Stump removal

Discussion in 'The Green Patch' started by oil pan 4, Jul 6, 2021.


  1. oil pan 4

    oil pan 4 Monkey+++

    Well if you want to do agriculture and you have trees one way or another you will have stumps.
    I thought I had taken care of them when I hoed back the dirt from the stump and cut them off at dirt level. Well a few years later they are not below dirt level any more.
    I don't have any heavy equipment to just rip them out of the ground.
    I can blow the stumps up but that might attract unwanted attention and cause collateral damage, I don't mind the craters.
    Burning them would work if we weren't under a burn for up to a year at a time, when there isn't a burn ban the ground is wet and therefore so are the stumps.
    Long term I need a stump grinder. But they are really expensive, even old ones beat all to shit are priced like new ones...
    So build one out of junk I have laying around. I don't have anything more than a 6.5hp motor laying around and that's just not enough. Probably go buy about a 11hp keyed shaft and a go cart clutch for ease of starting. (11hp is the biggest motor with a 3/4 keyed shaft, the biggest keyed shaft go cart clutch is also 3/4).
    For the cutter head I want to build it. Go with a half inch thick 9 inch diameter A36 steel disk on a 1.125 inch steel shaft. I have a machinist in debted to me. I can get the stump destroying fly wheel extremely true on the shaft. He says a 9 inch disk he can get it down to about a thousandth or 2 from true round and a thousandth on the side to side run out. Then mark the flywheel for the 700 series cutter pocket bolt holes guided by his indexing wheel, getting those cutter pocket bolt holes with in a few thousands of perfection. So I can spin this thing up past 3,000RPM which should be terrifying.
    Should I go with more than 11hp?
     
  2. RouteClearance

    RouteClearance Monkey+++

    Have a friend that was in the same boat, had some stumps that needed ground out. He went to every rental place that had them, and it was still cheaper to hire a company to come out and do the grinding. He would have spent $200 more to rent the grinder and DIY.
     
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  3. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

    Might be worth a trip to the rental office and take a few measurements. A couple more ponies than the rental units have could be worthwhile, but I'd be really careful with feed rates.
     
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  4. duane

    duane Monkey+++

    Had best luck with a neighbor who had an old bull dozer, put a ripper on the back, single point into ground, and off set, went around the stump about 36 in out from stump and as deep as possible and broke off roots, hooked blade under stump, lifted and pushed. Didn't work on a couple big oaks, but all the rest popped out in a short time, went back thru field with ripper at about 20 in down and tore out a lot of the roots. Made a pretty good start to a garden. Haven't figured out any way to get rid of a big oak stump but a grinder.

    Most common way here to clear a field is with a good sized excavator and dig and lift them out, not cheap but creates good pasture and leaves no real holes in ground. Darn hard to get rid of stumps, usually pile along fence row and let wash out, cut up andf burn, but they will burn for days.
     
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  5. oil pan 4

    oil pan 4 Monkey+++

    Only have 2 stumps over 2 feet in diameter they are more like 4 feet in diameter and I'll just burn those.
    Just need to eliminate a bunch of smaller ones and keep them from growing back up through the barb wire fence.
     
  6. Ura-Ki

    Ura-Ki Grampa Monkey

    Most dozers with a ripper on the rear should be heavy enough to spike that ripper right down the center of the stump, if not from the edges! Do that a few times ( more if needed) and then rip them out, or push with the blade from a couple different angles! Even if you can't get one out, if you can soften them up enough with the ripper, you can then burn them out from the inside, pour some fuel into the center and light it up! Have yet to meet a stump I couldn't get out one of those ways!
    Conversely, use a chain saw to cut down the center of a stump making it into smaller chunks, if you do it correctly, you should be able to then spike them out with the ripper, drive it down as deep as it will go and then jerk it forward!
     
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  7. Altoidfishfins

    Altoidfishfins Monkey+++ Site Supporter+

    There are stump removing chemicals (consist mainly of potassium nitrate) that you can pour into the stump through holes bored into it. But you have to let it soak in for about a year. Build a charcoal fire on top and let it smolder until it's gone. It can take a few days if it's big.
     
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  8. Bandit99

    Bandit99 Monkey+++ Site Supporter+

    I also got a lot of stumps to get out in order to use a nice piece of level ground. My plan is to rent a 13,000 pound excavator, costs about $400 a day delivered and picked up. I was going to purchase a backhoe but I figure even if it takes me a couple days I would still be much farther ahead money wise and a big excavator will do the job much faster so...that's the plan. Stumps are never easy to get out, did a few using my skid steer, brute force and ignorance but I figure an excavator is about as easy as one can make it; however, I'm listening if anyone got a better idea. No, I cannot burn, too dry, and cannot blow'em up.

    EDIT: They few that I have taken out by hand, a couple were damn big, I have gotten rid of them by digging a large fire pit (15' x15' x 10', buddy dug it with his excavator) and burning them. The pit focuses the fire and it burns completely, usually in less than a day. It is what I use to burn all my slash - burns completely!
     
