Thread: Firewood Bagger

A couple of questions - Are you bagging off a splitter, if so what type? Or are you bagging from a pile of split wood? When you say it need not be automatic, how manual are you prepared to go?
Bagging from the rear of a dump truck fitted with a tapered chute is one option. But if you are bagging by hand, a bag holder, a bag needle and twine is all that is required. A conveyor may be what you need
There are quite a few different options, some more automated than others, if you can give some sort of an idea what your looking for it may be easier to come up with a suitable system.

we would be bagging out of a pile as the wood will need some time to dry out abit. And i said it wouldn't have to be automatic because i didn't want people to think i'm talking about some big complex and expensive bit of machinery. And i'm liking the sound of the chute option. how would you see that working?And when you say a conveyor may be required, what would it's use be? i'm open to all options, and i'm very thankful for your response. my preference would be to start off with something simple (so that we can begin the bagging process) and then create an automatic or semi-automatic machine. Thanks

another thing i just thought of, the problem with the chute idea is that each bag has to be 15kg, but i guess each bag can be weighed before being sealed. my first idea was to have the 15kg's of wood already known and then drop it into a bag.

Welcome to the forum.

Thank you

This sounds like a Canberra spec. 15kg. What a PITA that's going to be. Firewood is very much a variable, specie to specie and piece to piece. For loading and stacking, bag equality in size is far more important to you. Once you start removing or adding pieces to make weight your bag length can change dramatically. Hopefully, the weight spec comes with a decent variable.
Now back to getting the splintery little buggers into a bag. A full width grain hopper chute mounted on the tail of a tipper works well. The bag can either hang off the end of the chute as per a grain bag, or it can be mounted in a bag frame on the ground. The latter is better for heavy wood, as the hooks on the former can damage the bag mouth quite badly. The frame is a simple affair, made from gal water pipe; a square bent up 100mm bigger than the bag base (this is the base on ground') two upright tees with the base welded to the centre of two opposing sides of the square. The top of the tee should be cut to suit the bag mouth size, or can be made slide adjustable to suit varying bag sizes. The lip of the bag is folded over the tee to hold the bag open. A short spur welded to the tee uprights at a height adjacent to the lip of the bag when turned over the tee prevents the bag sliding down while filling.
The art of filling the bag is getting the wood to fall flat, not end first. This is achieved by setting up the chute so the wood comes down in a cross-ways fashion, usually by use of a baffle in the wide part of the chute, which directs the piece to the side of the chute just before the loadout opening. This way, the piece is presented to the loadout in a "long side to London" format. If the load out is kept short, the piece has no time to turn before falling into the bag. Well that's the theory anyway.
An easier method is a conveyor, like a brickies or roof tilers conveyor. The pieces are either hand placed on the belt or can be hopper fed from a tractor bucket.
Why we are still persevering with bagging firewood I have no idea. It would be far easier to rap a couple of pieces of packing strap around em, tighten it up with the ratchet, clip on a wire handle and send em on their way. Even shrink wrap would be heaps easier.

Hi, Xay Phyland,
I received your PM but decided to answer it here as I wanted the pictures to help all who are trying to help you. The things we would like to see pictures of are, the pile of wood you are working from, the space you have to work in (back yard, paddock, factory or what have you) and what size your 15kg bundles come to.
Yours

If the spec is to a weight - then the answer is to weigh pack them.... Sturdy cart + decent commercial scale + bag holder on top = 1 work station...

I would strongly encourage you to start with a fully manual operation, pay people on "piece rate"... Aka you pay them so much per bag... Pay them each day in cash if you can swing it....

Have a bag holder on top of a scale. Bag goes on the holder, tare the scale with the empty bag in the holder, load bag to 16kg (so you don't short anybody), tie, next. Let it go on. Encourage people to come up with creative ways to go faster - and they will... Especially when you pay piece rate.... And as people come up with improvements - test them out and use them...

The really interesting bit about this is that you will learn all sorts of wonderful stuff about how to make it go faster and more efficiently...

The second bit is that doing it manually where you pay piece rate for day labor is that it's easy to "flex" up or down depending on your demand.... You cannot do that when you are paying interest to the bank on the giant steel hydraulic and computerized dragon Jam-O-Matic... That way - say 2 weeks from now is a holiday weekend and everybody wants a fire - just bring on 3 or 4 more folks and crank it out. then there's only minimum heartburn over where to store the scales and metal bag frames...

Last - one of the worst ideas in the whole world is to buy an automated machine before spending a lot of time making improvements to a manual piece work operation.. There are a million little things you learn doing piece work and making it more efficient over time.... And all those things will lead you on the path towards better and more reliable automation where the machine makes the operators job easier.......

But honestly - firewood is so variable that I am not sure I really want to deal with the constant headaches of endless automated machine jams.... The first key question is "Do you rule the automation or does the automation rule you?" ..... And 95% of the time it's the second... The operator's endless task is resetting errors and unjamming the iron and steel dragon which must be operated at a high rate because of expensive monthly payments to the bank...

I just typed in firewood bagging and a few came up, some elaborate and some dead simple ones. Most require the pieces to be a set length.
Here's a very simple unit, easy to make too. Sit the loaded bag onto some scales to get the weight, add or take out to get your minimum if needed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZyqc5BxwDY
If you're handy with a welder and some mechanical skill, knocking up something similar this should be within your skills, albeit a simpler setup.
This would give you a basic machine, one or 2 operator.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn8hZ4v5Z5g
You'd probably need to look into getting a forklift or similar, as loading them to/onto a pallet and moving them will get very tiring after a while.
Hope this helps.
Kryn