Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire stump grinding

When those chips starting coming off that grinder your going to know what I'm talking about with the chainsaw saving you a lot of time. The closer to the ground that stump is, the better. Knowing where your wheelbarrow and shovel is before you start is also a good idea. A stick of firewood can make A LOT of chips.

You may know all this but if you shut a gas engine off when it's hotter than hell you can lock the motor up so make sure and cool it down before you shut it off. If you don't want to stand around cooling your motor off, a leaf blower or air compressor with a blow gun speeds things up.

The last time I rented one, by the time you rent it for three hours it cost about the same as renting it for the day.

Pre-cut to 4"-6" above ground, 12" stumps were ground down quickly with the machine I used, but I grind them through the roots below ground so I can take the entire root out.

That takes more time but a daily rental should get your job done without killing yourself.

Start early, return it next morning.

can't speak for the toro but I did rent a vermeer and it worked well.

I suspect the toro will do OK but you're just going to have to skim the stump more than bite at it.

Wear safety glasses

Most places have small ones that take some time....the big vermir on I used for som big Doug fir stumps....it really chews them up...
So I depends on the size of the machine you get.....cut the stumps as close to the ground as you can it will save you time...

When I was a kid, a neighbor gave my dad a pile of 16' 4x4's that he had no use for. Dad decided to use them for fence posts. We cut them in half and my brother and I spent days planting them. Then we started to string wire. We bent every staple. We absolutely could NOT get the staples in those things. We tried drilling them but kept breaking bits. Then the neighbor admitted that they were black locust that someone had cut into 4x4's and gave to him. He couldn't do anything with them either. We ended up pulling them all up and burning them.

The 2 Russian olive stumps I mentioned earlier are like that. One is only about 3" high but the other is 3'. I tried burning it out but I ran out of wood to pile on it. It might end up being there for a few years while I accumulate enough tree prunings to burn it.

Yep, I break a few 1/8" drill bits on locust posts. Some of them have been in the ground now for over 60 years. But bits are cheap and so is saw chain when compared to hours of labor.

No no no!!!. ^^^ This is a very bad idea. I own a construction company with all of the earth moving equipment and I still rent a stump grinder to do stumps in my yard.

When I have pushed trees out, I need all the top for leverage. The old Cat 944A loader would pull a fair size tree out by the roots, when a hose blows, the rear hitting the ground gets your attention.

Another one that can get incredibly hard when dry is willow. Years ago, I took out a corkscrew willow. I cut all the branches into stove sized pieces and put them in the wood shed. Then I cut the 3' trunk into 12 to 14" rounds and stacked them to split later. Later turned out to be 2 years. Bad choice. My splitting maul just bounced off of them. I beat a steel wedge into pieces and couldn't make a dent in them. I finally gave them to a friend who had a hydraulic splitter. He managed to blow a hydraulic line on them and got nowhere. He ended up burning them in his pasture.

I wonder how a stump grinder would handle an old willow stump.

Don't bring a pellet gun to a trap shoot and expect to win.

As with most pieces of machinery.
#1 is operator experience
#2 is sharp blades
#3 is enough HP

Considering carbide will cut stone, I can't imagine a dried out old stump would put up much of a fight.

Take a twenty pound bag of charcoal and bury stump in charcoal ,use lots,cover with a tub and pack dirt around it so no air can get in and leave until cool.O.I.Dabble

Probably of no use to you but I waited 'til the local council organized a tree lopping mob to trim and remove some local trees, then I paid the blokes that worked for the company $50 to remove the tree stump from my front yard...took them about twenty minutes after they knocked off work.

Beer money I suspect.

I actually used this exact machine a couple weeks ago. Its awesome and it should take no more than 20 minutes a stump. I did a 30"+ giant oak stump in 40 minutes maybe..

I have one in our rental fleet and just ordered another today. They work well and are easily operated. The 26 will do a 12" birch (hardest thing we see here) in bout 15 minutes, roots and all. IIRC the 26 is only about 10 to 15% slower than the stx 38.
You should like it...

That's what I was looking for, someone who actually knew how they work. Thanks. Because of the number of stumps I have, I'll probably need to get it for a full day anyway. That's $168 plus tax at our local rental.

They rent them here at work, takes a little while on some stumps, but they get them below ground. I have pulled lots of stumps out with two large chain cum-a-longs. Slow but I've gotten some big ones out.