Chipper DR Chipper

[patrickg]

It is like waiting for Christmas. It seems everywhere I look I see stufF to shove into a chipper. Some of the professional right of way clearing guys complain about their chipper cloging up from the cedar trees. They have a humongous Asplundh (SP?) I don't know what style chipper it is. I know there are different ways to build a chipper.

Have you had any problems with highly resinous wood like cedar? Maybe you are lucky and don't have junky wood to chip. Is there any problem with "aged" limbs, not old enough to be rotten but well cured/dried? If so I guess I could burn the old and chip fresh stock.

Is it here yet? How about now?

Patrick

 

[Charlie_Iliff]

Patrick:
Asplundh is the name of the family that started the tree service company, and still runs it, or at least did when I dealt with them a few years ago. I think they're the biggest tree service company in the world. I don't know what chippers they use, but you can be sure they are well researched and tested -- and generally big!

 

[BillG_in_TX]

Patrick,

Down in Texas, what we usually call "cedar" or mountain cedar, is really <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.noble.org/imagegallery/woodhtml/AsheJuniper.html>Ashe Juniper</A>. In other words, it's part of the juniper family, rather than a cedar. Is that what you have up in Oklahoma, also?

I ask because I'm asking myself the same questions about our "trees", and will be interested in your experience with the DR. I hate this stuff, and I have at least 35 acres left to clear./w3tcompact/icons/sad.gif

 

[MikePA]

My brother-in-law used to work for Asplundh and you're correct, they had big chippers. My B-I-L left Asplundh and started his own tree trimming business and his first purchase was a used chipper. It had a Ford 302 V8 for power. Awesome.

 

[DavidInNH]

BillG49,

When I was growing up, the "experts" told me that Texas cedar was really "Mexican Juniper". My scoutmaster was also in charge of Bear Creek Scout Camp in the Texas Hill Country. He always found excuses for us to clear "cedar trees". I've cut more of that stuff with a folding saw than I even want to think about.

The resin is really, really sticky. I don't know how it would do in a chipper - I chip mostly hemlock and it does just fine, but it isn't nearly as resinous as that stuff.

I would be cautious on the old hard stuff. I have tried to chip heardened hemlock in a manual-feed chipper and it will really bruise your hands and dull the blade(s). If you can hang on long enough, the elapsed time is several times that of green wood.

-david

 

[DavidInNH]

When I was looking for a chipper, I looked for something used. The first thing I found was one of those monsters. They wanted $80K for a used one. I think there was a bigger one listed.

I was bragging about my new chipper to my brother and he used the Crocodile Dundee line on me - "that's not a chipper, THIS is a chipper". He was talking about his neighbors with the grapple feed and BIG diesel. He said the radiator was almost 6' high. He lives in CO now, but he is from Texas too so he just might be exagerating a bit...

-david

 

[Egon]

Patrick:

How about now?

In real siderial time when is now?

Egon

 

[patrickg]

Bill, The locals call them cedar. I thought they were Juniper but to communicate with the locals I just call them cedar. Not sure regarding the specific species. Do cedar have little berries like juniper? They are reaching plague proportions in parts of Oklahoma. I read a newspaper article that really gave a negative report on them, talking about loss of pasture etc. to their spread. My mom was born and raised in Oklahoma and lived on a farm til she was 18. She said she doesn't remember them from way back then so maybe it is a gradual spread or evidence of climate change or alien intervention...

Thanks for the URL. I have a friend who is much more up on this sort of thing than I but his wife is in the hospital for surgery so I can't quiz him just now. Although a PhD Zoologist (entomologist by training) he is pretty hip to the states flora as well as the fauna. I suspect we have the same trees as you but will confirm later. The Asplundh guys sure complained about them. I cut a few yesterday and the day before with a chainsaw. Seems that they were close to some pear trees and thus avoided any brush hog action for several years (pear trees are over 75 yrs old but I am not sure how much- bear like crazy wit delicious firm sweet and juicy fruit, consistency of a sweet crisp apple but flavor of pear). The ones I cut oozed gooey sap/resin from under the bark (cambium layer?). I suppose I could chip a few, inspect for accumulating resin, chip some other species, inspect for resin reduction, and see if that method would prevent super-clogs. We'll see.

Again, thanks for the great URL.

Patrick

 

[patrickg]

Egon, In real (non-imaginary part time) real-time, NOW is before LATER, how much before later depends on your inertial frame of reference, relative velocity, an' other stuff like recessional velocities of the siderial reference, ignoring dark matter, black holes and other lower order contributions, oh, and daylight savings/wasting influences.

Patrick

 

[BillG_in_TX]

Patrick,

My field guide says that Ashe Juniper (Mountain Cedar, Rock Cedar, Post Cedar, Mexican Juniper, Break Cedar, Texas Cedar, Sabino) "occurs on limestone soils that were part of an ancient reef more than 60 million years old. The juniper ranges from the southern Ozarks in Arkansas and Missouri, down through the Arbuckle Mountains in Oklahoma, and into Texas, where it approximately marks the eastern edge of the Balcones Escarpment fault line." Sounds like your area is included in that swath.

It goes on to say that "When the Edwards Plateau was first settled, Ashe Juniper occupied only the stoniest, steepest hillsides and the heads of canyons, places where they were not destroyed by fires. After the settlers stopped the fires, Ashe Juniper began to colonize the lands." I think your mother's memory is correct (not to suggest that she was an early settler)./w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

These days the mature trees are protected in the Balcones Canyonlands west of Austin because the golden cheeked warbler uses the shedding bark to build its nest. The key is - don't let 'em get big!/w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif Unfortunately, I've got a few monsters (30+ ft), and they all seem to be male. Males generate the pollen that gives the Hill Country those purple haze sunsets in the late winter and causes allergy sufferers to curse them, while females have the berries.