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  9. Thunder5Ranch

    Thunder5Ranch Monkey+++

    I just cut them down to the ground make a couple of plunge cuts deep into the stump with chain saw and pour sulfuric or nitric acid in the plunges. Sometimes use a auger on the cordless drill and bore a lot of holes but usually not. Also use sulfuric acid most of the time as it easier to obtain and cheaper than nitric, just does not work quite as well. Depending on the wood 12-18 months and it either crumbles out in chunks or burns out easy enough. LOL if you want to speed it up a bit build a smallish pen around it and put 2-3 hogs in, they root the heck out the dirt around the stump and dig a couple feet deep all the way around.

    Good timing on this post, I just ripped up a red oak stump I cut off a year ago and hit with the acid. Pic is one of the roots I pulled out this morning. A year ago that was a green healthy strong root ;)

    DSC02328.JPG
     
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  10. Cruisin Sloth

    Cruisin Sloth Special & Slow

    My 250 Ex with tree standing with all attached , dig around and pull up roots as I go around move dirt to a pile of where the top is to fall about 15 feet away build the dirt bump as high as the root circle and then add one more half , RC= 12 feet , dirt pile = 20 feet bump , push the whole tree over and on the dirt pile, the tree will pull its own root up and out .
    Sloth
     
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  11. Merkun

    Merkun furious dreamer

    Give me a lever long enough ---
     
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  12. Cruisin Sloth

    Cruisin Sloth Special & Slow

    Yup , thats the cheating way ,, but you need a large EX , 200 is min for my trees @ 200' and 3 ft feet buts.
     
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  13. UncleMorgan

    UncleMorgan I like peeling bananas and (occasionally) people.

    Nice touch with the dirt pile. Leverage plus mass & momentum. Can't go wrong with that!

    One of the simpler ways to get rid of stumps is to use the blast furnace/forge trick.

    Drill a 1" hole down thru the center of the stump as deep as possible, then hit the bore from the side as low as possible with another hole.

    You may have to dig around with the drill a bit to make the connection, but when you can blow air in the side and it comes out the top, you're good to go.

    Pour in a little kerosene and light it up.

    Duct tape an old funnel to an electric hair dryer, and start blowing air in at the side opening.

    It's much like running a forge. It'll stoke the fire, turn the tree stump into a dandy Swedish Fire Log, and burn it to ashes in 24 hours or less.

    If the stump is 'waaaaaay out in the pasture and you don't have a half-mile of extension cord, just buy a junk hair dryer from a thrift store, bypass all the internal circuitry and hook the cord directly up to the fan motor.

    It's a twelve volt motor. (Very convenient!)

    Cut the plug off the cord, split the wires and hook them up to a 12v car battery.

    If you want to stand the hair dryer off a ways from the heat, just put a foot or two of metal pipe between the funnel and the stump.

    Here's a gag I once used while burning out a stump during a fire ban: I knew the AH neighbors would call the County, so when they rolled up, the whole family was sitting around the fire sucking down cold drinks and toasting weenies and marshmallows.

    The Code specifically exempted recreational and cooking fires. Both were allowed during the fire ban.

    Since I also had made effective provisions to control the fire, there was no significant risk anyway.

    The guys from the County found no problem at all.

    Check your local regs first, of course, to make sure that will work for you.
     
  14. Tempstar

    Tempstar Monkey+++

    My daddy used to pour buttermilk into several holes drilled in freshly cut stumps and they usually were rotted enough to break up in a few months. Don't know the how or why.
     
  15. snake6264

    snake6264 Combat flip flop douchebag

    Mmmmmmmmmm Det Cord
     
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  16. Bandit99

    Bandit99 Monkey+++ Site Supporter+

    @Thunder5Ranch "...and pour sulfuric or nitric acid in the plunges. "
    I'm curious...is there any downside/negative to using acid, like does the acid stay around in the ground, harm anything? I don't think so but figure its best to ask...

    @Tempstar "...used to pour buttermilk into several holes drilled"
    This is interesting. I got a buddy that is a biochemist, among other things, and I will ask him about this, see if there is anything he can tell us.
     
  17. BTPost

    BTPost Stumpy Old Fart,Deadman Walking, Snow Monkey Moderator

    Nitric acid converts the cellulose in the tree to nitrocellulose which burns easily.. It also get pulled clear down thru the root systems like water and nutrients did when the tree was alive… When you light it off, it the burns fairly hot, and in place, destroying the stump and roots, clear underground to the ends of the roots…
     
  18. Thunder5Ranch

    Thunder5Ranch Monkey+++

    Nope it just gets sucked down through the entire root system and TBH I don't know the exact chemical process that goes on but it changes the wood into something much more brittle and makes it much more burnable. The acid itself is neutralized in the process.

    And BT covered that while I was typing LOL.
     
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  19. oil pan 4

    oil pan 4 Monkey+++

    Nitric acid is pretty expensive, I wouldn't pour it on a stump.
    For the cost of a case of nitric acid I could build a lifetime stump removal machine.
    And there's going to be a lot of stumps to remove in the coming decades.
     
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  20. BTPost

    BTPost Stumpy Old Fart,Deadman Walking, Snow Monkey Moderator

    Not that expensive. I saw a liter of 70% on for $60US… That is enough for a few good sized stumps..
     
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