I never saw one of those machines (I know they exist in different forms). Really interesting video and I appreciated the commentary as well with all the problems you had. Thank you.
Thanks Richard! You know, I questioned whether or not I should have did the commentary so glad to hear you say that. It made for an interesting video having all the problems but I was glad to still be able to get what we got done. Thanks for watching!
The best part of this video is your daughters helping with the firewood. Too often today, you see so many kids without any chores or responsibility. I'm glad to see you and the Mrs. instilling some values in your daughters, particularly a sense of ownership & responsibility. So, good job!
Discolouration on a sharpened edge is from oxidation of the steel. This only happens in the temperature range where heat treating is affected. Typically, the blue colour results in a soft,easily dulled cutting edge.
To harden I learned to bring it up to a bright red then immediately dunk in a water oil mix. To temper or slightly soften then bring it up to a lower temperature where it is only blue. Then let it cool slowly. It sounds like the grinder he sharpened with got it too hot then let it cool slowly taking away the hardness. That left a blue color behind.
I used to bring my chains in to have them "professionally " sharpened . I would notice the blue on the teeth The ch as ins would cut crooked and dull quickly. I now hand file and enjoy a nice cutting saw . Great video!! Stay warm .
Very true James. I have a friend of mine that bought several different sharpening machines to do them himself cause he never got good results from the local "professionals". He takes his time to such a degree that no shop could ever make any money sharpening chains the way he does it. Thanks so much for watching!
I put a sharpining file on the end of a cordless drill. I cut a small handle with a hole for the file to fit in to for the end opposite the drill. I make quick work of the dullest chains and you go slow so it doesnt heat and blue the metal.
Oh yeah! My plan is to rent one every two years and if I can come up with enough logs I might be able to cut two years worth with each rental. Didn't happen this time but I'll get another chance. Appreciate you watching!
Once again, learned something totally new watching one of your videos...never even heard of a "firewood processor" machine in my 70 years. I truly think yours is one of the best DIY video channels on You Tube and your uplifting delivery along with the content are always entertaining and mentally rewarding to watch. It is really a pleasure to watch someone who isn't trying to blame someone or something else for the problems in their job, who accepts the situation and displays a positive attitude. Thanks for posting.
Wow, I appreciate such kind words. I am thankful for your viewership and giving such solid feedback. I really want to create a channel that people will enjoy watching so I give it my best effort. Sometimes you just have to make the best of a bad situation and learn from the hardships rather than dwell on them. Putting yourself in the other person's shoes is the way I try to approach most situations and seems to serve me well. I have plenty to be thankful for in life so it's easy to shrug off the little stuff like this. Thanks for being such a great supporter of the channel.
When you blue up a piece of steel it gets soft. It might be sharp, but it will dull quickly. The steel will be softer if its blue. You have to sharpen past the blue of off color.
That is correct, if the chain is heated up and then allowed to cool moderately slowly (like what would happen in a poor sharpening session), the quench hardness will be removed for that portion. Also, if the chain is sharpened correctly, it should practically self feed and pull the bar down into the log. With a correctly sharpened chain on a chainsaw, very little downward pressure is needed as the chain cutter itself pulls into the wood. Unfortunately, there are folks who don't understand how to sharpen chains correctly, either with a machine or by hand. It is quite easy if you know how to do it.
I hate you had a bad experience with the machine but, you were still fairly productive. When so many different people are using a machine with varying skill/knowledge levels, stuff like that is going to happen. Im glad the rental company made it right. They sound like good people to work with. Stay safe my friend.
They were great to work with and treated me quite well on it. I was able to get quite a bit done but you know how it is when you're already in a hurry and things aren't going great. We made the best of it and still got a good bit of wood cut. I don't envy the rental place at all. It would be tough but they are focused on the service so good for the consumer. Appreciate you watching friend.
I cut a LOT of firewood with a small saw. I always hand sharpen and if I’m cutting hardwood I will resharpen every other tank of fuel, which is about 30 minutes of run time. I have seen a poorly and uneven chain cause it to cut in a crooked curved path. I doubt I would ever rent something like that, but it might be a good idea to have a brand new chain available to help troubleshoot an issue like you had. I fancy myself a good chain resharpener, but I can always tell a big improvement when I install a new chain. Jim
That's a good idea. Would have been a nice experiment to try a chain new out of the box and see how long it lasted. Like I said in the video, the last time I rented one of these I used only two chains! And, I actually changed out the chain just cause I thought I should, not cause it was cutting poorly. You're probably a much better sharpener than I am. I always try but I'm not great at it. I lack patience! Thanks for the great comment.
I tell everyone I use a small saw because it doesn’t weigh as much as a larger saw and doesn’t wear me out as fast, but maybe it is really because the chain is shorter and takes less time to sharpen?
@@RVJimD my partner bought a brand new roll of chain a while back (way cheaper to go that route then just make your own half priced! just need a buy the necessary chain break and don't lose the little anvil, and the roller, and it is night and day difference in prices) however they must have been stoned when he ordered it, because he requested the normal, 63 gauge chisel bit, full skip 3/8 chain ( I have always used the chisel or micro chisel style chain, even when I am not grinding my chains at home. A Chiselbit chain filed with a *USABLE* round file properly with the rakers taken down so it pulls your heels off the ground (but doesn't feel like it will attack you or get bogged everytime you try to cut grrrrrr, ) when they cut sweet it doesn't matter if they are 660 stihls or a Poulan pro wild thang lol! Any saw that pulls nice strait and true is a treasure! But they ordered a whole roll of round file chain, 🤔 full competition anti kickback chain! I never knew the even MADE chain that had a tooth on top of every driver on the chain! Even after you were done hand filing it, ( I refused to use my chisel grinder on that kind of tooth) if your hand wasn't bleeding from the abuse hahaha, them you went strait to the damn flat file to knock the stupid anti kick tang poking up next to the depth raker!!! At least I didn't have to worry about nobody on my crew sneaking away with my saw for a few days hahaha!!
I see this editing style and am completely wowed but shocked that he only has 18k, I would have thought that he'd at least have 50k or so. Never the less, you are great and you deserve much more, so much time and effort, keep up this amazing style of yours!!!👍
Hi Neil - it's Big Rodders in Ireland. I enjoyed the video and marvelled at your range of equipment. I used to split 150 cords a year for a Tree Surgery Co and my equipment for moving logs around the yard extended to one 2 wheeled barrow! Joe from Ohio Wood Burners speaks highly of the qualities of the Dyna processor.
Wow! You certainly accomplished more than I ever could with a wheel barrow! That's an incredible amount of work you did Big Rodders. I really like the Dyna processor despite the problems I was having. I hope that came across in the video. Good to see ya here and thanks for watching!
I've used the Dyna to same experience two years in the row we had to take the first one back to get another one. If you have clean logs that helps a lot . I live in Northern Michigan and burn 10 cords a year with a wood boiler. Nice video
Thanks John. Interesting that I've had a couple folks echo the same experience. The logs were fairly clean and had never been drug on the ground, so that was a positive. I did hit a chunk of dirt on one of them and I know what that can do. Hope you're staying warm up there. I'm headed up snowmobiling in the UP in February so hopefully you keep the snow around!
Much respect for you, your frustration is felt by many other renters. The key take away is, know your rental company (if you choose to use one) know the machines capabilities, and plan on the unexpected whether you're renting or or buying. Kudos to you not blaming the machine manufacturer or your rental outlet. And much respect to the rental company for trying to take care of their customers. My brother has always been one that rents equipment known to himself through his day job and when his rentals are sub-par he knows its not the manufacturer, but he's dealt with rental places that make no attempt to maintain certain machines (let a lone keep maintance records) & have essentially told him or others in industry " tough luck, it "worked" when the prior customer dropped it off." And they offer no help or at the most, they show up with an exchange unit at the "end of day" for rental and charge another 24hr period with what is hopefully a fully functional machine.
Thanks Greg. I really appreciate you saying that bit. I've had others say I was too soft for not blaming the rental company but I feel they went out of their way to make me happy afterwards, which in my mind is all they could do at that point. I feel it's better to try to forgive and move on then get all mad and hold a grudge or pitch a fit. That wouldn't do me any good for the next time around. Thanks for watching and the the thoughtful comment.
I was around a Dyna back in November. About as fast as I could feed it with my Bobcat, it was eating it up. My buddy and I have about 15 cord of logs to process up this spring and plan on renting one. Can't wait!!! Nice video, thanks!
They are great. That first one we had we just about couldn't keep it fed with a Bobcat either. If you had to cut some nubs off the log or cut out a dog leg, you would almost get behind! Good luck with your day. That'll be fun!
Going in and out of a job with open eyes instead of walking away makes the end game smoother. Hopefully the rental place can make it right before it goes back out
Very true Andy. I have no doubt they will get it fixed up. They were very eager to make sure I wasn't dissatisfied, which made me satisfied :) Thanks for watching 👍
I'm a new subscriber, I subbed during Tractor Time With Tims live feed the other evening. I can see why he recommended this channel. Great job putting this together, I didn't realize a person could rent a firewood processor.
I've been renting these dynas for about 6 years now only had one machine give me problems . Noa from the factory help me with another machine the next day. I am totally satisfied with the dyna machines
They are great machines. They totally made it right with me and I look forward to renting again someday. Hopefully it didn't come across like I was bashing the machine cause I totally understand stuff happens. Appreciate your feedback and thanks for watching.
I rent Wright from the factory in Millington mich. I live about an hour away. The guys that build these machines take great pride in what they build . The first time I went thier they insist I take a tour of thier factory just great people.
I rented a Dyna in 2019 did the the same thing an 8 hour rental I was able to get all the years wood processed in 4 hours with my 2 sons as helpers . The guy that was in charge of renting it was extremely helpful and understanding.he was also abl to le me keep it longer than just the 8 hours .55k for the machine I payed 400 for the rental .
it's a great way to do it isn't it! I think it is well worth the money for what you get back in time savings; at least for me. Thanks for sharing and appreciate you watching.
Neil, I love your videos! I enjoy the creative way you edit them, the way you explain what you are doing and the thought process behind your decisions. You've got a beautiful family and a beautiful place out in the Indiana countryside. You're a blessed man! I just recently retired and you've inspired me to go out this summer and do some side work with my limited equipment. I think it will be fun, keep me off of the streets ;^) and be able to help my neighbors out as well!
Hey Rick! That's terrific to hear! I think you'll have a good time doing it too. I can't wait until the day I retire and can just do full time "side work!" For some reason it is more rewarding to do stuff for friends and neighbors then it is for myself...I don't get it! And thanks for such kind words. I am still learning how to edit and properly tell a story. I question every video just as I publish it and am thankful for comments like this. I am truly blessed in the home and family department and can't be more proud of my family. It's part of what makes me want to share it with others I suppose. Get out there this summer and stir some dirt up! You don't have to have much more than a garden tractor to find ways to stay busy. Appreciate you watching friend.
I completely agree! Top notch videos! A great Hoosier perspective! I'm in west central Indiana, delivering gravel, heating with wood in my Hardy H2. Working full time too but dreaming of a time I can leave the rat race and control my own destiny. Thanks for your hard work and inspiring outlook!
I think the main problem you have is a burr each side of the bar. This is caused by the higher pressure exerted on the chain by the hydraulics when cutting and is something that is not as noticeable when using a chain saw. This is because a chainsaw is constantly moving so the chain has a chance to keep digging in and cutting without the burr catching on the wood. But when the bar and chain are used on a machine such as this, the cut is straight down, and if the chain veers of slightly, then the burr which runs a fair length of the bar hits the wood and stops any more downward motion. Do you understand what I'm saying Neil? As you discovered, more hydraulic pressure helped, but only to a certain extent. I know this from experience as we had the exact same problem on a European processor some years ago. Every day, we had to deburr the bars, (usually two would get us through the day), sharpen about 4 chains and we'd be right. There is quite a bit of pressure on the bar when cutting, and the burr gets bigger. I am almost certain that is what your problem is. But if the bars you are using are older, then excessively worn chain grooves can cause the same problem as well. Hope I've been of help.
I think you could very likely be on to something. I do understand what you're saying and I checked for the burr on the bar but didn't think it seemed too bad. Hard to tell by just looking or feeling however. I have had to file the burr off of my older chainsaw a couple of times now as I've had it 20 years with the same bar in use. I tried flipping the bar over on this machine too which can sometimes help, but it didn't do much in this situation. Wished I would have had a new bar to try. Hopefully the folks at the rental place can get it all straightened out. Thanks for the insightful and educational comment and thanks a bunch for watching the video.
@@digdrivediy I forgot to mention as well that we had to screw the chain adjuster up really tight to take out any chain looseness. And just back to the burr on the bar, just the slightest amount will jam it Neil. We noticed the problem more when a log was going through which may have been crooked. When the chain first hit the log at an angle, it would lay over in the loose bar grooves and the burred edge of the bar would catch on the opposite edge of the cut. I am surprised that the rental company hasn't woke up to this sort of problem. But knowing most rentals, they would be trying to get maximum use out of their bars. Well, it doesn't work that way on these sort of machines. Maybe on chainsaws, yes. Tell them about what I think the problem might be and maybe they can start with all new bars and chains again. Great video. Cheers from Australia.
My neighbor sells firewood and has a Dyna. He operates by himself. He's very organized and has 100's of cords of logs at his lot he has a truck with a boom and grapple to stack the logs, but uses a skid steer with a grapple to load the Dyna. He's probably the hardest working man I've ever met.
