The Chipper Winch - Multitool

bonner1040

bonner1040

Nick from Ohio
Joined
Nov 25, 2011
Messages
5,853
Location
Indianapolis / Cleveland
We use our chipper winch like gangbusters... This is just one of the things we do a lot.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/g9B5_J_5l4o" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

We are on a small road contract now, only 50-60 removals but all bucket reachable. We have likely done this to 30 or so whole trees in the last few days..
 
I was at heartwood in north carolina a few weeks ago and they do the same thing. With an rayco rc20 (?) it is pretty sweet most of the tree doesn't even hit the ground. What chipper was that?

jp:D
 
we use a similar technique quite a lot. it can also work really well for fishing loads up and over fences and such if rigged right.
 
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  • #8
I shot all that myself Nick with my Contour!

JP It is a Bandit 1590.

Butch, if you watch closely it just rubs the boom...it doesnt HIT it... the piece was balanced and the brush just kinda skated over top... But yes, I try to avoid that. On the next piece I left a lot more holding wood and had the winch guy settle down a bit. He had quite a bit of tension on the first one, especially being cottonwood. Besides rubbing is racing bro, havent you seen 'days of thunder'?

Jamie, its just like a GRCS when used with the figure 8, that was the 'breakthrough' for us. Originally we would just hook it a inline bowline on the rigging line. All we could do then was rip the load off and set it down. With the figure eight you can lift, lower, lift some more...
 
Nick, how exactly do you transfer the fig 8 from the winch line under load? ive always run the winch line to a rigging prussic on the rigging line, and used a portawrap anchored to the chipper to hold tension if i needed to pull slack or switch the winch from the line to the load. can you explain your setup in more detail?
 
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  • #12
The important pieces are the heel block (redirect from the tree to the winch), the hook on the winch line, the figure 8 (and biner), a sling, and something tough and structural on the chipper to attach the sling to.

take the figure 8, attach it to the rigging line and hard lock it (generally we position the 8 as far as makes sense considering the rest of the process).

Make your cut, either a snap or a notch/backcut is what we do most.

winch the load over (break it off whatever).

If you need to lift you just pull the winch. If you need to lower you can unlock the 8 and lower away (sometimes depending on the load unlocking the 8 can be tough).

If you need to take the winch off before you lower the load to the ground, you pull the winch until the figure 8 is close enough that you can clip it to the sling girth hitched to something structural on the chipper.

Back of the winch letting the sling take the load. unclip the winch and run it out to the butt of the piece you just rigged and winch it in to the chipper lowering off the 8 as you go..

Its an amsteel winch line (5/16" ?) on a bandit 1590. All the rigging was done on an old arbormaster rope or something like that (read: old climbing line).


PS if you are unable to unlock the 8 you pull it back and clip it to the chipper, tie a midline knot on the brake side and use the winch to pull the figure 8 out of hardlock. (Catching the logs we had to do that)
 
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  • #16
There ya go!

Here is another one... Unedited from my cell phone and I had to shut it off before we chipped it. Suffice it to say, once its on the tray you attach the winch line to the log mid way and jam it into the rollers hitting the selector switch when its tight and the auto feed takes the whole log. Just dont chip the cable :).

In this case the whole tree is tip tied and a snap cut is put in at about waist level, the winch line is put on just above the cut and you break the tree right off the stump. The key is making it high enough that it hangs but low enough that you dont carry a bunch of wood!

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/knZLIu1sjSw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

This job we did was like $18k of trees and I would say 70% were just like this. A mini would have been useless across the ditch and most of the trees were to large to flop straight across the road as there were utility lines running the whole way down the street.
 
Was the work bid to be done the way you are doing it, or did your crew approach it this way after getting the green light to start the work?
 
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  • #18
The sales guys have no idea how we do anything (self admitted)... They say "turn tree with pink tape into chips, dont break anything, dont get complaints... if the safety guy shows up dont tell him to frack off"

For this job most all the larger wood was left so if it wasnt easier to winch it and chip it we just cut it into 18-40" pieces and left it. In most cases, if you can hang it its easier to chip the log then buck it.
 
Nick, just curious... With a large company like where you work, is there a provision to sometimes save firewood?
 
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  • #21
I have a guy I give firewood too, sometimes the customer elects to keep it, in which case it usually costs more (unless it BIG wood) because we are equipped to take it away better than cut it into 18"s (basically it comes down to hourly rate). I only take wood to my friend though if its a nearby job and good wood. He burns to heat his warehouse but I took him so much wood he started packaging it and selling it!

In truth the 'company' doesnt have any revenue stream form the post-processed materials. It has been discussed though about getting into the mulch business. From what I know mulch is much more lucrative than firewood.
 
The outfit I used to work for had a vermeer 1800 with a winch, a 75ft hi-ranger and a hiab with 45 ft of horizontal reach. Oh the chit we did! Right now I'm flashy if I bust out the fiddle blocks and porty!

Nice stuff, Nick!
 
Nice technique, Nick, did you invent it, I've never seen it before.

I would think that having the chipper/winch as in-line as possible with the direction of pull would help reduce sideloading of the machine and make chipping/feeding easier?

How big hardwood do you normally chip?
 
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  • #25
Thanks everyone. I cant take credit for the technique, it was something that the other guys on the crew showed me. They arent on the forums or anything so while it may not be the first time anyone has used the equipment like this they have been figuring it out as they go. They first introduced it to me last seasone and it has grown from just tying a knot in the rigging line to installing the steel figure 8 midline.

You have to have the pull more or less coming straight out of the chipper. The capacity of the winch is greatly reduced as you get closer to 90 degrees from the chipper and you definitely run the risk of tipping it over. I dont know that it would on flat graded concrete, but in the wrong conditions I feel like you could definitely flip it. Attached to our-two ton it has pulled the truck backwards too. Generally we either try to kick the chipper in the direction of the pull (not as important that the truck is inline with the chipper), float a block off a tree or whatnot, or we will park it on the street with the bucket truck behind it facing the opposite way and run a redirect off the pintle hitch. That keeps the pull straight as can be.

We just got a new 150' line and its a big improvement over the 85' that we had. We broke the 100' line it came with the first week last year. We had the line running out of the tower, 180*, and straight over top the chipper to the knuckle. We used it to lift some logs into the truck and then it snapped lifting a tarp when it caught a sharp edge on the chipper.

It is an 18" 'capacity' chipper but we push it as hard as it can be pushed... I would say 19-20" logs? The infeed is 19.75" x 20.5" and it will chip every bit of it.

http://www.banditchippers.com/index...rticle&id=76:model-1590xp&catid=16&Itemid=151
 
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