Guys,
The totes are modified so they are relatively easy to load and unload: BTW using the cut down plastic bin avoids having to dispose of it, increases capacity. acts like a little drying oven when totes are stored in the sun, and provides protection from snow and rain. The bin is zip tied to the frame.
The processor is made by Dyna:
DYNA SC-12 XP Firewood Processor | DYNA Products
There are videos on the site of how they operate. The one I rented had a live deck that I loaded with the grapple attachment...easy peasy. It also had the diesel engine option and sipped fuel. About 10 gal over 15 hours. It comes with three sets of saw chains. It takes about 20 minutes to change a chain the first time if doing it alone...a third hand helps a lot...LOL
Like I said, I will never manually process firewood again. In a previous thread, I looked at buying a faster splitter with a stationary wedge. It did not make sense for me to invest $4000+ for a "good" splitter when I can do the whole job of cutting and splitting for less than $40 cord without breaking a sweat. or maintaining a saw and splitter. (BTW, a "loggers" cord is a stack of logs 100" long and 4x4 ft.). I use 7 cords per season, so my processing cost is $300/year including fuel for the processor and tractor. And the big plus...I can keep using wood fuel for many more years. The only real "work" this year was stacking splits into the totes...about an hour per tote working alone....30 minutes with a helper.
As to the issue mentioned by a poster of "bending over", there is minimal bending as the tote can be lifted up with the forks. The most bending is getting splits off the ground when the pile gets low. With a helper sitting on a stool, they can lift the splits up off the ground and hand them to the person stacking. Time to stack with a helper should be about .30 minutes per tote (.45 cord).
GG, yes the pretty lady is my fiancé!!! The photo was taken weeks ago after we had completed the processing work. Sadly, we learned three weeks ago she has cancer so we are praying for a good outcome. She was ticked that I would not let her help me stack any totes and felt sorry for me working in the heat alone. But she was recovering from biopsies, and it made no sense to push things.