*For me, what I have concluded is wood burning is worth it for enjoyment only. Not for saving on heating expense.* Stumbled across your channel and this is the first video of yours I’m seeing. I heard you say you are burning 10 cords per winder. Wow, you must have a very large home. We purchased a new to us home in Door County, Wisconsin with 3,000 feet of finished living space and moved in December 2020. The home has three heating systems, a propane furnace fed from two owned propane tanks, a freestanding wood stove in the basement, tied into the home heating ducts, and a traditional tile and stone fireplace with electric air blowers feeding air through the the masonry stone vents into the living room. We did not fill the propane tanks at its low price point in 2020 of $0.74/gallon because we did not own the property yet. I did fill the two tanks, purchasing 1,000 gallons without contract, just on the open market, at $1.14/gallon and $0 delivery fee due to volume , purchased mid-December 2020. As expected, propane has continued to rise since then, currently at about $1.49/gallons locally, and free delivery when buying at least 200 gallons. The houses is well setup for efficiently processing wood burning. A door covered chute in the garage slides cut firewood into the basement near the wood burner. The wood burner sits in a unfinished portion of the lowest level of the home, along with the propane furnace, water heater and other mechanical equipment. My goal has been to determine if I’m better off heating with propane or purchasing wood logs at $95/cord for a truck load of 12 cords of ash delivered that I cut with a chain saw then split, using a traditional hydraulic log splitter and haul with compact tractor on pallets to season then haul to the home to burn. I am allocating $0 of expense for my log processing equipment, which is not honest. Shoot. I have over $30K into the tractor alone, which I admittedly use for multiple purposes. What I have determined after monitoring wood volume use and propane volume use is I am savings about $5 for every hour of my labor/work when burning wood. My day job pays over 10 times that. I may not have perfected my wood processing yet, meaning my efficiency and rate could improve, but then again, I have been allocating $0 for equipment, such as chainsaw, log splitter, tractor, not to mention getting up in the middle of the night at least once to stoke the wood burner. Do I enjoy wood burning? Yes. Am I a fanatic wood burner? Well, no. With the current low cost of propane, for us, I have no intention to heat only with wood, although I could if I decided to. Rather, my intention for now is to heat with a mixture of wood and propane. Wood when I feel like it, and propane when I don’t. If the cost of propane doubles, I will simply increase my wood burning. Anyways, that’s what I have calculated so far. My money saved by my work from burning wood pays me by saving only $5/hour for my labor. If I used free wood sources such as fallen landscaping type trees, my $95/cord cost for a truckload of ash wood delivered to me would go to zero, but my time spent from collecting firewood wold increase. Then there is the danger and liability from falling frees. I’d be better off financially driving for Uber then burning wood, which I would never drive for Uber anyways. When you look at home heating expenses, propane has simply gone up slower then inflation. At least that is the case today. Who knows about the future. If you heat with natural gas, when simply put, after all the math, costs 40% less to heat a home then propane at current rates, wood burning makes even less economic sense.
Hey Doug! Wow, thanks for that thoughtful analysis! I have never looked into it very closely to determine how it might be saving or costing me money. I have had mixed emotions but ultimately still enjoy firewood enough to keep me going with it. We heat about 7000 square feet between our house, garage and large workshop. I wouldn't likely heat the garage and shop like I do if not for being wood. I'm lucky in the fact that I have never ever had to pay for firewood. It has a way of finding me somehow. I've never cut down a tree for the purpose of firewood. I have cut plenty of trees that I get to take home for firewood, but usually there is some other underlying situation. I like the way you break it down and think about every aspect. I know for one thing that I never consider paying myself or what the opportunity cost of cutting might be. Like you said, you have to just enjoy it I think #1. We have propane as well. We've had the furnace since 2006, but 2020 was the first year having a propane tank installed. I used propane last spring on chilly mornings that didn't require a fire for all day, and same thing in the fall. That seems to be the ticket for the mild days and cuts my fire time short by several weeks. I certainly enjoy your thorough thought process on the financial aspects. I try not to think about that stuff too much unless it starts to feel like I'm getting behind instead of moving forward. So far so good. If you haven't already seen it, I made a video about my thoughts on the good and bad of firewood and it may give you some more insight into at least my particular situation: th-cam.com/video/QJtXMDBZSFo/w-d-xo.html Thanks so much for the great comment and I certainly appreciate your viewership!
Good step through of the adventure Neil. Those Dyna machines look really well built- great that you were able to compare to the last one you rented. Thanks for taking us along!
Hey, thanks so much GP! They really are great machines and this one was just having an "off day"! Always fun to work firewood up with family and buddies. I'm a big fan of your channel and appreciate seeing you in the comments here so thanks for the visit. Cheers!
@@lindseyhare5039 Hi Lindsey. I'm glad to hear that you got to go to Crazy Pins. Sounds like a really fun time! It also sounds like you're having a good time where you live. I hope to have my next video come out on Sunday morning but I'm still working to get it finished. It takes me a long time to edit them. I will tell Kara and the girls you said Hi. I hope you had a good birthday and I'll talk to you later.
@@lindseyhare5039 Hi Lindsey. When I said that my wood splitter doubles as a backhoe I was just being funny and was trying to say in a clever way that my backhoe can also be used as a wood splitter. I hope you had a great day today. Kara, Ella and Eva and I went skiing in Michigan. It was a fun time. Whenever you see my new videos you can make a new comment on those videos instead of coming back to this video. If you see the area to make a comment below the video name just click in there and make a new comment under the newest video. I will see it and respond faster. Hope you have a good Monday. Take care! Neighbor Neil.
@@lindseyhare5039 Hi Lindsey. I have responded to a few of your messages this week but is tough for me to respond to all of them unfortunately. Do you know how to send emails? It would be better for you to send me an email and I can talk to you that way. The messages you are leaving here are not a great place to leave them so lets try to talk with an email; OK? I will tell kara and the girls you said hi. Send me an email at: nkoch1976@gmail.com. Talk to you later neighbor! :)
Proper bar truing. Chain sharpening lubrication and tension. Are all key. All can cause overheating, dulling or a tendency for the cut wanting to veer rather than go straight down. And with a pivot bar will bring it to a halt. Like trying to saw a straight cut with a unevenly worn bar on a chainsaw. Harder you try, the worse it gets. Excessive bar wear usually a result of improper chain tension and/or inadequate lubrication. Either way. Bar needs to be reground or replaced. Agree with your assessment that previous renter (s) are responsible. But as long as your satisfied with rental company, that's what matters. Always great to see stuff like this in action. 👍👍
Maybe it was mentioned before but on my processor I found after a few hundred cords it was time to replace the bar. The bar had way less paint wore off it that the one you have on there. It made a world of difference when i replace the bar with a brand new one and a brand new chain. I noticed the rails on the bar would get worn unevenly and the groove was wider. Processors need a perfectly true bar and chain alignment or it will bind in the log and make thing not go smoothly. A chainsaw is more forgiving because it is not attached to a fixed pivot point. That said, I seldom cut hardwood and my logs are really clean but I often do 20 or 30 cord before even sharpening the chain. I have a little belt sander and square up the bar rails after a couple of sharpenings. It has to be perfectly square.
you are right on about the bar I take care of my bars by reconditioning them and now get much more life out of them take a look at the 2 links and keep your cutting true and straight th-cam.com/video/IuDDvGiOX84/w-d-xo.html th-cam.com/video/mebZTMY3LNg/w-d-xo.html there is a tool to squeeze the rail back to good
I helped a friend of mine and rented that model from the same place, we went through a ton of wood and a bunch of chains, his brother sharpened the spare chains at least once during the day, it was well worth the cost but frustrating when it wasn’t working properly, all and all they were very satisfied with it
Yes, it can really make the wood when all is working well. I'm going to try to get it again this year. Hopefully this video didn't make them want to not rent it to me!!
It's a great machine. They have thought out a lot of good features of their design. I'm sure they can get to the bottom of whatever was causing our issues for the day. They made it right and that says enough in itself to me. I would love to have one of those machines for myself. How much wood do you make a year?
Great video Neil!😀 I bet next time you'll be checking those spare chains. When the arm stopped and the chain smoked, i thought of lack of oil pressure. Look for leaks or evidence of. The bushing for the arm might need grease. Also the chain might need to be adjusted, too much slack?? Any way to hook up or make a foot pedal to activate the log splitter? Also hook up some mirrors so the operator could see the splitter while at the control panel. Find some old shipping palates, 1 on the ground, 4 more to form a box. Put a few screws to hold it in place and get 3 metal straps to go around them. Put 6 in the dump truck. Just move the truck as it fills up. (You can also make the boxes higher=more wood). Then use a fork lift or adjustable farm equipment to lift them out. To get the back ones out, use a chain to pull it towards the edge. If you need other hints just let me know. Be glad to help out! Good luck! Mac👍👀😀
Thanks for the great feedback. Hopefully next time they have them sharpened up for me. We made a few adjustments and it worked much better but the chains had just been burnt when last sharpened. I like that mirror idea! Thanks so much for watching.
Very informative video. It's always good when the rental place works with ya. Here's a funny one for ya. We burn wood also, two wood stoves. We went from a splitting maul, to a hand operated splitter to an electric splitter. A good friend of mine stopped burning wood and sold me her 25 gas splitter, cheap. We thought we were in high cotton til I seen your video, my son would drool to use one of them. Thanks again for the video and the honest commentary.
Hey thanks a bunch Kory. I've split wood with all the ways you've mentioned too. It's just the natural progression of always wanting to up your game I guess. These things are awesome to use and it makes for a fun week to look forward to for sure. Thanks for tuning in!
Looks like you staved off frigidity for the time being, despite fighting that balky cutter. Neil, different steels have differing tempering properties. For example high carbon spring steel wire should be heated to 392f (200c). Then it must air quench. This happens after the spring is fully formed. If you use water or oil it gets brittle. Heavy coils like automotive suspension springs are heated to 1200f then quenched in a molten lead bath before allowed to air coil. This is before they are drawn down to final size. Music wire, oil tempered wire and others require careful heating and tempering processes in order to have the proper work properties. Low carbon wires are used in everything from coat hangers and fencing to rebar tie wires. They have a whole different set of tempering or annealing requirements. I spent 21 1/2 years making wire and managing quality for plants that drew wire and used it. What I learned was that while the chemistry of the steel is important... it is more likely to be the heating and tempering/annealing process that screws it up. Having said that... I don’t know just what the tempering process is for cutting steel but, I suggest that the blue edge is where the teeth have been heated to the point they’ve become brittle. And, that air quenching was not the appropriate tempering means. On a micro level, the bevel is burring and shattering because it has no toughness. But, I’ll defer that to the cutting experts. (As an aside, I once salvaged a set of blue edged lawnmower blades that a relative had ground on. I put them in my wife’s oven at 400f then air tempered them. It would have been the perfect fix... had she not came home and caught me before I got the smell out of the kitchen) I think I told you about our Firewood Processor that we had when I was growing up. So, I won’t spend much time here. Except, to describe the cutting head. We had a Farmall B. It had a drawbar and a PTO. (No 3point hitches in those days... only the rich farmers had those) My dad and a buddy found an old axle and a couple of 32” circular saw blades. After scouring the local tractor graveyard, they scrounged up enough pulleys, belts, pillow block bearings and scrap steel to build a buzz saw. It bolted to the rear of the Farmall and was driven by the PTO. At first it was driven by a wide belt. But, it didn’t have enough power to saw through the hardwoods we were processing. Eventually he changed it out with v-belt drive and varied the pulley sizes to get the mechanical advantage vs RPM balance. So there we were, a 30 lb steel disk spinning (and wobbling) with 1 1/2” deep teeth and nary a guard to impede our progress. It was my job to start it running. My dads job was to watch the blade as I did so. With the engine idling, I’d engage the clutch slowly. Once the blade got to spinning my dad would signal for more RPM’s. Once it hit that sweet spot between wobbling and shaking itself apart... I’d lock the throttle in place using a piece of baling wire. Now mind you, the cutting table of this docile beast was almost 4’ above the ground...exactly the height of my dads forearms with his elbows bent. Dad held the end of the log closest to the blade. My job was to support the other end. But, the log had to be held level and fed straight into the blade. Otherwise we pinched the blade... At which point I got a lesson in adult appropriate speech. When the pile got high enough that it was hitting the blade... we’d shut it all down, commence splitting and stacking in the Studebaker. (I think I already covered splitting wood... but, my job was to run the hammer and wedge... my dad used his favorite splitting axe.) A good day for us was a cord of 24” stove wood from the tree to the truck. And, our neighbors would marvel at that. Well sir, about 10 or so years ago I was at a farm auction. The auctioneer said, “Sell the sawmill.” I walked around the crowd and all those memories came back. A buzz saw blade mounted on an old axle with v-belt pulleys and pillow block bearings was right there. I have no way of knowing if it is the same one... there was no frame. But, for $12 I couldn’t resist bringing it home. It holds a prominent place in the corner of the lot where I store my green firewood. Every time I stack wood there I am reminded of just how lucky I am to have both arms and legs! Watching you guys struggle with that balky cutter head, couldn’t help but think that Firewood processors have come a long way! .
Boy, what a terrific education on the heat treating side of things. I certainly posed the right question in regards of your viewership! Thanks for the thorough explanation. My only experience with metallurgy, comes from driving a semi-truck. When we were first married and I as doing odd jobs to keep the money flowing, one of the things I did was drive a delivery semi-truck for a metallurgical place in Ft. Wayne. I would drive a particular route throughout northern Indiana, southern Michigan and western Ohio. I picked up metal parts and pieces from all these different manufacturers and they were brought back to Ft. Wayne for heat treat and then they would be returned the following week on the same route. I never could have imagined how many different parts and components require some metallurgical process. It was eye opening to me. In some locations I had to load the truck myself with the forklift which meant I got to go into the different manufacturing facilities and eyeball what they were doing in there. Very educational for sure. Same was true of the Ft. Wayne location where it was all treated. I got to see all the furnaces and conveyors that moved all the material. Best part for me was that anything inside the truck that jumped out of their shipping baskets and landed on the floor became "trash" (company policy to incentivize the companies to not have leaky containers). I ended up with a few "goodies" out of that deal, both raw steal and hardened pieces. So, that's how much I know about all that... still more than some folks get to see I suppose. I liked driving the truck :) So funny you bring up the buzz saw. My mom was must talking about that. We had a buzz saw mounted to the front of our old Allis Chalmers WD and I can remember quite clearly using it as a kid. USING IT as a kid! Mom says she still has nightmares. I was nodding my head in agreement through your entire explanation and marveled at what was "acceptable risk" for back in the day. Our buzz saw at least had a guard on it I think. It is actually still around over there at my folks I believe. My dad will probably read this and maybe he can comment as to where it is located. That would make a cool video to do. We can get out all the old, dangerous firewood equipment and fire it up for one more go for the camera! There is a crazy splitting "screw" thingy that bolts to the wheel of the tractor too but I've never used that thing. You've got my wheels turning here on how this could be a cool episode and I can get everyone to tell me their favorite dare devil firewood stories in the comments! lol As always thanks for the wonderful bit of Sunday evening reading! Be sure to send me more of your favorite lawn mower blade recipes. I've been cooking them with the heat too low apparently!
@@digdrivediy I’m far from an expert in heat treatment... I had a metallurgist on my staff... so, I had to understand what he was saying. We dealt with every kind of wire imaginable. But, steel sheet and bar stock was all for stamping. We never tempered any of it. And the properties imparted during wire drawing, stamping, coining and forming are far different than those of hot and cold rolling. The stamping and forming dies were all tempered by our machining division... that’s why I said... I’m pretty clueless about tooling. It would be cool to see some really old wood cutting technology. I have a two man cross cut saw and a rip saw. I also was given a hay saw that my neighbor picked up at a rummage sale. It was labeled as an ice saw. When he tried to cut a hole in his pond he thought it was dull! Factories fascinate me too... my first employer had 91 factories. I was in over 70 of them. I was in all 11 factories of my second employer and all 8 of my last. Between those, the customer plants, supplier plants and others from my consulting days... I have probably been in 150 or so. No two were alike.. I enjoyed being in them. Factories were always more comfortable than meeting rooms to me. I was teaching my grandson to use a Brush Master scythe last summer... (Brush Master blade = 18”-20” while the Hay Master is 20”-24” with holes to mount the cradle.) If a guy could gather up the tools, wouldn’t that be a cool skill to share? So please put together your old buzz saw and enlighten us!
