Thanks to Todd Cates from Durham, NC, USA for that insight into best cutter setup. Check out the actual forum link here.

Spike.....The main benefit of the tooth configuration on my Carlton cutter wheel comes from this. The cutters on the wheel that take out the center on a plunge cut have no need to touch the stump unless you are plunge cutting. On a side sweep which accounts for 99% of your grinding time, the side leads do most of the cutting. I simply set all of the center cutting teeth to about 1/4 to 3/8 inch deeper into the pocket to eliminate their drag on the stump in a side sweep. I also use a different tooth for this position. It has about 1/4 inch less side offset than the main side cutters. Every manufacturer has a different cutter wheel design and there will be some difference in setup. The Rayco wheel design robs power with the way the center cutters stick out past the side leads. If an operator uses the bolt on teeth with no way to gauge them, like the rayco super cutters, then he is loosing a lot of power to pull those center cutters through the wood. If I owned a Rayco I would use standard 1/2 inch shank teeth in these positions on the wheel and set them to a depth where they did not drag on the stump in a side sweep. If I'm not mistaking, the rayco wheel on this RG90 had 6 straight cutters at this position on the wheel. Now the Vermeer tooth pattern is superior to the Rayco in this manner because the center cutters position on the wheel are pre-drilled so they are cutting a little behind the side leads. This is exactly what I do with my Carlton wheel by setting them a little deeper. .......Another thing that I do is; I use Leonardi tomahawk teeth on the Lead cutting positions. For those of you that haven't tried these teeth, do yourself a favor and try them. They have a radical positive cutting angle and it cuts the wood easier. Behind the leads I use a standard 1/2 inch Kennametal shank tooth in a Leonardi Ultimate Pocket. The pockets are heat treated and release the tooth very easily when loosened for changing. The lead cutters offset to the side about 1/8 inch more than the kennametal shank tooth......Think about my theory here tell me what you think........If I take a chainsaw and cut a curf in a piece of wood an inch or two from the end I can take a hammer and with a very light tap i can break off a piece of wood. It breaks with the grain. Now think about the teeth behind the leads on a stump cutter. If the lead offsets a little farther to the side than the teeth farther back, the back teeth in a sense are just breaking the wood off with the grain instead of cutting a new curf so to speak. With this setup I can sharpen or change the leads and let the back teeth get very dull and it still cuts very well. The wheel on my machine has a tooth pattern which lets me cut about 2 3/4 inches of wood on a pass and if the teeth are in good shape I can cut all of that and then some with a very fast sweep to boot.......... I'm sure that if this guy was turning my wheel on his RG 90 he would have beat my grinding time, But I have this wheel setup down to a science and he does not.

 

The Tree Stump Specialist

ROBERTS

This is the stump cutters art taken to extremes, the more I read it the more I appreciate it.

Stump cutting is not all brawn and the biggest engine, it is a skill acquired over time.....