Pto bench saw

southkilkenny

Hi all,
We cut a good lot of timber each year running two houses plus selling approx 80 to 100 car trailer loads per year locally. All hardwood, cut with chainsaw on our own land which had become overgrown and neglected in places.

Can't justify price of a firewood processor and unsure how they are with crooked oak or willow limbs! Considering buying a pto bench saw... Question is this major one,
https://www.major-equipment.com/products/swinging-saw-bench/
Or Or this max axe one from a crowd near mitchelsttown
https://www.hartnett-products.ie/products/pto-driven-log-saw

Or Murphy brothers in ferns wexford do one also. Anyone have one of these or any insight into which one would be best. Any advice appreciated.

patsy_mccabe

I reckon a good log holder and chainsaw would be quicker and safer than those saws. Having to constantly move the log to cut seems a right pain. I have a log holder and electric chainsaw here in the yard and I cut a fair bit with it. Maybe not as much as You, but still.

kerryjack

What's the price of those saws

southkilkenny

The max axe one from hartnetts in Cork is 1260 i think that includes vat, don't have price for the others.

southkilkenny

Patsy, what type of log horse have you. I see a good bit of good feedback on the timber Croc but they only hold one stick at a time which is a pain for stuff less than say 4 inch diameter, of which we would have a good bit of, we would have stuff of diameter of 30 inch down to say 1 inch, we tend to use virtually all of the tree. I did male a logholder to hold lots of sticks but find a ratchet strap to hold the sticks down to be a right nuisance and needs to be constantly opened and tightened again esp with small stuff. At moment though, most cutting down on floor of open hayshed which has 2 foot of sawdust built up under foot but requires a lot of bending down, though not too bad as we use min 20 inch bar for cutting everything. Any pics of your log holder?

patsy_mccabe

This is the One I have. Have it years. Downside is having to adjust the arm for different diameters, but at least it's safe and a one-man job.

https://www.hireandsupplies.com/smart-wood-log-holder-saw-horse/a/78909/

patsy_mccabe

Get one of these. The best wood processor I've seen....... and I've watched a good few videos.

ep71

We have the major one, it's absolutely brilliant. You really fly through stuff with it

Kevhog1988

Uncles have a posch firewood processor here. It really is a savage job and worth the money. They get loads delivered and 2 days would do an artic load

forgottenhills

southkilkenny wrote: »

Hi all,
We cut a good lot of timber each year running two houses plus selling approx 80 to 100 car trailer loads per year locally. All hardwood, cut with chainsaw on our own land which had become overgrown and neglected in places.

Can't justify price of a firewood processor and unsure how they are with crooked oak or willow limbs! Considering buying a pto bench saw... Question is this major one,
https://www.major-equipment.com/products/swinging-saw-bench/
Or Or this max axe one from a crowd near mitchelsttown
https://www.hartnett-products.ie/products/pto-driven-log-saw

Or Murphy brothers in ferns wexford do one also. Anyone have one of these or any insight into which one would be best. Any advice appreciated.

These tractor saws look much improved in terms of safety from ones out years ago. My Dad operated one in the 70's/80's, driven off a belt from a PTO pulley and there were no guards on it whatsoever! How it didn't kill him I don't know. Once I was feeding him the logs and saw the blade catch a small cut log that had fallen under it and throw it clean over the house 40 yadrs away. Another time we had done a lot of cutting one morning and stopped for lunch. When we came out and before he fired it up again I luckily noticed that there was a big crack developing in the saw blade, radiating out from the centre of the blade. If the blade had shattered at the high RPM it was running at I wouldn't like to think where bits of it would have ended up.

patsy_mccabe

forgottenhills wrote: »

These tractor saws look much improved in terms of safety from ones out years ago. My Dad operated one in the 70's/80's, driven off a belt from a PTO pulley and there were no guards on it whatsoever! How it didn't kill him I don't know. Once I was feeding him the logs and saw the blade catch a small cut log that had fallen under it and throw it clean over the house 40 yadrs away. Another time we had done a lot of cutting one morning and stopped for lunch. When we came out and before he fired it up again I luckily noticed that there was a big crack developing in the saw blade, radiating out from the centre of the blade. If the blade had shattered at the high RPM it was running at I wouldn't like to think where bits of it would have ended up.

That's what I don't like about those saws. There's just too much energy in that spinning blade. Think about how dangerous an angle grinder is and it has only a fraction of the energy.