You sound about like me, I had hundreds of plastic pots to wash for my greenhouse job. I started running them through the dishwasher while my wife was at work. All the bits of peat moss ended up in the dishwasher. I got reamed for leaving the stuff in the dishwasher
Great video, I will have to look into rental of one of these processors. I live near Indy now, but grew up around Woodburn. Nice to see fellow Hoosiers working together like that. Stay warm!
Hey Andrew! It is certainly worth it if you have a bunch of logs to work up. It was great day with friends and family. I bet we know some of the same people for sure as I went to Woodlan. Thanks for saying hi!
I appreciate it Sean! I love hearing from folks overseas! It's amazing to think of someone watching me in Ireland. That's fantasic. I've been to Ireland once, but unfortunately never got outside the airport! Thanks for saying Hi!
This lockdown has been tough for so many folks. Glad to see you hanging out here hollanduck! So cool to have a visitor from the Netherlands on all my videos. I'm getting to teach my daughter about all these places that my viewers are watching from, so that's a nice bonus. Hope you stay well also my friend.
@@digdrivediy here we now have a curfew it is now forbidden to be on the street between 21:00 PM and 4:30 AM without a valid reason or with an employer certificate in your pocket ! . Perhaps a fun and educational idea for your daughter to order a world map poster so that she can place pins wherever a subscriber is in the world? . if you were to pick up a map of the Netherlands then I live at the bottom of Zeeuws-Vlaanderen in the city of Terneuzen you can look it up on Google Maps haha. good luck 😉
Thanks Charles! You're only the second person that has asked about apparel. I don't think I'm quite to that level yet but maybe someday. You're name is gonna be at the top of that list if I ever get there! Appreciate you watching my videos sir!
I had my log splitter hooked to the back of my dump truck and we only had to drag the logs a short ways. Took my brother and I 4 hours to get a cord cut, drug, bucked, and split and that felt like the fastest easiest time we ever had.
Sounds like a good plan Elijah. I still get my fare share of doing it the "manual" way too, but this processor sure is a nice break. Thanks for watching and commenting.
Couple things come to mind here about your "chain" events. Whoever sharpened them before, did so with an electric grinder of some sort and failed to use anything to cool the grinding process such as a Kool Stik. He took the "temper" right out of the steel and I think that with a combination of even the slightest dirty wood, you'd go dull in no time. I recall in one part of my logging career, we had to clear cut a 200 acre parcel for a shopping center. I couldn't understand why on the trees street side, were dulling chains 3 times quicker than the inner parts of the property. It took me one observation of a dump truck going buy and creating a plume of dust that blew toward the trees to finally understand why this was happening. years
Never used a "processor" but I am a logger with 30yrs experience as a full time production Faller and the issues I can help with is bar and chain. First off the posters who say that the discoloration or blue color change along the cutting edge DEFINITELY makes the steel the cutter is made from softer and they tend to roll under and get dull quickly. The only way to salvage that chain is to re-sharpen it by removing all the colored steel SLOWLY as to not create any further heating. We generally sharpen our chains by hand on the saw in the timber but some of us have really good quality electric bench grinder/sharpeners we use when we have time at home and will sharpen a BUNCH of chains at once. Several things when sharpening a chain is to have the exact right size file or stone for the chain and to use the exact right angle and depth. If the rakers in front of the cutters that are there to clear out the cut wood from the previous cutter were not taken down a bit at the time the chain was sharpened it will cause EXACTLY what you describe and if taken down too much it can even cause cutters to grab to much of a chip and bog the saw down or snap off cutters. There are gauges made just for this purpose that will show you just how much needs to be removed after you sharpen the chain for every size and pitch of chain....but remember check the depth only AFTER you sharpen the chain, do it before and your defeating your purpose. Also knowing the correct pitch and face angle is tremendously important for a good properly sharp chain.. we Fallers have hand filled so many chains that we know what tools and angles to use memorized and muscle memory.....we can honestly get our chains sharp enough to shave with with only a couple of strokes per cutter. In alot of circumstance we can sharpen by hand better than a well trained operator with a high quality bench grinder can do....we have to learn how or we loose money, our livelihood depends on how fast our Saws and Chains can safely cut. Now for the Bar, it can get spread apart by being leaned on to hard with a dull chain causing the chain to wobble side to side in the kerf or cut it's always good to check the bar at the start of a day to see if its wearing and needs to be dressed with a flat file or rolled back to it's original gap but that's not something just anyone can do properly in the field. If you notice the chain has a lot of slop (wiggle room) side to side while in the bar and properly tight, trust me here ....change that bar out and get it to a saw and or Chain sharpener who has the proper tool and gauges to close the bar back to specs. Hope my experience helped you some. I'm not a know it all by any means but after 30+ years falling trees in the Mountains of the Western United States.....I do kinda know a little about what I'm doing. Good luck next time and I liked the honest way you did your video. R.C. Charlie Hill H&H logging Black Hills of S.Dakota & Wyoming.
Mr. Hill, I greatly appreciate the knowledge you bring to the table here. It is nice to hear the opinion of an expert in this situation to help verify what I _thought_was the issue but without the experience that someone like you has, it is honestly just my best guess. There are tons of folks leaving comments that simply say "dirty wood dulls chains". Yes, I am well aware of that and for those folks I'd like to say "this wasn't my first day cutting firewood" either! I really think it was the fault of hastily sharpened chains. The gentlemen I rented it from was forthcoming in the fact that the previous renter "did them a favor" and had all the chains sharpened before bringing it back. I think that's what did it. I really enjoyed reading your well detailed and thought out description on how and what likely happened. I feel it makes perfect sense and I'm a little more knowledgeable myself for having read it. Thanks for chiming in and sharing what experience can tell us and I greatly appreciate you watching sir.
@@digdrivediy Your very Welcome Neal and please call me Charlie , I am sorry it was so long but I thought to accurately describe what I noticed it was best to go into detail. Maybe your already aware of this but all the Harvester's like John Deere or Ponsee that are now so popular among bigger Logging Companies are equipped with the larger pitch .404 chain or bigger and they are a full chisel skip tooth type Commercial Faller chain. I just got a glimpse of the chain that machine uses and it looked like a common semi chisel 3/8" pitch chain...and I paused, rewound and played it back several times but it's just too quick of a look at the chain itself to say 100% what it is that they are using. Anyway a machine like that should be able to pull a .404 Skip Tooth Full chisel grind I would think at least. You would be super surprised at how much faster that chain will cut and because its bigger chain all around it's a little easier to get a good solid extra sharp cutting surface ground or filed into the cutters if that makes any sense. Almost all my bigger CC Ported Powerheads I run with 3/8"-.50 Full Chisel skip Tooth chain on but you gotta have the grunt to spin them deep in a 48" log buddy. LOL. Charlie
I work for an assistance program that provides firewood and have a Dyna sc v 16 that we’ve had for around 6 years. One time we took our dull chains to a shop to be sharpened and they didn’t hold up. Hand sharpening those chains sucks but they keep an edge way longer. We haul out around 500 loads a year and end of April is the cutoff. I’m currently cleaning up and ready to start busting out wood for next fall haha
Wow! Good to hear I'm not the only one. I really think that whoever sharpened the chains just didn't know. Thanks for the comment and keep on splittin'. Sounds awesome what you're providing! Appreciate you watching.
That was neat to watch, even though it wasn't producing the way it should have. Good to see uncle Kenny, your Dad, and Larry again, it's tough not being able to see family as much as we are use too. Again a nice chuckle from Eva "wait wut"
Thanks Tony. The best part is getting to work with all those guys and the family side of it. I had to leave out a lot of comments that they were making when the saw kept quitting at Larry's. His commentary would have been all bleeped out! :) Thanks for watching!
Boy, ain't that the truth. And no matter how much of it I try to pile up, I will certainly find a way to go through it all and be scrounging for more! lol
Nice work! Big reason why I run a T770 with 92hp diesel engine and quick attach skid loader firewood processer. Less down time more reliable then a processor. Maybe not the same production but still very good.
Some of those pieces are pretty big. Surprised it doesn't split in two directions One of the cleanest pictures out there and I watch alot of TH-cam. You didn't tag the videos, I'm surprised you didn't use my recommendation
You're right, some of those pieces did end up pretty big. There was a segment during the time lapse where the wedge was down and I was only halving the pieces and I wasn't even aware of it. It's easy to forget if that wedge is up or down. Speaking of easy to forget, I honestly just forgot about the tags. That is a great idea and at 3am when I finally finished this video it just wasn't on my mind :) You were talking about putting hashtags with the video description; right? Thanks for the kind words. I shot this in 4K but only rendered in 1080 cause even the 1080 file was over 2 gb. I wish I could work in 4K more efficiently but our internet is not great. Thanks for watching and the reminder!
@@digdrivediy heck of a memory for all the people you respond to..Yes the tags. As for rendering. See if you can do 1080P HDR... That's I'll be a huge improvement over 1080P . Either way it's an improvement
@@digdrivediy Yeh! Even after the down conversion it still looked pretty good! Better than normal. if your internet is slow, Ideally editting it and let it go all night uploading to at 4k or what about 2K (2560x1440) a compromise lol
@@enduser1982 Oh yeah. I have to let it go all night. This video here took about 6 hours to upload. I'm gonna see if I can render it in 4K just to see what happens. I might call upon you to check it out if you don't mind when I get it done because I don't have any 4K device to even see the difference!
I know the feeling all too well; saved for a year to rent a tracked skid steer for a week. Day one I threw a track. Tech comes out and puts it back on. Day two threw the other, but now it's the weekend and no one to come fix it. I returned it monday. Come to find out they were new tracks and were just stretching. I could have just given a couple shots of grease every now and then and been fine.
Oh man, that sucks. Hopefully they treated you right on it. Yeah, same kinda deal where I prepped and saved and got ready for this only to fight it for 3 days. Well, what doesn't kill us makes us stronger I guess. Thanks for watching!
I love the firewood handling in the beginning of the season and hate it at the end. Good thing my memory is bad so next season Im back at it again. This year I rented a firewood processor that cut and split at the same time, worked great but its much smaller that the machine you used. Still, after 2 days of work I have more firewood that I have ever had. Regards Nils from Sweden.
That's great Nils. I'm the exact same way! I forget about the end of the previous season!! Great hearing from Sweden. Like to know there are folks just like me all over the world!
@@digdrivediy unfortunately the people that use firewood for heating is getting less and less in Sweden. People drill in the ground for “warm” water and use heat pumps to get the temperature up. That way they dont have to do so much work and have more time to watch TV...... Regards a Grumpy old man😀
At about 700 degrees F the steel will be made SOFTER, not harder, by annealing. For our metal shop class, we had to make a chisel out of block of steel. We had to harden one end (very high heat, then quench), while we annealed the opposite end, to keep the steel from splintering off when struck by a hammer (VERY hard steel). When softened, the hammered end of the chisel will mushroom over, with time. The extra pressure (or whatever) when sharpening the chain teeth might have softened them. Just a guess.
Couple things on bars and chains. First...need a PROPERLY sharpened chain. Next need a bar that is in good shape. If the bar is used check to make sure the guide rails on the bar are square and of equal height. Otherwise the chain will want to cut a semicircular path rather than straight. The chain likewise needs to have the guide rail "shark fins" flat and not worn at an angle which will cause the chain to want to cut semi circular cuts. The cutting teeth on the chain need to be sharpened back to the same height and at the correct angle. The depth gauge find must be filed back to the correct height 😊
The chain tooth is hardened by heating the metal up and quenching in air, water or oil. This rearanges the crystal structure of the steel. The teeth are then tempered to remove some of the hardness by heating to a specific temperature. (Around 350f for most tool steels). Without tempering the steel would be brittle and break. When the previous user sharpened the chains they burned the teeth by allowing the wheel to contact the tooth too long, a dull wheel was used or they took too much off the tooth. This caused the burning. The blue you see on the tooth is where the temper was pulled out of the tooth by overheating. The tooth is now soft and will not stay sharp. I only hand file chains because grinders are a pain to use and can cause the tooth to soften.
Great info! I knew it had to do with the hardening and softening but wasn't sure of the specifics. Makes sense that they wouldn't stay sharp as that is what we were experiencing. I know what you mean about the mechanical sharpeners. I have a friend of mine that sharpens all my chains. He is incredibly meticulous and takes his time to sharpen chains. When you watch him do it, you can quickly realize that most folks working in a saw shop would never take the time or be able to make any money doing it that way. He hits each tooth with 3-4 very short, shallow quick blasts. Important to never see any orange when sharpening I believe. I leave my chains to him and I'm always satisfied. Have had them from other folks and unfortunately they don't seem to last long. Thanks for the reply!
@@digdrivediy - it's Big Rodders again. I spent 40 years trying to become proficient in hand filing chains but I obviously wasn't man enough so resorted to purchasing a grinder that can cope with Oregon chains that require to be sharpened 10 degrees off horizontal. I too was concerned about the potential of overheating the tips so I converted it to wet cooling with a cutting fluid. I now get very impressive results and the chance of me overheating a tip is virtually eliminated. If any subscriber wanted details of the project I could email them with photos.
Great video. I have a gas splitter for the hard stuff. My boys and I have been splitting by hand . Part of their home school is they are Required so many hours of PE which is up to us to determine what it is. Cape cod has been real cold this past week . Really burning through the wood now !
What a great activity to add to the curriculum! I've been thankful for our mild winter so far this year. Appreciate you tuning in Dirt Brute. I need to go check out your channel again and see what's going on. Do you have a sweet little Pete single axle dump in one? That thing was cool. Thanks for watching!
@@digdrivediy thanks. yes I chopped that truck down to a sixwheeler and built the dump body in my back yard . I just thought it would be something different . Hopefully getting it painted soon !
@@digdrivediy the problem with machine is when you start cutting always make sure the chain stays tight really tight in the first 20 minutes until the chain stretches. Also you Can turn up the hydraulic pressure on the for the saw. Another thing make sure there's not any burs on the bars and file them accordingly and not bent. I have a few there nice once you figure all the tricks out.
The chain when over heated (teeth blueing) can cause the pieces of the chain to chip off or warp inward so the top of the tooth doesnt really grab onto the wood. It almost acts kind of like a raker when the teeth are warped downward.
@@digdrivediy exact same model, same cat engine, same everything. And you describe the issues we were having to a T. We went through atleast a dozen chains in 8hr run time. The rep came out and adjusted the down pressure, it worked ok for awhile after that. But I think that was just a bandaid for another issue.
