums and chutes are wearing all the time and have to be resurfaced,  knives are always in need of sharpening, and those big engines burn tons of fuel and are expensive to repair when they come apart. Knives can go ten loads or they can go 1/2 a load depending on how clean the wood is. Wait till a rock or a feed wheel chain or anything metal off the chipper goes in and hits the drum running wide open, it's not pretty. If you can hire someone reliable to do your chipping you'd be way better off. Chippers are too much h.p. turning too much metal at too much speed, IMO.

[BargeMonkey]

 The last thing I need is another fuel guzzling headache.  I ask alot of questions on here because alot of you guys have been down this road, I don't jump blindly.
 I'm just as happy taking the brush back in and leaving it, I top the big stuff with the head / saw but when doing the small diameter firewood it goes so fast. I can see now how some of these big operations are pounding out huge volumes every day. Getting ready to move my dinosaur delimber to this job for her trial run, I've heard there isn't much money in chips. Just trying to be as efficient as possible, I get a limited amount of time in the woods every day, actually have my mechanic going thru every machine installing new LED lights so I can slash / delimb at night if need be. 

 
 Been on alot of smaller firewood, dying ash, w+b birch and junk oak, on a 15 min drag I can just about keep a drag ahead on a select cut. 

 
 10-15 tops go back in at a time. I've got some big hemlock / small hardwood jobs lined up and I'm like a kid at Christmas waiting to pound out a pile of wood roadside.   anyway I always appreciate the info, unfortunately logging is a huge learning curve.

[Logger RK]

It's sure nice to feed them tops into a chipper and get paid for it. Especially if it's private land that's being logged. There's a free magazine about the chipping business if your interested in,that I get. Pretty informative. www.woodbioenergymag.com. 

[BargeMonkey]

Thank you, I will look on that site later. I hate wasting wood, I've got 4-5 people taking top wood but still doesn't take long to fill the spot with tops again. 99% of my woodlots come from hunters and weekend landowners, they want a mess free job, clean ATV trails and basically no trace when I get done. I didn't know it, but on my last job there where more people watching than I realized, they where impressed that I was in and out quick, clean and efficient about it, got some clearing work on the table and a bandit 250 with a loader on track is probably how I will go.

[loggah]

If you can put those tops in a mudhole ,or drop them in a hole in your main hitch road you can grind them up pretty well hauling  you hitches over them. The trackbandits with a loader are pretty good machines,especially if you are moving along an area where the landowner wants the chips blown back over the harvested area. Don

[chevytaHOE5674]

Another plus to going full on CTL, the tops are all left in the woods and run over as you go

[thatchipperguy]

The boss has been running FLAIL chippers since the mid 90's so it's normal for us. Getting into chipping could be difficult if you haven't been around it much. My best advice I can give are to go and check out some chipping operation and talk to the guys about it. Like alot of the guys have said its a big chunk of metal and eats fuel which is so true. A whole tree chipper is not as much work as our flail they require alot less maintenance. A good operator who can do routine maintenance is always important. Every break we get in-between trucks I have something to do on our chipper just goes with the job. And then after all that you have to have a market for the chips. Not sure if this helps. Just sitting home bored on a Saturday morning. If you search the sawdust guys on YouTube we have a few videos on our chipper.