Processing and disposal of wood waste is a headache for enterprises whose activities are related to the procurement and processing of wood, but not only them.
Country property owners also regularly face the problem of removing branches left after clearing the garden, uprooted stumps, and wood construction waste. A simple and useful device - a wood chipper - will help solve all these problems, and perhaps make money.
What is a crusher and why is it needed?
During the planned deforestation and removal of round timber, a huge number of branches of all sizes remain in the cleared area.
Burning them on site is dangerous and irrational. Exporting them in their natural form is expensive and inconvenient - having a fairly small mass, they take up an unreasonably large volume.
It is also impossible to leave them: the tree, rotting, turns into a breeding ground for forest pests.
We should not forget that wood in any form is a valuable source of cellulose. Every recycled branch, every twig is a new newspaper, book page, notebook for a schoolchild.
A crusher will help to significantly facilitate the processing of wood waste. Wood crushed directly at the felling site takes up little space, is easy to transport, and is completely ready for further processing.
Kinds
The industry offers wood crushers of various designs. The choice of one model or another directly depends on the amount of work expected. Large enterprises involved in deforestation prefer autonomous devices that are installed on tractors and are guaranteed to cope with any amount of waste. For a country house or cottage, it is rational to purchase a portable crusher with an electric drive.
There are several main types of wood crushers, each of them has its own characteristics:
- disc crusher;
- drum chopper;
- rotary unit with a vertical or horizontal shaft;
- hammer crushers of various designs.
Disc chippers and drum chippers are great for woodworking businesses. These units can easily cope with thick branches, and if necessary, they will break whole trunks into chips. The quality of the resulting chips allows it to be used for the production of wood panels, bypassing the additional processing stage.
Rotary units, or shredders, are ideal for processing wood waste from construction. Wooden beams removed from destroyed dilapidated buildings, boards used as formwork, as a rule, are replete with various metal objects, these are self-tapping screws, staples, nails. These devices allow you to crush wood and separate it from metal.
A hammer crusher for wood is excellent for crushing finished wood chips to bring its size to the desired fraction. The main part of the device is metal hammers on a pendulum suspension.
What elements does the chip machine consist of?
The chip machine has a simple design, which is driven by the main element - an electric or gasoline engine.
The device package consists of the following components:
- removable housing for safety and ease of replacement of spare parts;
- a shaft that is connected to the electric motor via a pulley;
- a disk equipped with three sharp knives, which actually chop the wood material;
- groups consisting of hammers that produce free rotation;
- electric or gasoline internal combustion engine;
- frame;
- a container for placing recyclable material in it, made in the form of a funnel;
- a sieve with an approximate mesh size of 2 cm;
- output element for obtaining finished wood raw materials.
The chip crusher is used as a grinder of wood material into pieces with a length of 2.5 cm and a width of 0.5 cm, which is excellent for the production of wood concrete, which, after special processing, can be used in the process of building a house.
Why is a waste crusher useful?
Before moving on to the question of how to make a wood chip cutter, you should consider the main advantages of using this unit.
The device allows the owner to avoid the process of making fires from collected garden waste, which every owner of a summer cottage or private house faces. The garden is cleaned every year; as a result, a lot of waste is collected after pruning trees, forming bushes or preparing the garden for winter. As a result, a lot of cut branches, tops, and bushes remain, which subsequently need to be removed or burned.
A chip machine relieves the owner of such tasks and allows the production of reusable material from waste.
After crushing the waste, the owner of the wood chipper will receive a suitable mixture from which they can make compost or use it to refuel solid fuel heating equipment.
Naturally, the machine will be useful in any home where there is even a small garden plot or vegetable garden, however, due to the high cost, not everyone can afford to purchase such a unit. There is another option to acquire a useful device - make a wood chipper yourself.
VIDEO: How to make a chip cutter in just a couple of hours
Step-by-step preparation of parts
Before you start manufacturing the unit, you should make sure that all the necessary elements are available and select the most optimal version of the drawings with the specified dimensions for each spare part.
Drawing of a homemade crusher
Engine for wood chipping
The choice of engine determines how productive the chip crusher will be and how much money will be required to invest in operation.
The electric engine has a good degree of environmental friendliness, low noise level and light weight, but is significantly inferior in power to gasoline engines.
The gasoline unit has high power, does not depend on electricity, but is very noisy and requires some maintenance and regular refueling.