@@brianrizzi6321 In my experience it was, but they have some cool improvements on the new model that are also really nice. Mainly he roller mounted to the log holder so that you can advance it a little bit while still being held down.
You are absolutely correct on the speed of the sharpening or he might have an extremely bad habit of holding the grinding wheel on the teeth until they blue and burn. I seriously feel that was the smoking gun! Either way great CSI investigation!!
Im 69 on the farm and we have two central boiler to feed . By myself while farming i haul home Enough wood for both Get the full length logs home Split them full length with a skid steer mounted screw like bit Stack them Then get enough laid out on logs like a couple horses then in an hour buck them up then scoop them up with a rock bucket Load a tandem axel manure spreader with beater removed Back up to burner I built what i would call a speed jack Put it on the front of the spreader When i cant reach the blocks Turn on a switch load comes back to me easy peasy
I love that manure spreader idea. We have something similar built for our leaf vacuum trailer. I hope that I'm going as well as you are at 69 sir. Thanks for sharing your side of things and I appreciate watching the channel!
Have you looked at the Hudson machines? Pretty straight forward and you can use your own saw for a whole lot less initial investment. I like the simplicity of jut dragging the log up a chute and cutting it. Its not as productive as a actual processor but you don't need to coordinate teams of people to help. I'm probably going to sell my eastonmade 12-22 and look at one of the badgers. The Eastonmade is a tank but the Badger is easier use.
I haven't looked in to any of those Mark but it sounds like it could be handy. Yeah, I don't know what I'll do if my help all decides to quit me :) The easonmade stuff always looks really impressive. Thanks for the suggestion I'll check it out and thanks so much for watching!
The only way heat will harden steel, is if you get it to "critical temperature" and quench it(some steel will air quench, but critical temp is way beyond the blue edges of your chain). That being said, there are steels that will work harden, but a chain saw chain isn't that kind of steel. After quenching hardened steel, it is "drawn" back to temper it, relieving stress and slightly lowering the harness. Blue steel on a hardened piece, is basically annealing the steel which removes the hardness.
Going hard in a machine like that can also cause excessive wear to a bar, making the metal wear unevenly and mushroom out, causing the bar itself to catch on the wood. Back when I was cutting wood for a living I'd grind my bars flat a couple times a year until they wore out. And yeah I've never had good luck with machine ground chains. It's good to square them up and get them evened out, but I always follow my tool sharpened chains with a hand grind.
Right on. Very good tip. They provided two bars and I had switched bars just to ensure that wasn't the root of the issue. I have experienced that with my old chainsaw as well. Thanks for watching!
I call it bar flare, the pressure of the chain against the bars guide edge w friction the corners of the bottom edge of the bar stick out past the sides of the chain and hangs on the endgrain of the wood. That's my personal experience. I take the bar off and flat file down smooth with the flat sides of the bar and then hit the small bur on the draglink side of the bar.
That makes sense. I switched bars early on thinking that was likely the issue. Didn't seem to make any difference. I"e experienced that with my chainsaw though.
I am quite late seeing this video, 10/28/21, but I did notice something. Never once did you mention bar and chain oil. That is what helps to keep them cooled off. Over heating during use will turn the cutters blue. I use a hand held electric sharpener that uses diamond studded bits. I have never turned a cutter blue but I have sharpened a chain enough to completely use the cutter up. Have good days!!
Thanks Buddy. I used almost 2 gallons of oil in the 8 hours I used this processor. I turned up the oil to ensure I was using enough. I should have mentioned it in the video...or not edited it out I think. Thanks for watching!
You're lucky you can rent those machines. Where I'm located (northern Illinois) there is no place to rent thse. I wish I could because using a regular splitter takes forever.
Frozen wood just by it self is rough on chains, and the frozen dirt on them is even worse. The heat does hard them, normally it makes them stay sharper longer, and yes harder to sharpen with a file.
Gotta keep em out of the dirt for sure! Fortunately we didn't have too many with frozen dirt. Lots of folks here think they were sharpened too quickly and burnt. Appreciate you watching.
End part of my post got cut off. What I wrote was years of dust, salt and finite particles blown on to the trees from the traffic, acted like fine sandpaper on our chains. If your current crop of stems came from the periphery of a wind swept field that was cultivated, the same thing could be happening. The usage of chains with their tempering gone simply exacerbated the problem and would have created the same problem no matter where the stems were coming from.
That's such an interesting bit of fact on how the dust was embedded in the trees. Makes perfect sense to me. Almost all of this timber came from within the woods and for the most part, we kept it relatively clean. Always carried the logs and never drug them. I cut on that pile of logs at my in-laws about every other weekend in the fall and I can cut over two cords of wood with my 036 on the same chain with just a quick touch up between loads, so from my previous experience these particular log piles have been good to cut on. There's another video of me cutting by hand with a mini-excavator and I cut up a cord in about an hour or so. But I love the story about the road side trees. Thanks so much for that interesting tidbit and thanks a lot for watching!
Blue steel happens when metal is burnt. That can happen when over heated in sharping process. Worked on 8 foot lathe and 8 foot deck saw blades. The finished goal is shinny and sharp steel blue and brown is weakened.
First thoughts are that the rakers on the chain aren't being taken down. you sharpen the cutting edges without taking down rakers eventually that chain will not cut. even if sharp.
Wait, what? Now granted, I've only been cutting firewood for about 30+ years, but this is the first I'm hearing that you can't run dirt through a chainsaw! Who knew? While I did admit in the video to ruining at least one chain from hitting frozen mud on a bottom log, our problems went beyond what very little dirt was on most of the logs. None of these logs have been in any mud and I cut on the piles with chainsaws all throughout the season and don't have any trouble. What makes people think these logs are all covered in mud? Last time we rented was same log pile, same setup for handling and cut twice as much. Thanks for watching!
The first logs you start moving it literally looks like you are digging out of the ground. While the machine I run is a Timberwolf it’s a chainsaw style. The slasher styles are much more forgiving. But also more expensive.
@@JDHick86 Gotcha. Yeah, that big log I moved early in the video didn't go through the processor as it was just too big but I thought it was cool that my little tractor could carry it. I'd love to try a slasher style machine also.
Hey Neil its Lindsey just wanted to let you know that me and my Abbott house roommates along with our house manager Rick Till took us to Crazy Pinz to go bowling on my 23thrd birthday yesterday on Wednesday and after that we went to the restaurant Culvers on Stellhorn Road for dinner yesterday on Wednesday and was a lot of fun and exciting as well as thrilling!!!!!!!! Also wandering when you were planning on putting up a brand new video today or tomorrow anytime soon within this next week or weekend and if you are I will be patiently and quietly waiting so if you could possibly do me a favor and and respond back to me anytime time now today or tomorrow or anytime time now when your ready and free and not busy I would greatly appreciate it thanks ooh and one more thing could possibly do me a favor and and tell the girls Ella and Eva and Kara hello for me I would greatly appreciate it thanks .... I'll be waiting for you to respond back to me anytime time now today or tomorrow anytime time now when your ready and free and not busy Sincerely and truly yours your loving next door neibor Lindsey 💟💖💝💘💕💞💗💓💌😚😙😘😗😍🙂😃😀😉😄🌈💐💐🌸🌸🏵🏵🌹🌹
I rented the same one, it was a utter disappointment. Very frustrating that it would jam and stop cutting ever 30 minutes. Definitely debating if I would ever do it again
Those bars wear extremely quick if not maintained probably chains need to sharpen and rakers filed down. Flip bars each time you replace chains to wear bar even. We have owned two firewood processors Over ten years. And with my experience it’s the bars and chains Leading to those issues. Two most common obvious issues bar stoping half way through the log shuttering of the bar when cutting. Replace with new bar and chain
All great points, But the company needs to check that they have sharp chains. Ideally they would grind and sharpen them Or if they can’t provide 4 new ones. And yes a Sharp chain can make a huge difference. Just wondering maybe they were not using the same thickness of chain and bar last time to this time. A 405 chain will last 2x longer than a 3/8 IMHO. Great video and great explanation
Don't jinx it!!! I made it to 6K before replying to this comment. I know, that's weird for me to not have any dislikes. There's always that one guy... Now, he'll probably read this 😉
Some of the comments below are correct,once the tooth has been heated up from using grinder to sharpen they will dull quickly,also the logswhen they are stacked on the ground leaves soil on the logs and this will set the chains off quick too,be combination of these and your going to have a bad day,my suggestion would be when stock piling your logs ,sacrifice a few as sleeper logs ,or logs that the other logs sit on ,up out of dirt.,my question is ,how much did the processor cost for the 8 hours.
Thanks Troy. All the logs at our second location were stacked on telephone poles to keep them off the ground. First logs were hardly dirty though either. I have to attribute it more to the chains then the logs, just based off the last experience with the processor and the amount of wood that I cut out of these piles with just a chainsaw. I mean, I cut many cords of wood without the processor and don't ever go through chains from these locations. The processor is normally $550 for 8 hours. Thanks for watching!
I didn’t really get a good look at that chain but I’d be willing to bet that they were sharpened incorrectly. Gotta get the tooth angle correct and left and right side teeth the same size. And check raker height. Put a new bar on that machine with several new chains and I’ll bet you could get some work done.
Sounds like everyone is in agreement that I definitely had some chain issues. I think a chain grinder in the wrong hands can do much more harm than good apparently. Appreciate the comment and thanks for watching!
Hate to hear all you got was 8 cord. My dad an I this winter put in a 2 day weekend, cut down, bucked up, hauled, and split with a standard troybilt 27t splitter just over 4 cord for our outdoor woodstove and stacked it. I would honestly feel kinda jipped if all I got was 8 cord with the rental. I wouldnt complain though because you said it was like 500 dollars. I figured way more. We spent a couple hundred between saws, chains, truck gas, splitter gas, ect...
Right on Cody. Yeah, last time I got closer to 16 cords in the 8 hour rental. Oh well, they treated me right on it this time and hopefully it'll work great the next time around. You guys got a lot done in one weekend! That's awesome! Thanks for watching!
Keep up the excellent content, always look forward to seeing your next video pop up. Did y’all build the grandparents house? I saw in a previous video y’all do the driveway and excavation for the foundation. Gorgeous house!
Wow, that's very nice of you to say Andrew. We didn't build the home but we did do most of the site prep and excavation work. Aside from the lot clearing, driveway, basement and yard grading, we also installed the septic system and drainage lines. I was over there every weekend and most weeknights lending a hand to my FIL. He decided he got his moneys worth out of the mini-excavator that way and now he has a nice Volvo firewood assistant as a result! The house and shop turned out really nice. Thanks for watching all those videos! If I had only been doing TH-cam stuff then... Of course I wouldn't have had time to do any dirt work then!
Had a friend rent one several years ago. They delivered. 100 an hour or half the wood was the deal. They made pieces to big for me. Good for out door burners.
Nice. $100/hr is more than what they charge for this one though. This machine also had a 6 way or 8 way wedge if you wanted one. Like you said though, for our outdoor boiler I can get away with larger pieces.
@@digdrivediy oh I get the outdoor burner. I get by with 10 cord and it takes me a full week to do it. I generally spread out the work through the summer in the past 5 years. Good show men.
I never saw one of those machines (I know they exist in different forms). Really interesting video and I appreciated the commentary as well with all the problems you had. Thank you.
Thanks Richard! You know, I questioned whether or not I should have did the commentary so glad to hear you say that. It made for an interesting video having all the problems but I was glad to still be able to get what we got done. Thanks for watching!
Sometimes the bar will get a lip on it from the heat
The best part of this video is your daughters helping with the firewood.
Too often today, you see so many kids without any chores or responsibility.
I'm glad to see you and the Mrs. instilling some values in your daughters, particularly a sense of ownership & responsibility. So, good job!
Discolouration on a sharpened edge is from oxidation of the steel. This only happens in the temperature range where heat treating is affected. Typically, the blue colour results in a soft,easily dulled cutting edge.
Bummer. I'm afraid that was much of our problem. Thanks for the comment Cam and thanks so much for watching!
To harden I learned to bring it up to a bright red then immediately dunk in a water oil mix. To temper or slightly soften then bring it up to a lower temperature where it is only blue. Then let it cool slowly. It sounds like the grinder he sharpened with got it too hot then let it cool slowly taking away the hardness. That left a blue color behind.
I used to bring my chains in to have them "professionally " sharpened . I would notice the blue on the teeth
The ch as ins would cut crooked and dull quickly. I now hand file and enjoy a nice cutting saw . Great video!! Stay warm .
Very true James. I have a friend of mine that bought several different sharpening machines to do them himself cause he never got good results from the local "professionals". He takes his time to such a degree that no shop could ever make any money sharpening chains the way he does it. Thanks so much for watching!
I put a sharpining file on the end of a cordless drill. I cut a small handle with a hole for the file to fit in to for the end opposite the drill. I make quick work of the dullest chains and you go slow so it doesnt heat and blue the metal.
Makes life Hell of alot easier, I just rented a cord king up here in Canada, made quick work out of 2 semi truck loads of logs!
Oh yeah! My plan is to rent one every two years and if I can come up with enough logs I might be able to cut two years worth with each rental. Didn't happen this time but I'll get another chance. Appreciate you watching!
Once again, learned something totally new watching one of your videos...never even heard of a "firewood processor" machine in my 70 years. I truly think yours is one of the best DIY video channels on You Tube and your uplifting delivery along with the content are always entertaining and mentally rewarding to watch. It is really a pleasure to watch someone who isn't trying to blame someone or something else for the problems in their job, who accepts the situation and displays a positive attitude. Thanks for posting.
Wow, I appreciate such kind words. I am thankful for your viewership and giving such solid feedback. I really want to create a channel that people will enjoy watching so I give it my best effort. Sometimes you just have to make the best of a bad situation and learn from the hardships rather than dwell on them. Putting yourself in the other person's shoes is the way I try to approach most situations and seems to serve me well. I have plenty to be thankful for in life so it's easy to shrug off the little stuff like this. Thanks for being such a great supporter of the channel.
Q
When you blue up a piece of steel it gets soft. It might be sharp, but it will dull quickly. The steel will be softer if its blue. You have to sharpen past the blue of off color.
Yeah, most folks are thinking the chains were the culprit of much of our issues.
That is correct, if the chain is heated up and then allowed to cool moderately slowly (like what would happen in a poor sharpening session), the quench hardness will be removed for that portion. Also, if the chain is sharpened correctly, it should practically self feed and pull the bar down into the log. With a correctly sharpened chain on a chainsaw, very little downward pressure is needed as the chain cutter itself pulls into the wood. Unfortunately, there are folks who don't understand how to sharpen chains correctly, either with a machine or by hand. It is quite easy if you know how to do it.
