GAS-L: coppice cutters

[fractional@willmar.com]

   Thanks Doug for the reply and promise of more information on coppice
harvesting.
Personally that single row device sounds interesting for home fuel
uses.  A fellow with the Minnesota  willow and poplar project informed
me that rotary shears and high speed circle saws were being used.
   After some search I found one machine that took a single row and
stacked them on a trailer whole, without stripping them.  It might have
been a pic of a Swedish machine at some English site.  Can't find them
anymore.   Apparently they store and dry them that way for later
chipping right at a CHP microplant.
   The other machine somehow or other picked them out and processed them
like silage.
I have taken a 212 Case silage harvester and stripped the corn head off
of it thinking there is no point in trying to stuff them in backwards.
The objective is to be able to chop the stuff on the go and throw it in
a grain trailer, then throw it in a old corn crib for drying.

   My plan was to push the 'stocks' over and nip them with a rotary
shear and grab them right there with some vertically oriented toothed
drums.   From there deliver the sticks butt first to the traction feed
wheels on the existing harvester with the aid of two opposing conveyor
belts.  Most of this stuff was salvaged from junk equipment as I have no
plans to make harvesters for a never to appear market.   I'm not looking
to reinvent a harvesting process, if there is anything out there that
works simpler please pass it along.

Thanks,

Alan



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