Loading…
22
Vent: I stopped flushing cottonwoods with the chipper and started cutting around them, way less downtime
Everyone I know runs cottonwood limbs straight through the chipper and just deals with the clogged knives later. I did that for years and spent half of last June in Fort Collins pulling wads of stringy fiber out of the drum every 20 minutes, which cost me a full day of billable work across 3 jobs. So I started bucking cottonwood into firewood rounds with the 261 instead and only chipping the smaller green stuff under about 4 inches. It slows the drop a little but my sharpening goes from daily to once a week, and the saw has enough power that it really is not a big deal unless the trunk is huge. My ground guy grumbled at first since he has to stack more now, but he changed his mind after our first full day with zero chipper jams. Another climber told me I was nuts and that he just runs a dull knife and re-sharpens at lunch. Maybe he has a bigger chipper than my old Bandit 200. What do you all do with cottonwood and willow, chip it and eat the downtime or cut it down to rounds like I'm doing? It feels slower on paper but the clock says otherwise.
1 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In1 Comment
nora_park22d ago
That line about the clock telling otherwise is the real test, since a dull knife and lunch sharpening still burns a guy's whole day.
5