I hate you had a bad experience with the machine but, you were still fairly productive. When so many different people are using a machine with varying skill/knowledge levels, stuff like that is going to happen. Im glad the rental company made it right. They sound like good people to work with. Stay safe my friend.
They were great to work with and treated me quite well on it. I was able to get quite a bit done but you know how it is when you're already in a hurry and things aren't going great. We made the best of it and still got a good bit of wood cut. I don't envy the rental place at all. It would be tough but they are focused on the service so good for the consumer. Appreciate you watching friend.
I cut a LOT of firewood with a small saw. I always hand sharpen and if I’m cutting hardwood I will resharpen every other tank of fuel, which is about 30 minutes of run time. I have seen a poorly and uneven chain cause it to cut in a crooked curved path. I doubt I would ever rent something like that, but it might be a good idea to have a brand new chain available to help troubleshoot an issue like you had. I fancy myself a good chain resharpener, but I can always tell a big improvement when I install a new chain. Jim
That's a good idea. Would have been a nice experiment to try a chain new out of the box and see how long it lasted. Like I said in the video, the last time I rented one of these I used only two chains! And, I actually changed out the chain just cause I thought I should, not cause it was cutting poorly. You're probably a much better sharpener than I am. I always try but I'm not great at it. I lack patience! Thanks for the great comment.
I tell everyone I use a small saw because it doesn’t weigh as much as a larger saw and doesn’t wear me out as fast, but maybe it is really because the chain is shorter and takes less time to sharpen?
@@RVJimD my partner bought a brand new roll of chain a while back (way cheaper to go that route then just make your own half priced! just need a buy the necessary chain break and don't lose the little anvil, and the roller, and it is night and day difference in prices) however they must have been stoned when he ordered it, because he requested the normal, 63 gauge chisel bit, full skip 3/8 chain ( I have always used the chisel or micro chisel style chain, even when I am not grinding my chains at home. A Chiselbit chain filed with a *USABLE* round file properly with the rakers taken down so it pulls your heels off the ground (but doesn't feel like it will attack you or get bogged everytime you try to cut grrrrrr, ) when they cut sweet it doesn't matter if they are 660 stihls or a Poulan pro wild thang lol! Any saw that pulls nice strait and true is a treasure! But they ordered a whole roll of round file chain, 🤔 full competition anti kickback chain! I never knew the even MADE chain that had a tooth on top of every driver on the chain! Even after you were done hand filing it, ( I refused to use my chisel grinder on that kind of tooth) if your hand wasn't bleeding from the abuse hahaha, them you went strait to the damn flat file to knock the stupid anti kick tang poking up next to the depth raker!!! At least I didn't have to worry about nobody on my crew sneaking away with my saw for a few days hahaha!!
I see this editing style and am completely wowed but shocked that he only has 18k, I would have thought that he'd at least have 50k or so. Never the less, you are great and you deserve much more, so much time and effort, keep up this amazing style of yours!!!👍
Thank you Clover Wolf. I appreciate the very kind words.
Hi Neil - it's Big Rodders in Ireland. I enjoyed the video and marvelled at your range of equipment. I used to split 150 cords a year for a Tree Surgery Co and my equipment for moving logs around the yard extended to one 2 wheeled barrow! Joe from Ohio Wood Burners speaks highly of the qualities of the Dyna processor.
Wow! You certainly accomplished more than I ever could with a wheel barrow! That's an incredible amount of work you did Big Rodders. I really like the Dyna processor despite the problems I was having. I hope that came across in the video. Good to see ya here and thanks for watching!
I've used the Dyna to same experience two years in the row we had to take the first one back to get another one. If you have clean logs that helps a lot . I live in Northern Michigan and burn 10 cords a year with a wood boiler. Nice video
Thanks John. Interesting that I've had a couple folks echo the same experience. The logs were fairly clean and had never been drug on the ground, so that was a positive. I did hit a chunk of dirt on one of them and I know what that can do. Hope you're staying warm up there. I'm headed up snowmobiling in the UP in February so hopefully you keep the snow around!
Much respect for you, your frustration is felt by many other renters. The key take away is, know your rental company (if you choose to use one) know the machines capabilities, and plan on the unexpected whether you're renting or or buying. Kudos to you not blaming the machine manufacturer or your rental outlet. And much respect to the rental company for trying to take care of their customers. My brother has always been one that rents equipment known to himself through his day job and when his rentals are sub-par he knows its not the manufacturer, but he's dealt with rental places that make no attempt to maintain certain machines (let a lone keep maintance records) & have essentially told him or others in industry " tough luck, it "worked" when the prior customer dropped it off." And they offer no help or at the most, they show up with an exchange unit at the "end of day" for rental and charge another 24hr period with what is hopefully a fully functional machine.
Thanks Greg. I really appreciate you saying that bit. I've had others say I was too soft for not blaming the rental company but I feel they went out of their way to make me happy afterwards, which in my mind is all they could do at that point. I feel it's better to try to forgive and move on then get all mad and hold a grudge or pitch a fit. That wouldn't do me any good for the next time around. Thanks for watching and the the thoughtful comment.
I was around a Dyna back in November. About as fast as I could feed it with my Bobcat, it was eating it up. My buddy and I have about 15 cord of logs to process up this spring and plan on renting one. Can't wait!!! Nice video, thanks!
They are great. That first one we had we just about couldn't keep it fed with a Bobcat either. If you had to cut some nubs off the log or cut out a dog leg, you would almost get behind! Good luck with your day. That'll be fun!
Going in and out of a job with open eyes instead of walking away makes the end game smoother. Hopefully the rental place can make it right before it goes back out
Very true Andy. I have no doubt they will get it fixed up. They were very eager to make sure I wasn't dissatisfied, which made me satisfied :) Thanks for watching 👍
I'm a new subscriber, I subbed during Tractor Time With Tims live feed the other evening. I can see why he recommended this channel. Great job putting this together, I didn't realize a person could rent a firewood processor.
Thanks Curt! I try to make the videos as interesting as possible so thankful to hear you say you enjoyed it. Appreciate you giving your time to watch.
Huh. I missed that one. Love Tim and Christy.
@@PatrickKQ4HBD They've got a great channel.
@@PatrickKQ4HBD Oh yeah, the mention from Tim was during their live stream on 1/20/21. I couldn't believe it!
I've been renting these dynas for about 6 years now only had one machine give me problems . Noa from the factory help me with another machine the next day. I am totally satisfied with the dyna machines
They are great machines. They totally made it right with me and I look forward to renting again someday. Hopefully it didn't come across like I was bashing the machine cause I totally understand stuff happens. Appreciate your feedback and thanks for watching.
I rent Wright from the factory in Millington mich. I live about an hour away. The guys that build these machines take great pride in what they build . The first time I went thier they insist I take a tour of thier factory just great people.
I believe there built by the Amish. Look like good machines
I rented a Dyna in 2019 did the the same thing an 8 hour rental I was able to get all the years wood processed in 4 hours with my 2 sons as helpers . The guy that was in charge of renting it was extremely helpful and understanding.he was also abl to le me keep it longer than just the 8 hours .55k for the machine I payed 400 for the rental .
it's a great way to do it isn't it! I think it is well worth the money for what you get back in time savings; at least for me. Thanks for sharing and appreciate you watching.
Neil, I love your videos! I enjoy the creative way you edit them, the way you explain what you are doing and the thought process behind your decisions. You've got a beautiful family and a beautiful place out in the Indiana countryside. You're a blessed man! I just recently retired and you've inspired me to go out this summer and do some side work with my limited equipment. I think it will be fun, keep me off of the streets ;^) and be able to help my neighbors out as well!
Hey Rick! That's terrific to hear! I think you'll have a good time doing it too. I can't wait until the day I retire and can just do full time "side work!" For some reason it is more rewarding to do stuff for friends and neighbors then it is for myself...I don't get it! And thanks for such kind words. I am still learning how to edit and properly tell a story. I question every video just as I publish it and am thankful for comments like this. I am truly blessed in the home and family department and can't be more proud of my family. It's part of what makes me want to share it with others I suppose. Get out there this summer and stir some dirt up! You don't have to have much more than a garden tractor to find ways to stay busy. Appreciate you watching friend.
I completely agree! Top notch videos!
A great Hoosier perspective!
I'm in west central Indiana, delivering gravel, heating with wood in my Hardy H2. Working full time too but dreaming of a time I can leave the rat race and control my own destiny.
Thanks for your hard work and inspiring outlook!
@@TheFamilyFarmOn42 Thanks I really appreciate it! Sounds like we would get along quite nicely!
I think the main problem you have is a burr each side of the bar. This is caused by the higher pressure exerted on the chain by the hydraulics when cutting and is something that is not as noticeable when using a chain saw. This is because a chainsaw is constantly moving so the chain has a chance to keep digging in and cutting without the burr catching on the wood. But when the bar and chain are used on a machine such as this, the cut is straight down, and if the chain veers of slightly, then the burr which runs a fair length of the bar hits the wood and stops any more downward motion. Do you understand what I'm saying Neil? As you discovered, more hydraulic pressure helped, but only to a certain extent. I know this from experience as we had the exact same problem on a European processor some years ago. Every day, we had to deburr the bars, (usually two would get us through the day), sharpen about 4 chains and we'd be right. There is quite a bit of pressure on the bar when cutting, and the burr gets bigger. I am almost certain that is what your problem is. But if the bars you are using are older, then excessively worn chain grooves can cause the same problem as well. Hope I've been of help.
I think you could very likely be on to something. I do understand what you're saying and I checked for the burr on the bar but didn't think it seemed too bad. Hard to tell by just looking or feeling however. I have had to file the burr off of my older chainsaw a couple of times now as I've had it 20 years with the same bar in use. I tried flipping the bar over on this machine too which can sometimes help, but it didn't do much in this situation. Wished I would have had a new bar to try. Hopefully the folks at the rental place can get it all straightened out. Thanks for the insightful and educational comment and thanks a bunch for watching the video.
@@digdrivediy I forgot to mention as well that we had to screw the chain adjuster up really tight to take out any chain looseness.
And just back to the burr on the bar, just the slightest amount will jam it Neil. We noticed the problem more when a log was going through which may have been crooked. When the chain first hit the log at an angle, it would lay over in the loose bar grooves and the burred edge of the bar would catch on the opposite edge of the cut.
I am surprised that the rental company hasn't woke up to this sort of problem. But knowing most rentals, they would be trying to get maximum use out of their bars. Well, it doesn't work that way on these sort of machines. Maybe on chainsaws, yes. Tell them about what I think the problem might be and maybe they can start with all new bars and chains again. Great video. Cheers from Australia.
Wrong
My neighbor sells firewood and has a Dyna. He operates by himself. He's very organized and has 100's of cords of logs at his lot he has a truck with a boom and grapple to stack the logs, but uses a skid steer with a grapple to load the Dyna. He's probably the hardest working man I've ever met.
Sounds like he has a fantastic setup. I would love to be able to have an outfit like that.
*For me, what I have concluded is wood burning is worth it for enjoyment only. Not for saving on heating expense.*
Stumbled across your channel and this is the first video of yours I’m seeing. I heard you say you are burning 10 cords per winder. Wow, you must have a very large home.
We purchased a new to us home in Door County, Wisconsin with 3,000 feet of finished living space and moved in December 2020. The home has three heating systems, a propane furnace fed from two owned propane tanks, a freestanding wood stove in the basement, tied into the home heating ducts, and a traditional tile and stone fireplace with electric air blowers feeding air through the the masonry stone vents into the living room.
We did not fill the propane tanks at its low price point in 2020 of $0.74/gallon because we did not own the property yet. I did fill the two tanks, purchasing 1,000 gallons without contract, just on the open market, at $1.14/gallon and $0 delivery fee due to volume , purchased mid-December 2020. As expected, propane has continued to rise since then, currently at about $1.49/gallons locally, and free delivery when buying at least 200 gallons.
The houses is well setup for efficiently processing wood burning. A door covered chute in the garage slides cut firewood into the basement near the wood burner. The wood burner sits in a unfinished portion of the lowest level of the home, along with the propane furnace, water heater and other mechanical equipment.
My goal has been to determine if I’m better off heating with propane or purchasing wood logs at $95/cord for a truck load of 12 cords of ash delivered that I cut with a chain saw then split, using a traditional hydraulic log splitter and haul with compact tractor on pallets to season then haul to the home to burn. I am allocating $0 of expense for my log processing equipment, which is not honest. Shoot. I have over $30K into the tractor alone, which I admittedly use for multiple purposes.
What I have determined after monitoring wood volume use and propane volume use is I am savings about $5 for every hour of my labor/work when burning wood. My day job pays over 10 times that. I may not have perfected my wood processing yet, meaning my efficiency and rate could improve, but then again, I have been allocating $0 for equipment, such as chainsaw, log splitter, tractor, not to mention getting up in the middle of the night at least once to stoke the wood burner.
Do I enjoy wood burning? Yes. Am I a fanatic wood burner? Well, no.
With the current low cost of propane, for us, I have no intention to heat only with wood, although I could if I decided to. Rather, my intention for now is to heat with a mixture of wood and propane. Wood when I feel like it, and propane when I don’t. If the cost of propane doubles, I will simply increase my wood burning.
Anyways, that’s what I have calculated so far. My money saved by my work from burning wood pays me by saving only $5/hour for my labor. If I used free wood sources such as fallen landscaping type trees, my $95/cord cost for a truckload of ash wood delivered to me would go to zero, but my time spent from collecting firewood wold increase. Then there is the danger and liability from falling frees. I’d be better off financially driving for Uber then burning wood, which I would never drive for Uber anyways.
When you look at home heating expenses, propane has simply gone up slower then inflation. At least that is the case today. Who knows about the future. If you heat with natural gas, when simply put, after all the math, costs 40% less to heat a home then propane at current rates, wood burning makes even less economic sense.
Hey Doug! Wow, thanks for that thoughtful analysis! I have never looked into it very closely to determine how it might be saving or costing me money. I have had mixed emotions but ultimately still enjoy firewood enough to keep me going with it. We heat about 7000 square feet between our house, garage and large workshop. I wouldn't likely heat the garage and shop like I do if not for being wood.
I'm lucky in the fact that I have never ever had to pay for firewood. It has a way of finding me somehow. I've never cut down a tree for the purpose of firewood. I have cut plenty of trees that I get to take home for firewood, but usually there is some other underlying situation.
I like the way you break it down and think about every aspect. I know for one thing that I never consider paying myself or what the opportunity cost of cutting might be. Like you said, you have to just enjoy it I think #1.
We have propane as well. We've had the furnace since 2006, but 2020 was the first year having a propane tank installed. I used propane last spring on chilly mornings that didn't require a fire for all day, and same thing in the fall. That seems to be the ticket for the mild days and cuts my fire time short by several weeks.
