I finally got my conveyor home. It’s 50’ long. I have to remove the feeder and snout and figure out how I am going to power it. I have a 5hp briggs, electric motors, and a small tractor, so It will be one of those. I would prefer electric because it is quiet, but I need to see how much torque it takes to turn it first.
I’ll take a look at walt’s setup. I was going to get a shorter one about 110 miles away for $300, but then I found this one for FREE, and only 25 miles away. It had a tree growing through it and was up to the axles in dirt after sitting for 30 years, but it popped right out and one tire even held air! We swapped the other wheel, greased the hubs, and pulled it home. I’m excited to get it going.
Love my elevators , I have three and they run on gas engines. I have built four other one's for friends that let me borrow them when I have big wood cuttins one I did use a 3/4 horse electric motor. I would shy away from PTO drive , to much torque if a split gets sideways it will snap a chain. Use belt drive tight enough to run it but loose enough to slip if a split gets sideways. My favorite one is powered with a gear reduction Honda engine. Slower is better. Just finished building another vertical splitter and I am always looking for elevators that I can transform into firewood elevators.
That should work well. Dad has an old Kewanee elevator that has an electric motor on it. We used it for grain & small square hay bales for years. The electric motor will be quiet, the elevator not so much. You won’t even notice a tractor idling over the commotion that thing will make.
Like this, or you mean actually in the crib itself? (The sliding doors are covering most of the cribs in this pic)
It is a shed, about 20 ft square, with a mix of slat and solid walls. I am planning on putting pallets on the floor for air circulation and then fill it with the conveyor.
I used an old rectangular wooden crib for 2-3 years, I would recommend not putting any Honey Locust in it. Basically a dust mask & goggles/safety glasses were required when removing it because of all the boring insects & the mess that was made. In my experience things didn’t dry well. The sides were 1”x6”s with about 1” gaps between them, it had a sloped tin roof. I did not have pallets down so that may help, I did have mine stacked though. I will be curious to see how you get along.
The crib in my pic above is stacked full, 10' wide, 9' tall, and about 27' long and seems to dry fine, or at least good enough to keep the HeatMaster G series boiler happy.
I have a conveyor that runs off a 6.5 predator. Only needs just above idle to engage the clutch. Purty quiet compared to a splitter. This year is the first year I took wood out of one of my pens that had been covered for a full year. Two years in the pen but only covered for one. It was mostly dead oak when it went in. Dry as a popcorn fart in Arizona. FWIW
25 feet. I’ve never measured it but I’d guesstimate it reaches around 10 feet high. Just about right for a pen two pallets high and 8 feet wide. Usually the manufacturer would put a 3.5 Honda on it but was built during COVID when you couldn’t find a Honda engine to save your life
Sort of is. This one was a test to see just how much vertical bracing on the pallets I could do without,,,,,,so I put none Relatively lightweight pallets. From now on I’ll be adding 1 1/4” oak strips to the ends and one in the center to beef them up. On the other pens I put some in spots where a particular pallet seemed weak. I’ll do all of them now. Already started on the ones I’m refilling this year. Just means an extra trip to the sawmill and more screws.
I think the pallets would be stronger if you turned them upright instead of sideways. We have used them to build raised beds and they work quite well. Still going strong years later.