How to make a crusher - select a disk with knives
Disk-platform for knives and at the same time a flywheel
The diameter of the disk should vary between 30-35 cm, thickness no more than 2.5 cm. The weight of the element is not enough to avoid jamming of the disk during operation, so it must be made heavier. The disk can be equipped with a metal blank, in which you need to create a small hole for the shaft (including keyed fastenings), 3-4 mounting recesses and three grooves, through which chopped wood material will then pass towards the rotating hammers.
For home and garden
For home use, a very powerful unit is unlikely to be needed. An electric crusher with average characteristics can easily cope with the work of disposing of gardening waste.
This useful device, installed in the country, will help solve a number of problems. Among other things:
- will get rid of constantly accumulating debris in the form of branches and uprooted stumps;
- will allow you to save significantly, wood chips are an excellent fuel that can replace the usual coal, firewood, gas;
- will produce sawdust, which is one of the best materials for mulching plants;
- will help you make money on the chips obtained as a result of crushing, because this is an excellent material for creating wood boards and producing paper.
Even if the amount of wood processed is not too large, the crusher is guaranteed to pay for itself, since waste that was previously burned or rotted can be recycled, thereby contributing to preserving the ecology of the planet.
DIY making
You can buy a wood chipper at any hardware store. The industry offers devices of any power, for every taste. Of course, if you have the skills to work with metal, you can make a full-fledged wood waste crusher with your own hands. It is unlikely to reach industrial volumes, but it will definitely cope with work at the dacha.
Selecting a device circuit
There are different types of wood chippers, each with their own pros and cons. In principle, if you have the proper experience, tools and materials, you can make any of them at home. Here it is important to soberly assess your strengths and proceed from the amount of work that will be performed by the crusher. The best option for home use is a disc crusher for wood. On the one hand, it is easy to manufacture, on the other, it has sufficient performance.
The working part of a homemade crusher is a disk with knives mounted on it. Rotation is transmitted to it through a belt drive. The disk rotates, the knives bite into the wood, breaking off chips from it. The chopped wood is thrown outside, stored near the crusher or filled into bags.
Preparation of tools and materials
Before you start making the device, you should prepare the tool. To work you will need:
- welding machine;
- Bulgarian;
- drilling machine or electric drill, you can get by with a mini-machine, a drill mounted on a frame, providing an accurate drilling angle;
- set of tools (keys, screwdrivers);
- brush and paint.
To manufacture the working part of the crusher, you will need a steel disk with a diameter of about 30 cm. The thickness of the metal must be at least 16 mm. This disk, in addition to fixing the knives, performs the functions of a flywheel, therefore, the greater its mass, the larger the branches the unit can handle.
Cutting tools - knives. They can be purchased, selected by size, or made independently from a hard steel plate about 7 mm thick. The knives are fastened with bolts.
The electric motor power for this device should be about 3000 W. This power is enough to cope with the volume of waste generated in a standard garden plot. The shaft is made of steel rod; bearings are selected according to its diameter. A drive pulley is also installed on it.
Among other things, you will need sheet steel to make the casing, a square for the ejector blades and mounting brackets.
Principle of operation
Making a wood chipper with your own hands is not so difficult, but such a device will become an indispensable assistant for any gardener. Having a homemade firewood chopper on your farm, you can process a large pile of branches in a short time, thereby obtaining shavings and sawdust, which are suitable in the form of compost or fuel.
To make a wood shredder with your own hands, you will need a diagram. You can use the design of a factory device; it is easiest to select the necessary parts for it. But before that, you need to understand the principle of operation of the device. If you don’t do this, you won’t be able to make a wood chipper.
This device is actually very simple. It includes a motor, a shaft, it contains cutting elements, a frame, a protective shell, as well as a receiving compartment through which the wood gets inside. In addition, it is best to install such equipment on a two-wheeled base, then moving this heavy structure will be much easier.
The operation of such a device occurs according to the following principle: the rotation of the motor begins to move the shaft using a chain or belt. After the wood material enters the equipment, the knives process it into very small pieces, after which the sawdust exits through a special hole. The type of operation of such a device resembles a kitchen meat grinder.
Even before purchasing the necessary parts, you need to decide on the exact purpose of the device. Its power and the price of parts will depend on exactly what branches and boards will be crushed on it.