I certainly enjoy your thorough thought process on the financial aspects. I try not to think about that stuff too much unless it starts to feel like I'm getting behind instead of moving forward. So far so good.
If you haven't already seen it, I made a video about my thoughts on the good and bad of firewood and it may give you some more insight into at least my particular situation:
th-cam.com/video/QJtXMDBZSFo/w-d-xo.html
Thanks so much for the great comment and I certainly appreciate your viewership!
great attitude from you and wayne thats how things should be handled .i was still impressed it save on the back
Oh yeah, all is well. I can't wait to try again with it. It sure is a time and back saver no doubt!
Good step through of the adventure Neil. Those Dyna machines look really well built- great that you were able to compare to the last one you rented. Thanks for taking us along!
Hey, thanks so much GP! They really are great machines and this one was just having an "off day"! Always fun to work firewood up with family and buddies. I'm a big fan of your channel and appreciate seeing you in the comments here so thanks for the visit. Cheers!
LOL Neil. I am not commenting on that one buddy! Too funny.
@@lindseyhare5039 Hi Lindsey. I'm glad to hear that you got to go to Crazy Pins. Sounds like a really fun time! It also sounds like you're having a good time where you live. I hope to have my next video come out on Sunday morning but I'm still working to get it finished. It takes me a long time to edit them. I will tell Kara and the girls you said Hi. I hope you had a good birthday and I'll talk to you later.
@@lindseyhare5039 Hi Lindsey. When I said that my wood splitter doubles as a backhoe I was just being funny and was trying to say in a clever way that my backhoe can also be used as a wood splitter. I hope you had a great day today. Kara, Ella and Eva and I went skiing in Michigan. It was a fun time. Whenever you see my new videos you can make a new comment on those videos instead of coming back to this video. If you see the area to make a comment below the video name just click in there and make a new comment under the newest video. I will see it and respond faster. Hope you have a good Monday. Take care! Neighbor Neil.
@@lindseyhare5039 Hi Lindsey. I have responded to a few of your messages this week but is tough for me to respond to all of them unfortunately. Do you know how to send emails? It would be better for you to send me an email and I can talk to you that way. The messages you are leaving here are not a great place to leave them so lets try to talk with an email; OK? I will tell kara and the girls you said hi. Send me an email at: nkoch1976@gmail.com. Talk to you later neighbor! :)
Great video. You were on point, no fluff, loved it
Appreciate it!
Proper bar truing. Chain sharpening lubrication and tension. Are all key.
All can cause overheating, dulling or a tendency for the cut wanting to veer rather than go straight down. And with a pivot bar will bring it to a halt.
Like trying to saw a straight cut with a unevenly worn bar on a chainsaw.
Harder you try, the worse it gets.
Excessive bar wear usually a result of improper chain tension and/or inadequate lubrication. Either way. Bar needs to be reground or replaced.
Agree with your assessment that previous renter (s) are responsible.
But as long as your satisfied with rental company, that's what matters.
Always great to see stuff like this in action. 👍👍
Thanks for the well thought comment and appreciate you watching!
Maybe it was mentioned before but on my processor I found after a few hundred cords it was time to replace the bar. The bar had way less paint wore off it that the one you have on there. It made a world of difference when i replace the bar with a brand new one and a brand new chain. I noticed the rails on the bar would get worn unevenly and the groove was wider. Processors need a perfectly true bar and chain alignment or it will bind in the log and make thing not go smoothly. A chainsaw is more forgiving because it is not attached to a fixed pivot point. That said, I seldom cut hardwood and my logs are really clean but I often do 20 or 30 cord before even sharpening the chain. I have a little belt sander and square up the bar rails after a couple of sharpenings. It has to be perfectly square.
Agreed.
you are right on about the bar I take care of my bars by reconditioning them and now get much more life out of them take a look at the 2 links and keep your cutting true and straight th-cam.com/video/IuDDvGiOX84/w-d-xo.html th-cam.com/video/mebZTMY3LNg/w-d-xo.html there is a tool to squeeze the rail back to good
That is a nice load of wood you got banged out there brother
Thanks Matt. Wished it could have been a little more but all in all it's still way more than I had before! Appreciate you tuning in sir.
I helped a friend of mine and rented that model from the same place, we went through a ton of wood and a bunch of chains, his brother sharpened the spare chains at least once during the day, it was well worth the cost but frustrating when it wasn’t working properly, all and all they were very satisfied with it
Yes, it can really make the wood when all is working well. I'm going to try to get it again this year. Hopefully this video didn't make them want to not rent it to me!!
I’m glad you still had a positive experience with dyna. We have the sc-12 and love it. It makes firewood so easy.
It's a great machine. They have thought out a lot of good features of their design. I'm sure they can get to the bottom of whatever was causing our issues for the day. They made it right and that says enough in itself to me. I would love to have one of those machines for myself. How much wood do you make a year?
Great video Neil!😀 I bet next time you'll be checking those spare chains. When the arm stopped and the chain smoked, i thought of lack of oil pressure. Look for leaks or evidence of. The bushing for the arm might need grease. Also the chain might need to be adjusted, too much slack??
Any way to hook up or make a foot pedal to activate the log splitter? Also hook up some mirrors so the operator could see the splitter while at the control panel.
Find some old shipping palates, 1 on the ground, 4 more to form a box. Put a few screws to hold it in place and get 3 metal straps to go around them. Put 6 in the dump truck. Just move the truck as it fills up. (You can also make the boxes higher=more wood). Then use a fork lift or adjustable farm equipment to lift them out. To get the back ones out, use a chain to pull it towards the edge.
If you need other hints just let me know. Be glad to help out!
Good luck! Mac👍👀😀
Thanks for the great feedback. Hopefully next time they have them sharpened up for me. We made a few adjustments and it worked much better but the chains had just been burnt when last sharpened. I like that mirror idea! Thanks so much for watching.
Love honest and practical reviews, i ran a timberwolf for two years before i sold it. They all have there quirks, no matter what make!!!
Very true. Appreciate you watching Darien.
Very informative video. It's always good when the rental place works with ya. Here's a funny one for ya. We burn wood also, two wood stoves. We went from a splitting maul, to a hand operated splitter to an electric splitter. A good friend of mine stopped burning wood and sold me her 25 gas splitter, cheap. We thought we were in high cotton til I seen your video, my son would drool to use one of them. Thanks again for the video and the honest commentary.
Hey thanks a bunch Kory. I've split wood with all the ways you've mentioned too. It's just the natural progression of always wanting to up your game I guess. These things are awesome to use and it makes for a fun week to look forward to for sure. Thanks for tuning in!
Nice video. That’s a heck of a splitter set up
Thanks Brock! That thing is cool; isn't it? Appreciate you watching and commenting sir.
Looks like you staved off frigidity for the time being, despite fighting that balky cutter.
Neil, different steels have differing tempering properties. For example high carbon spring steel wire should be heated to 392f (200c). Then it must air quench. This happens after the spring is fully formed. If you use water or oil it gets brittle. Heavy coils like automotive suspension springs are heated to 1200f then quenched in a molten lead bath before allowed to air coil. This is before they are drawn down to final size. Music wire, oil tempered wire and others require careful heating and tempering processes in order to have the proper work properties. Low carbon wires are used in everything from coat hangers and fencing to rebar tie wires. They have a whole different set of tempering or annealing requirements.
I spent 21 1/2 years making wire and managing quality for plants that drew wire and used it. What I learned was that while the chemistry of the steel is important... it is more likely to be the heating and tempering/annealing process that screws it up.
Having said that... I don’t know just what the tempering process is for cutting steel but, I suggest that the blue edge is where the teeth have been heated to the point they’ve become brittle. And, that air quenching was not the appropriate tempering means. On a micro level, the bevel is burring and shattering because it has no toughness. But, I’ll defer that to the cutting experts.
(As an aside, I once salvaged a set of blue edged lawnmower blades that a relative had ground on. I put them in my wife’s oven at 400f then air tempered them. It would have been the perfect fix... had she not came home and caught me before I got the smell out of the kitchen)
I think I told you about our Firewood Processor that we had when I was growing up. So, I won’t spend much time here. Except, to describe the cutting head. We had a Farmall B. It had a drawbar and a PTO. (No 3point hitches in those days... only the rich farmers had those)
My dad and a buddy found an old axle and a couple of 32” circular saw blades. After scouring the local tractor graveyard, they scrounged up enough pulleys, belts, pillow block bearings and scrap steel to build a buzz saw.
It bolted to the rear of the Farmall and was driven by the PTO. At first it was driven by a wide belt. But, it didn’t have enough power to saw through the hardwoods we were processing. Eventually he changed it out with v-belt drive and varied the pulley sizes to get the mechanical advantage vs RPM balance.
So there we were, a 30 lb steel disk spinning (and wobbling) with 1 1/2” deep teeth and nary a guard to impede our progress. It was my job to start it running. My dads job was to watch the blade as I did so. With the engine idling, I’d engage the clutch slowly. Once the blade got to spinning my dad would signal for more RPM’s. Once it hit that sweet spot between wobbling and shaking itself apart... I’d lock the throttle in place using a piece of baling wire.
Now mind you, the cutting table of this docile beast was almost 4’ above the ground...exactly the height of my dads forearms with his elbows bent. Dad held the end of the log closest to the blade. My job was to support the other end. But, the log had to be held level and fed straight into the blade. Otherwise we pinched the blade... At which point I got a lesson in adult appropriate speech.
When the pile got high enough that it was hitting the blade... we’d shut it all down, commence splitting and stacking in the Studebaker. (I think I already covered splitting wood... but, my job was to run the hammer and wedge... my dad used his favorite splitting axe.)
A good day for us was a cord of 24” stove wood from the tree to the truck. And, our neighbors would marvel at that.
Well sir, about 10 or so years ago I was at a farm auction. The auctioneer said, “Sell the sawmill.” I walked around the crowd and all those memories came back. A buzz saw blade mounted on an old axle with v-belt pulleys and pillow block bearings was right there. I have no way of knowing if it is the same one... there was no frame. But, for $12 I couldn’t resist bringing it home. It holds a prominent place in the corner of the lot where I store my green firewood. Every time I stack wood there I am reminded of just how lucky I am to have both arms and legs!
Watching you guys struggle with that balky cutter head, couldn’t help but think that Firewood processors have come a long way!
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Boy, what a terrific education on the heat treating side of things. I certainly posed the right question in regards of your viewership! Thanks for the thorough explanation. My only experience with metallurgy, comes from driving a semi-truck. When we were first married and I as doing odd jobs to keep the money flowing, one of the things I did was drive a delivery semi-truck for a metallurgical place in Ft. Wayne. I would drive a particular route throughout northern Indiana, southern Michigan and western Ohio. I picked up metal parts and pieces from all these different manufacturers and they were brought back to Ft. Wayne for heat treat and then they would be returned the following week on the same route. I never could have imagined how many different parts and components require some metallurgical process. It was eye opening to me. In some locations I had to load the truck myself with the forklift which meant I got to go into the different manufacturing facilities and eyeball what they were doing in there. Very educational for sure. Same was true of the Ft. Wayne location where it was all treated. I got to see all the furnaces and conveyors that moved all the material. Best part for me was that anything inside the truck that jumped out of their shipping baskets and landed on the floor became "trash" (company policy to incentivize the companies to not have leaky containers). I ended up with a few "goodies" out of that deal, both raw steal and hardened pieces. So, that's how much I know about all that... still more than some folks get to see I suppose. I liked driving the truck :)
So funny you bring up the buzz saw. My mom was must talking about that. We had a buzz saw mounted to the front of our old Allis Chalmers WD and I can remember quite clearly using it as a kid. USING IT as a kid! Mom says she still has nightmares. I was nodding my head in agreement through your entire explanation and marveled at what was "acceptable risk" for back in the day. Our buzz saw at least had a guard on it I think. It is actually still around over there at my folks I believe. My dad will probably read this and maybe he can comment as to where it is located. That would make a cool video to do. We can get out all the old, dangerous firewood equipment and fire it up for one more go for the camera! There is a crazy splitting "screw" thingy that bolts to the wheel of the tractor too but I've never used that thing. You've got my wheels turning here on how this could be a cool episode and I can get everyone to tell me their favorite dare devil firewood stories in the comments! lol
As always thanks for the wonderful bit of Sunday evening reading!
Be sure to send me more of your favorite lawn mower blade recipes. I've been cooking them with the heat too low apparently!
@@digdrivediy I’m far from an expert in heat treatment... I had a metallurgist on my staff... so, I had to understand what he was saying. We dealt with every kind of wire imaginable. But, steel sheet and bar stock was all for stamping. We never tempered any of it. And the properties imparted during wire drawing, stamping, coining and forming are far different than those of hot and cold rolling.
The stamping and forming dies were all tempered by our machining division... that’s why I said... I’m pretty clueless about tooling.
It would be cool to see some really old wood cutting technology. I have a two man cross cut saw and a rip saw. I also was given a hay saw that my neighbor picked up at a rummage sale. It was labeled as an ice saw. When he tried to cut a hole in his pond he thought it was dull!
Factories fascinate me too... my first employer had 91 factories. I was in over 70 of them. I was in all 11 factories of my second employer and all 8 of my last. Between those, the customer plants, supplier plants and others from my consulting days... I have probably been in 150 or so.
No two were alike.. I enjoyed being in them. Factories were always more comfortable than meeting rooms to me.
I was teaching my grandson to use a Brush Master scythe last summer... (Brush Master blade = 18”-20” while the Hay Master is 20”-24” with holes to mount the cradle.) If a guy could gather up the tools, wouldn’t that be a cool skill to share?
So please put together your old buzz saw and enlighten us!
You sound about like me, I had hundreds of plastic pots to wash for my greenhouse job. I started running them through the dishwasher while my wife was at work. All the bits of peat moss ended up in the dishwasher. I got reamed for leaving the stuff in the dishwasher
Great video, I will have to look into rental of one of these processors. I live near Indy now, but grew up around Woodburn. Nice to see fellow Hoosiers working together like that. Stay warm!
Hey Andrew! It is certainly worth it if you have a bunch of logs to work up. It was great day with friends and family. I bet we know some of the same people for sure as I went to Woodlan. Thanks for saying hi!
@@digdrivediy Fellow Warrior here too, class of 1982. Yes, I'm sure we have some mutual aqaintences.
@@andrewmeador7133 Wow, that's cool! You went to school with a couple of my cousins I bet. I was a bit younger in 1995.
A very good video, very informative and narrated well in a positive and professional manner
Thanks! I really appreciate the kind words.
Great footage, great story, good explanation of the challenges and a great working team! And you’re a great narrator too! 💪👏
Thanks Vegard that is very nice of you to say. I'm trying to get better at narrating too. Appreciate your viewership!
