GEK Wiki / 55gal drum top chunker
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55gal drum top chunker

Page history last edited by jim mason 14 years, 4 months ago

Here’s an idea for how to make a stick wood chunker at minimal cost and complexity. 

 

This is a chunker focused solely on stick wood to chunkette scenarios.  Several recent trips to forested areas reminded me that slash piles are everywhere, and that it's the small sticks that are without competing uses, not the larger logs.  Thus a stick wood chunker seems relevant for these types of locales.

 


 

 

 

 

WoodProcessorStudyDirectDrive.pdf

 

 

The idea is to make simple rotary chunker as a lid mounted addition to a standard 55 gal open top drum.   Imagine a machine like the classic food processor into which you feed carrots to slice them, only in this case you feed wood sticks.   All we'd make is a new lid assembly, integrating the motor, feed chute and disk slicer.  The results then mount to the any open top 55 gal drum,   somewhat like a lid top shop vac.  All the action goes on down inside the drum, relieving us of the need to make the cowling structure and blade protection of a typical stand alone chipper.

 

The cutter for this is an angled slicer, not a perpendicular chopper like a disk chipper.   The action is more like a whirling machete taking a long slicing cut at low angle.  The blade and circular backing disk are spinning under the lid, down inside the drum.  The spinning disk is the feed limit.  Spacers adjust the blade height above the disk, likely to about 1” height.  The end of the blade has a long trailing section bent down to knock the chunks down into the barrel, and appropriate fences to keep chunks from wedging in wrong areas. 

 

Wood/carrots are fed in via a 2" diameter feed tube/chute.  As this is a top down feed, gravity will feed the stick once it's placed in the chute.  The blade is imagined as simply 1/8" mild steel, like a machete.  Easy to sharpen, easy to remake if need be.  Something hardened would be better, but machetes have surprising longevity with just mild steel.  The thin long curved blade also reduces the power needed, and lessens the splitting typical of large wedge blades. 

 

I've drawn up two versions, both of which are based on a 1hp 120vac motor.  One uses C faced motor with 10:1 right angle gear motor, and one is based on pulley reduction.  My tapping out feed rates on the desk suggests the chunker disk should be 150-300rpm.  This is in the 10:1 - 6:1 range.  This is much slower  han the common disk chipper, which is 1500-2000rpm or so.  This is a slicer, not a perpendicular cutter.  It can go much slower and require much less power.   Balance and safety issues on the spinning disk are much reduced.

 

 

WoodProcessorStudyPulleys.pdf

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