Rented the same one and cut 40 cords in 16 hours on a single chain. Keep a file on hand to touch up the chain every so many logs
Thanks Kurtis! That's a bunch of wood in 16 hours! These machines are awesome!
Fantastic video 📹. Looking in from Ireland 🇮🇪 .
I appreciate it Sean! I love hearing from folks overseas! It's amazing to think of someone watching me in Ireland. That's fantasic. I've been to Ireland once, but unfortunately never got outside the airport! Thanks for saying Hi!
Awesome video. Cool machine. Shout out to Indiana!
👍 from the Netherlands 🇳🇱 in a hard Lockdown .
thanks for the video .
Stay Safe and Healthy !
This lockdown has been tough for so many folks.
Glad to see you hanging out here hollanduck! So cool to have a visitor from the Netherlands on all my videos. I'm getting to teach my daughter about all these places that my viewers are watching from, so that's a nice bonus. Hope you stay well also my friend.
@@digdrivediy
here we now have a curfew it is now forbidden to be on the street between 21:00 PM and 4:30 AM without a valid reason or with an employer certificate in your pocket ! .
Perhaps a fun and educational idea for your daughter to order a world map poster
so that she can place pins wherever a subscriber is in the world? .
if you were to pick up a map of the Netherlands then I live at the bottom of Zeeuws-Vlaanderen in the city of Terneuzen you can look it up on Google Maps haha.
good luck 😉
@@hollandduck79 Yikes! Stay well my friend. Hope we get back to normal soon.
Neil, what a great video again! Last time I asked you about G&K apparel, but this time I’d like to put my hand on one of your hat 😎. Keep it up !
Thanks Charles! You're only the second person that has asked about apparel. I don't think I'm quite to that level yet but maybe someday. You're name is gonna be at the top of that list if I ever get there! Appreciate you watching my videos sir!
I had my log splitter hooked to the back of my dump truck and we only had to drag the logs a short ways. Took my brother and I 4 hours to get a cord cut, drug, bucked, and split and that felt like the fastest easiest time we ever had.
Sounds like a good plan Elijah. I still get my fare share of doing it the "manual" way too, but this processor sure is a nice break. Thanks for watching and commenting.
Couple things come to mind here about your "chain" events. Whoever sharpened them before, did so with an electric grinder of some sort and failed to use anything to cool the grinding process such as a Kool Stik. He took the "temper" right out of the steel and I think that with a combination of even the slightest dirty wood, you'd go dull in no time.
I recall in one part of my logging career, we had to clear cut a 200 acre parcel for a shopping center. I couldn't understand why on the trees street side, were dulling chains 3 times quicker than the inner parts of the property.
It took me one observation of a dump truck going buy and creating a plume of dust that blew toward the trees to finally understand why this was happening.
years
Great points to consider. I do think they were sharpened too quickly with a grinder. Nice feedback.
Never used a "processor" but I am a logger with 30yrs experience as a full time production Faller and the issues I can help with is bar and chain.
First off the posters who say that the discoloration or blue color change along the cutting edge DEFINITELY makes the steel the cutter is made from softer and they tend to roll under and get dull quickly. The only way to salvage that chain is to re-sharpen it by removing all the colored steel SLOWLY as to not create any further heating. We generally sharpen our chains by hand on the saw in the timber but some of us have really good quality electric bench grinder/sharpeners we use when we have time at home and will sharpen a BUNCH of chains at once. Several things when sharpening a chain is to have the exact right size file or stone for the chain and to use the exact right angle and depth. If the rakers in front of the cutters that are there to clear out the cut wood from the previous cutter were not taken down a bit at the time the chain was sharpened it will cause EXACTLY what you describe and if taken down too much it can even cause cutters to grab to much of a chip and bog the saw down or snap off cutters.
There are gauges made just for this purpose that will show you just how much needs to be removed after you sharpen the chain for every size and pitch of chain....but remember check the depth only AFTER you sharpen the chain, do it before and your defeating your purpose.
Also knowing the correct pitch and face angle is tremendously important for a good properly sharp chain.. we Fallers have hand filled so many chains that we know what tools and angles to use memorized and muscle memory.....we can honestly get our chains sharp enough to shave with with only a couple of strokes per cutter. In alot of circumstance we can sharpen by hand better than a well trained operator with a high quality bench grinder can do....we have to learn how or we loose money, our livelihood depends on how fast our Saws and Chains can safely cut.
Now for the Bar, it can get spread apart by being leaned on to hard with a dull chain causing the chain to wobble side to side in the kerf or cut it's always good to check the bar at the start of a day to see if its wearing and needs to be dressed with a flat file or rolled back to it's original gap but that's not something just anyone can do properly in the field. If you notice the chain has a lot of slop (wiggle room) side to side while in the bar and properly tight, trust me here ....change that bar out and get it to a saw and or Chain sharpener who has the proper tool and gauges to close the bar back to specs.
Hope my experience helped you some. I'm not a know it all by any means but after 30+ years falling trees in the Mountains of the Western United States.....I do kinda know a little about what I'm doing.
Good luck next time and I liked the honest way you did your video.
R.C. Charlie Hill
H&H logging
Black Hills of S.Dakota & Wyoming.
Mr. Hill, I greatly appreciate the knowledge you bring to the table here. It is nice to hear the opinion of an expert in this situation to help verify what I _thought_was the issue but without the experience that someone like you has, it is honestly just my best guess. There are tons of folks leaving comments that simply say "dirty wood dulls chains". Yes, I am well aware of that and for those folks I'd like to say "this wasn't my first day cutting firewood" either! I really think it was the fault of hastily sharpened chains. The gentlemen I rented it from was forthcoming in the fact that the previous renter "did them a favor" and had all the chains sharpened before bringing it back. I think that's what did it.
I really enjoyed reading your well detailed and thought out description on how and what likely happened. I feel it makes perfect sense and I'm a little more knowledgeable myself for having read it. Thanks for chiming in and sharing what experience can tell us and I greatly appreciate you watching sir.
@@digdrivediy
Your very Welcome Neal and please call me Charlie , I am sorry it was so long but I thought to accurately describe what I noticed it was best to go into detail.
Maybe your already aware of this but all the Harvester's like John Deere or Ponsee that are now so popular among bigger Logging Companies are equipped with the larger pitch .404 chain or bigger and they are a full chisel skip tooth type Commercial Faller chain.
I just got a glimpse of the chain that machine uses and it looked like a common semi chisel 3/8" pitch chain...and I paused, rewound and played it back several times but it's just too quick of a look at the chain itself to say 100% what it is that they are using.
Anyway a machine like that should be able to pull a .404 Skip Tooth Full chisel grind I would think at least. You would be super surprised at how much faster that chain will cut and because its bigger chain all around it's a little easier to get a good solid extra sharp cutting surface ground or filed into the cutters if that makes any sense.
Almost all my bigger CC Ported Powerheads I run with 3/8"-.50 Full Chisel skip Tooth chain on but you gotta have the grunt to spin them deep in a 48" log buddy. LOL.
Charlie
I work for an assistance program that provides firewood and have a Dyna sc v 16 that we’ve had for around 6 years. One time we took our dull chains to a shop to be sharpened and they didn’t hold up. Hand sharpening those chains sucks but they keep an edge way longer. We haul out around 500 loads a year and end of April is the cutoff. I’m currently cleaning up and ready to start busting out wood for next fall haha
Wow! Good to hear I'm not the only one. I really think that whoever sharpened the chains just didn't know. Thanks for the comment and keep on splittin'. Sounds awesome what you're providing! Appreciate you watching.
Indiana is a great state with awesome hard working people
I agree!
That was neat to watch, even though it wasn't producing the way it should have. Good to see uncle Kenny, your Dad, and Larry again, it's tough not being able to see family as much as we are use too. Again a nice chuckle from Eva "wait wut"
Thanks Tony. The best part is getting to work with all those guys and the family side of it. I had to leave out a lot of comments that they were making when the saw kept quitting at Larry's. His commentary would have been all bleeped out! :) Thanks for watching!
'Wait, what now?' Is my 11 year old sons favorite saying. Drives me nuts.
@@karuza82 Ha! She doesn't normally say it so I think it was nearly legitimate. I can see how it could get annoying though for sure...
I always say firewood is like money, you can never have enough of it.
Boy, ain't that the truth. And no matter how much of it I try to pile up, I will certainly find a way to go through it all and be scrounging for more! lol
Nice work! Big reason why I run a T770 with 92hp diesel engine and quick attach skid loader firewood processer. Less down time more reliable then a processor. Maybe not the same production but still very good.
That would be a nice machine to have! I could settle for something like that and I like the no break down part! Thanks for watching!
Some of those pieces are pretty big.
Surprised it doesn't split in two directions
One of the cleanest pictures out there and I watch alot of TH-cam.
You didn't tag the videos, I'm surprised you didn't use my recommendation
You're right, some of those pieces did end up pretty big. There was a segment during the time lapse where the wedge was down and I was only halving the pieces and I wasn't even aware of it. It's easy to forget if that wedge is up or down.
Speaking of easy to forget, I honestly just forgot about the tags. That is a great idea and at 3am when I finally finished this video it just wasn't on my mind :) You were talking about putting hashtags with the video description; right?
Thanks for the kind words. I shot this in 4K but only rendered in 1080 cause even the 1080 file was over 2 gb. I wish I could work in 4K more efficiently but our internet is not great.
Thanks for watching and the reminder!
@@digdrivediy heck of a memory for all the people you respond to..Yes the tags.
As for rendering. See if you can do 1080P HDR... That's I'll be a huge improvement over 1080P .
Either way it's an improvement
@@enduser1982 I'll look into that for sure. I hated the fact that I went the trouble of 4K and made it 1080.
@@digdrivediy Yeh! Even after the down conversion it still looked pretty good! Better than normal.
if your internet is slow, Ideally editting it and let it go all night uploading to at 4k or what about 2K (2560x1440) a compromise lol
@@enduser1982 Oh yeah. I have to let it go all night. This video here took about 6 hours to upload. I'm gonna see if I can render it in 4K just to see what happens. I might call upon you to check it out if you don't mind when I get it done because I don't have any 4K device to even see the difference!
That’s cool as shit that the rental company charges you for machine hours instead of hours away from their lot.
Exactly! It is a great way to rent!
I know the feeling all too well; saved for a year to rent a tracked skid steer for a week. Day one I threw a track. Tech comes out and puts it back on. Day two threw the other, but now it's the weekend and no one to come fix it. I returned it monday. Come to find out they were new tracks and were just stretching. I could have just given a couple shots of grease every now and then and been fine.
Oh man, that sucks. Hopefully they treated you right on it. Yeah, same kinda deal where I prepped and saved and got ready for this only to fight it for 3 days. Well, what doesn't kill us makes us stronger I guess. Thanks for watching!
I love the firewood handling in the beginning of the season and hate it at the end. Good thing my memory is bad so next season Im back at it again. This year I rented a firewood processor that cut and split at the same time, worked great but its much smaller that the machine you used. Still, after 2 days of work I have more firewood that I have ever had. Regards Nils from Sweden.
That's great Nils. I'm the exact same way! I forget about the end of the previous season!! Great hearing from Sweden. Like to know there are folks just like me all over the world!
@@digdrivediy unfortunately the people that use firewood for heating is getting less and less in Sweden. People drill in the ground for “warm” water and use heat pumps to get the temperature up. That way they dont have to do so much work and have more time to watch TV...... Regards a Grumpy old man😀
I’ve spent two days busting up hickory that I pushed down to widen a road on our farm. That splitting hammer has literally beat me down lol.
Oh I can imagine that Bryan. It wears me out really quickly!
your log splitter seems so much better
At about 700 degrees F the steel will be made SOFTER, not harder, by annealing. For our metal shop class, we had to make a chisel out of block of steel. We had to harden one end (very high heat, then quench), while we annealed the opposite end, to keep the steel from splintering off when struck by a hammer (VERY hard steel). When softened, the hammered end of the chisel will mushroom over, with time. The extra pressure (or whatever) when sharpening the chain teeth might have softened them. Just a guess.
Great explanation! That makes perfect sense. What a great shop class project! Thanks Mike.
@@digdrivediy The issue also exists when sharpening drill bits, especially small ones. You can anneal the tips and ruin them if you push too hard.
Couple things on bars and chains. First...need a PROPERLY sharpened chain. Next need a bar that is in good shape. If the bar is used check to make sure the guide rails on the bar are square and of equal height. Otherwise the chain will want to cut a semicircular path rather than straight. The chain likewise needs to have the guide rail "shark fins" flat and not worn at an angle which will cause the chain to want to cut semi circular cuts. The cutting teeth on the chain need to be sharpened back to the same height and at the correct angle. The depth gauge find must be filed back to the correct height 😊
Great info!
The chain tooth is hardened by heating the metal up and quenching in air, water or oil. This rearanges the crystal structure of the steel. The teeth are then tempered to remove some of the hardness by heating to a specific temperature. (Around 350f for most tool steels). Without tempering the steel would be brittle and break. When the previous user sharpened the chains they burned the teeth by allowing the wheel to contact the tooth too long, a dull wheel was used or they took too much off the tooth. This caused the burning. The blue you see on the tooth is where the temper was pulled out of the tooth by overheating. The tooth is now soft and will not stay sharp. I only hand file chains because grinders are a pain to use and can cause the tooth to soften.
Great info! I knew it had to do with the hardening and softening but wasn't sure of the specifics. Makes sense that they wouldn't stay sharp as that is what we were experiencing. I know what you mean about the mechanical sharpeners. I have a friend of mine that sharpens all my chains. He is incredibly meticulous and takes his time to sharpen chains. When you watch him do it, you can quickly realize that most folks working in a saw shop would never take the time or be able to make any money doing it that way. He hits each tooth with 3-4 very short, shallow quick blasts. Important to never see any orange when sharpening I believe. I leave my chains to him and I'm always satisfied. Have had them from other folks and unfortunately they don't seem to last long. Thanks for the reply!
@@digdrivediy - it's Big Rodders again. I spent 40 years trying to become proficient in hand filing chains but I obviously wasn't man enough so resorted to purchasing a grinder that can cope with Oregon chains that require to be sharpened 10 degrees off horizontal. I too was concerned about the potential of overheating the tips so I converted it to wet cooling with a cutting fluid. I now get very impressive results and the chance of me overheating a tip is virtually eliminated. If any subscriber wanted details of the project I could email them with photos.
Great video. I have a gas splitter for the hard stuff. My boys and I have been splitting by hand . Part of their home school is they are Required so many hours of PE which is up to us to determine what it is. Cape cod has been real cold this past week . Really burning through the wood now !
What a great activity to add to the curriculum! I've been thankful for our mild winter so far this year. Appreciate you tuning in Dirt Brute. I need to go check out your channel again and see what's going on. Do you have a sweet little Pete single axle dump in one? That thing was cool. Thanks for watching!
@@digdrivediy thanks. yes I chopped that truck down to a sixwheeler and built the dump body in my back yard . I just thought it would be something different . Hopefully getting it painted soon !
@@DirtBrute that is an awesome looking truck.
@@digdrivediy thank you sir !
When you super heat a previously heat treated metal it slowly cools and anneals and becomes soft. No longer holding an edge.
I think that was the root of most our troubles!
@@digdrivediy the problem with machine is when you start cutting always make sure the chain stays tight really tight in the first 20 minutes until the chain stretches. Also you Can turn up the hydraulic pressure on the for the saw. Another thing make sure there's not any burs on the bars and file them accordingly and not bent. I have a few there nice once you figure all the tricks out.
The chain when over heated (teeth blueing) can cause the pieces of the chain to chip off or warp inward so the top of the tooth doesnt really grab onto the wood. It almost acts kind of like a raker when the teeth are warped downward.
Right on. Thanks Jacob.
Sounds like you had the exact same experience with your DYNA as we did a few weeks ago.
Oh really? Interesting. Was it a newer model you had trouble with? Wonder if it is a design issue on the newer ones... Thanks for the feedback!
@@digdrivediy exact same model, same cat engine, same everything. And you describe the issues we were having to a T. We went through atleast a dozen chains in 8hr run time. The rep came out and adjusted the down pressure, it worked ok for awhile after that. But I think that was just a bandaid for another issue.
@@batterpm11 Hmmm. Hope they can get it figured out. I think the chain sharpening is one thing for sure. Can't just blast through them...
@@digdrivediy maybe the older model used the first year is better?
@@brianrizzi6321 In my experience it was, but they have some cool improvements on the new model that are also really nice. Mainly he roller mounted to the log holder so that you can advance it a little bit while still being held down.
You are absolutely correct on the speed of the sharpening or he might have an extremely bad habit of holding the grinding wheel on the teeth until they blue and burn. I seriously feel that was the smoking gun! Either way great CSI investigation!!
Thanks so much Rachel! I agree!
Im 69 on the farm and we have two central boiler to feed .
By myself while farming i haul home
Enough wood for both
Get the full length logs home
Split them full length with a skid steer mounted screw like bit
Stack them
Then get enough laid out on logs like a couple horses then in an hour buck them up then scoop them up with a rock bucket
Load a tandem axel manure spreader with beater removed
Back up to burner
I built what i would call a speed jack
Put it on the front of the spreader
When i cant reach the blocks
Turn on a switch load comes back to me easy peasy
I love that manure spreader idea. We have something similar built for our leaf vacuum trailer. I hope that I'm going as well as you are at 69 sir. Thanks for sharing your side of things and I appreciate watching the channel!
Have you looked at the Hudson machines? Pretty straight forward and you can use your own saw for a whole lot less initial investment. I like the simplicity of jut dragging the log up a chute and cutting it. Its not as productive as a actual processor but you don't need to coordinate teams of people to help. I'm probably going to sell my eastonmade 12-22 and look at one of the badgers. The Eastonmade is a tank but the Badger is easier use.
I haven't looked in to any of those Mark but it sounds like it could be handy. Yeah, I don't know what I'll do if my help all decides to quit me :) The easonmade stuff always looks really impressive. Thanks for the suggestion I'll check it out and thanks so much for watching!
Great Job Neil.
Thanks Ron!
Keep up the great work love your videos thank you
Thanks so much Ed!
The only way heat will harden steel, is if you get it to "critical temperature" and quench it(some steel will air quench, but critical temp is way beyond the blue edges of your chain). That being said, there are steels that will work harden, but a chain saw chain isn't that kind of steel. After quenching hardened steel, it is "drawn" back to temper it, relieving stress and slightly lowering the harness.
Blue steel on a hardened piece, is basically annealing the steel which removes the hardness.
Makes sense. So you're saying the chains were perhaps softened? Thanks for watching!
Another outstanding video
Thank you Russell. Appreciate the support.
Going hard in a machine like that can also cause excessive wear to a bar, making the metal wear unevenly and mushroom out, causing the bar itself to catch on the wood. Back when I was cutting wood for a living I'd grind my bars flat a couple times a year until they wore out. And yeah I've never had good luck with machine ground chains. It's good to square them up and get them evened out, but I always follow my tool sharpened chains with a hand grind.
Right on. Very good tip. They provided two bars and I had switched bars just to ensure that wasn't the root of the issue. I have experienced that with my old chainsaw as well. Thanks for watching!
Awesome, really like your firewood videos keep it up!!!
Thanks so much. Firewood is fun when done with the help of some big machines!
I call it bar flare, the pressure of the chain against the bars guide edge w friction the corners of the bottom edge of the bar stick out past the sides of the chain and hangs on the endgrain of the wood. That's my personal experience. I take the bar off and flat file down smooth with the flat sides of the bar and then hit the small bur on the draglink side of the bar.
That makes sense. I switched bars early on thinking that was likely the issue. Didn't seem to make any difference. I"e experienced that with my chainsaw though.
I am quite late seeing this video, 10/28/21, but I did notice something. Never once did you mention bar and chain oil. That is what helps to keep them cooled off. Over heating during use will turn the cutters blue. I use a hand held electric sharpener that uses diamond studded bits. I have never turned a cutter blue but I have sharpened a chain enough to completely use the cutter up. Have good days!!
Thanks Buddy. I used almost 2 gallons of oil in the 8 hours I used this processor. I turned up the oil to ensure I was using enough. I should have mentioned it in the video...or not edited it out I think. Thanks for watching!
You're lucky you can rent those machines. Where I'm located (northern Illinois) there is no place to rent thse. I wish I could because using a regular splitter takes forever.
Yes, we certainly are lucky. Maybe they'll get a dealer close to you sometime soon Mark.
I rent a dyna every year. Love it. We can knock out 18 cord in a day.
That's awesome Corey. They're great machines.
Frozen wood just by it self is rough on chains, and the frozen dirt on them is even worse. The heat does hard them, normally it makes them stay sharper longer, and yes harder to sharpen with a file.
Gotta keep em out of the dirt for sure! Fortunately we didn't have too many with frozen dirt. Lots of folks here think they were sharpened too quickly and burnt. Appreciate you watching.
End part of my post got cut off. What I wrote was years of dust, salt and finite particles blown on to the trees from the traffic, acted like fine sandpaper on our chains. If your current crop of stems came from the periphery of a wind swept field that was cultivated, the same thing could be happening.
The usage of chains with their tempering gone simply exacerbated the problem and would have created the same problem no matter where the stems were coming from.
That's such an interesting bit of fact on how the dust was embedded in the trees. Makes perfect sense to me. Almost all of this timber came from within the woods and for the most part, we kept it relatively clean. Always carried the logs and never drug them. I cut on that pile of logs at my in-laws about every other weekend in the fall and I can cut over two cords of wood with my 036 on the same chain with just a quick touch up between loads, so from my previous experience these particular log piles have been good to cut on. There's another video of me cutting by hand with a mini-excavator and I cut up a cord in about an hour or so. But I love the story about the road side trees. Thanks so much for that interesting tidbit and thanks a lot for watching!
Blue steel happens when metal is burnt. That can happen when over heated in sharping process. Worked on 8 foot lathe and 8 foot deck saw blades. The finished goal is shinny and sharp steel blue and brown is weakened.
I knew that blue on the teeth wasn't ideal! Thanks for the feedback Zachary and thanks for watching!
Once you blue the metal on the chain or any metal you change the molecular structure of the metal. In a chain it won't hold a sharp edge very long.
Makes sense to me. I don't think these chains were holding their edge very well! Appreciate it.
First thoughts are that the rakers on the chain aren't being taken down.
you sharpen the cutting edges without taking down rakers eventually that chain will not cut. even if sharp.
If you didnt feed it mud covered logs those chains would have gone longer.
Wait, what? Now granted, I've only been cutting firewood for about 30+ years, but this is the first I'm hearing that you can't run dirt through a chainsaw! Who knew? While I did admit in the video to ruining at least one chain from hitting frozen mud on a bottom log, our problems went beyond what very little dirt was on most of the logs. None of these logs have been in any mud and I cut on the piles with chainsaws all throughout the season and don't have any trouble. What makes people think these logs are all covered in mud? Last time we rented was same log pile, same setup for handling and cut twice as much. Thanks for watching!
The first logs you start moving it literally looks like you are digging out of the ground. While the machine I run is a Timberwolf it’s a chainsaw style. The slasher styles are much more forgiving. But also more expensive.
@@JDHick86 Gotcha. Yeah, that big log I moved early in the video didn't go through the processor as it was just too big but I thought it was cool that my little tractor could carry it. I'd love to try a slasher style machine also.
Hey Neil its Lindsey just wanted to let you know that me and my Abbott house roommates along with our house manager Rick Till took us to Crazy Pinz to go bowling on my 23thrd birthday yesterday on Wednesday and after that we went to the restaurant Culvers on Stellhorn Road for dinner yesterday on Wednesday and was a lot of fun and exciting as well as thrilling!!!!!!!!
Also wandering when you were planning on putting up a brand new video today or tomorrow anytime soon within this next week or weekend and if you are I will be patiently and quietly waiting so if you could possibly do me a favor and and respond back to me anytime time now today or tomorrow or anytime time now when your ready and free and not busy I would greatly appreciate it thanks ooh and one more thing could possibly do me a favor and and tell the girls Ella and Eva and Kara hello for me I would greatly appreciate it thanks .... I'll be waiting for you to respond back to me anytime time now today or tomorrow anytime time now when your ready and free and not busy
Sincerely and truly yours your loving next door neibor Lindsey 💟💖💝💘💕💞💗💓💌😚😙😘😗😍🙂😃😀😉😄🌈💐💐🌸🌸🏵🏵🌹🌹
I rented the same one, it was a utter disappointment. Very frustrating that it would jam and stop cutting ever 30 minutes. Definitely debating if I would ever do it again
I will be trying again this year for sure. Did your rent the same one literally? Or the same model somewhere else?
Those bars wear extremely quick if not maintained probably chains need to sharpen and rakers filed down.
Flip bars each time you replace chains to wear bar even.
We have owned two firewood processors
Over ten years.
And with my experience it’s the bars and chains
Leading to those issues.
Two most common obvious issues bar stoping half way through the log shuttering of the bar when cutting.
Replace with new bar and chain
There is a flow control for the bar pressure, after a while it’s needs adjusted, nothing major just slightly
Yes, we adjusted the pressure as mentioned at the end of the video.
All great points, But the company needs to check that they have sharp chains.
Ideally they would grind and sharpen them Or if they can’t provide 4 new ones.
And yes a Sharp chain can make a huge difference.
Just wondering maybe they were not using the same thickness of chain and bar last time to this time. A 405 chain will last 2x longer than a 3/8 IMHO.
Great video and great explanation
I use a carbide tipped chain !! Go like crazy
Now there's an idea. They are expensive but always wondered how that would do on one of these.
Thank u for the time to edit this
You're welcome Emilio. It did take a while :)
Previous renter probably used one of those Harbor Freight grinder type sharpeners.
EXACTLY!!
nearly 5k views and no dislikes....that is impressive
Don't jinx it!!! I made it to 6K before replying to this comment. I know, that's weird for me to not have any dislikes. There's always that one guy... Now, he'll probably read this 😉
that's a crazy lot of firewood you use. you might look into building a RMH (rocket mass heater) to heat your living spaces
Yeah I need more wood . There was a storm a few years ago the trees down are all pine! And poplar.
Can always count on a good storm for some firewood!
Some of the comments below are correct,once the tooth has been heated up from using grinder to sharpen they will dull quickly,also the logswhen they are stacked on the ground leaves soil on the logs and this will set the chains off quick too,be combination of these and your going to have a bad day,my suggestion would be when stock piling your logs ,sacrifice a few as sleeper logs ,or logs that the other logs sit on ,up out of dirt.,my question is ,how much did the processor cost for the 8 hours.
Thanks Troy. All the logs at our second location were stacked on telephone poles to keep them off the ground. First logs were hardly dirty though either. I have to attribute it more to the chains then the logs, just based off the last experience with the processor and the amount of wood that I cut out of these piles with just a chainsaw. I mean, I cut many cords of wood without the processor and don't ever go through chains from these locations. The processor is normally $550 for 8 hours. Thanks for watching!
You could run out with the cold weather we are having.
No doubt! This weather puts a hurt on my wood stack!
I didn’t really get a good look at that chain but I’d be willing to bet that they were sharpened incorrectly. Gotta get the tooth angle correct and left and right side teeth the same size. And check raker height. Put a new bar on that machine with several new chains and I’ll bet you could get some work done.
Sounds like everyone is in agreement that I definitely had some chain issues. I think a chain grinder in the wrong hands can do much more harm than good apparently. Appreciate the comment and thanks for watching!
Hate to hear all you got was 8 cord. My dad an I this winter put in a 2 day weekend, cut down, bucked up, hauled, and split with a standard troybilt 27t splitter just over 4 cord for our outdoor woodstove and stacked it. I would honestly feel kinda jipped if all I got was 8 cord with the rental. I wouldnt complain though because you said it was like 500 dollars. I figured way more. We spent a couple hundred between saws, chains, truck gas, splitter gas, ect...
Right on Cody. Yeah, last time I got closer to 16 cords in the 8 hour rental. Oh well, they treated me right on it this time and hopefully it'll work great the next time around. You guys got a lot done in one weekend! That's awesome! Thanks for watching!
Keep up the excellent content, always look forward to seeing your next video pop up. Did y’all build the grandparents house? I saw in a previous video y’all do the driveway and excavation for the foundation. Gorgeous house!
Wow, that's very nice of you to say Andrew. We didn't build the home but we did do most of the site prep and excavation work. Aside from the lot clearing, driveway, basement and yard grading, we also installed the septic system and drainage lines. I was over there every weekend and most weeknights lending a hand to my FIL. He decided he got his moneys worth out of the mini-excavator that way and now he has a nice Volvo firewood assistant as a result! The house and shop turned out really nice. Thanks for watching all those videos! If I had only been doing TH-cam stuff then... Of course I wouldn't have had time to do any dirt work then!
@@digdrivediy y’all have the family network down out there! Awesome seeing a tight nit community/family come together to execute a plan. Thanks again!
Great job and a great video. Thaks.
Appreciate it Thomas!
Had a friend rent one several years ago. They delivered. 100 an hour or half the wood was the deal. They made pieces to big for me. Good for out door burners.
Nice. $100/hr is more than what they charge for this one though. This machine also had a 6 way or 8 way wedge if you wanted one. Like you said though, for our outdoor boiler I can get away with larger pieces.
@@digdrivediy oh I get the outdoor burner.
I get by with 10 cord and it takes me a full week to do it. I generally spread out the work through the summer in the past 5 years.
Good show men.