# Looking for chipper advice...



## Gooserider (Apr 3, 2009)

I'm taking down a fair number of trees around the house, and trying to clear up a lot of brush around the place as well.  We have several brush piles, but they are getting a lot bigger and uglier than I really like.  I'm thinking that it is time to invest in a wood chipper.  While it would be really nice to have one of those pro-grade, umpteen horse jobs that can eat entire trees, the budget reality is more on the order of a home-owner size unit, probably second hand.

I also am trying to make some compost, and have heard that it processes a lot faster if you run the leaves through a chipper first, so that function would also be useful, though less important.

Looking on the local Craigs list, I am seeing several, mostly around $300 or so, ranging from 5-10 horsepower, claiming to handle up to about a 3" branch - not likely to be needing to do anything that big, as I tend to make firewood out of anything more than an inch or two...

What should I look for in a small chipper / shredder?  

Any particularly good types of cutters to look for / avoid?

Any brands to watch out for?  A couple seem to be "Yardman" - is this an MTD clone?  I know MTD is usually not real good, how are their chippers?

What size engine should I be looking for?

Any sort of models out there that can be made to run off our Craftsman lawn tractor, or maybe off my splitter engine (I wouldn't mind not having to take care of yet another gas engine device...)

Gooserider


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## Backroads (Apr 3, 2009)

I bought one of those so called 3" chippers...I'm not impressed.  It's got an 8 or 9 HP Tech. on it and while it will chip, it's very, very slow on bigger stuff.  I can't complain too much though, the gas tank was cracked when I bought it so I picked it up for $100.  Took a ride to the local shop and for $15 got a used replacement tank and it's been fine.  Works pretty well on the smaller stuff. 

My advice though, if you got some stuff in the 3-4" range I suggest renting a BIGGER chipper for the weekend, say 6" with a diesel engine maybe.  Some places if you pick it up late friday and return it first thing Monday will only charge you 1 or 1.5 days.  Look it over real good and have them run it before you head home though.  I know one guy who spent more time working on the one he rented than he did chipping brush.  Good luck.


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## SolarAndWood (Apr 3, 2009)

It is hard to compete with the economies of scale at the municipal mulch pile.  The vertical chippers they pull with semis and load with payloaders are beautiful to watch.  After using my neighbors 3 pt 6" brush hog with a 35 hp tractor, I decided to put my chipper $ into a single axle dump trailer.  The brush that doesn't make it out for the town's spring cleanup goes to the mulch pile where there is an endless supply of mulch and the occasional load of firewood.  I brought over a 100 5x8x4 loads of mulch as well as 20 cord of firewood home in it in the last year.  It helps that the mulch pile is around the corner from the office and I don't have any issue parking my trailer at the office every day.  It also qualifies for the single axle flat rate when I take construction debris to the transfer station.


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## fyrwoodguy (Apr 3, 2009)

goose check this out,its what i run with my atv outfit.
http://www.salsco.com/products/608_Literature_WEB.pdf


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## KarlP (Apr 3, 2009)

Have you considered renting a medium duty one from O'Conners in Billerica? 

$169 gets you a trailer mounted 6" real chipper for the day.

http://www.oconnorhardware.com/6in_chipper.html


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## Gooserider (Apr 3, 2009)

I don't see a need for a big chipper - and at 169 for a full size unit (plus extra for delivery since we don't have a trailer hitch) that's only two days worth of rentals to have spent enough on something I could own...  90% of my brush (which I do have a lot of) is relatively small stuff - as I said, anything over an inch or two goes to the wood pile, when I drop a tree, I trim it at about the point where the branches get down to the size I could cut with a hand-pruner..

Our town doesn't have a municipal mulch pile - currently we spend significant amounts of tax dollars to send our yard waste to a neighboring town, where they turn it into mulch and chips (which they sell for a profit) - I'm on a town committee that is working to change this, but not making much progress.  They do pick up yard waste, but the level of "prep" needed (cut to two foot lengths, bundled and tied, or placed in a 20g trash can) is not worth it.

I'm not all that anxious to purchase another peice of OPE, but I don't see any other really GOOD alternatives....

Gooserider


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## Henz (Apr 3, 2009)

goto a local rental place and rent a big one. in one weekend you can do all of your piles for sure.


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## burningbill (Apr 4, 2009)

Get a old 55 gallon drum and throw your brush into it after it is loaded light a fire from the 4 3" air holes you put in the bottom.  You did put air holes in the bottom didn't you?   Feed it steadily for a few hours and brush problem is solved.  One mans burn barrel is another mans chiminea.


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## asylum575 (Apr 4, 2009)

I have a 6" Bandit chipper with a 20HP Onan engine on it.  6" is pushing it, so those 3" units are not accurate.  I cleared alot of my yard, saving the logs and sending all the limbs through.  You'd be surprised what a tree turns into after the chipper.  I put ALOT of limbs through and got about 2 yard of chips.  
I'm putting mine up for sale soon, since most of my yard clearing is done.  It was well worth the investment.


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## jabush (Apr 4, 2009)

I've had my 10 horse MTD "Yardmachine" for 5-6 years and like it.  The claim is a 3" limb, but I've found this to be species dependent.  I'd hesitate to put a 3" oak limb in there, but it chews up 3" pine limbs easily.  Engine is a B&S;..no complaints with that.  Always starts on the 2nd or 3rd pull.
For what you are describing this unit would definitely meet your needs.  The unit also has a (bigger) hopper opposite the limb chute.  The hopper pivots down so you can rake leaves and small stuff in.  Also comes with a 5 bushel collection bag in case you don't want to blow chips all over the place.
All in all I'm a satisfied customer.  I use my chipper a lot and it always does what I need it to do.


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## LLigetfa (Apr 4, 2009)

Two things that I would have loved to get 11 years ago when I was clearing my land to build my house, was a chipper and a stump grinder.  I didn't get either... leave my stumps to rot or pull them and burn everything on the brush piles.

One of those small chippers only make sense if you are in a semi-urban setting and cannot burn or don't have the space for a burn pile, otherwise they would probably be a disappointment.


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## burningbill (Apr 5, 2009)

asylum575 said:
			
		

> I have a 6" Bandit chipper with a 20HP Onan engine on it.  6" is pushing it, so those 3" units are not accurate.  I cleared alot of my yard, saving the logs and sending all the limbs through.  You'd be surprised what a tree turns into after the chipper.  I put ALOT of limbs through and got about 2 yard of chips.
> I'm putting mine up for sale soon, since most of my yard clearing is done.  It was well worth the investment.


How Much $


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## burningbill (Apr 5, 2009)

My parents had a troybilt super tomahawk 8hp.  It chipped ok but was slow and would vibrate your hands to death even with leather gloves on.  I wouldn't operate the chipper without them.  Also it would eat belts if over fed, which was easy to do.  You can buy those chippers for about $300 on E-bay or craigs list, however the parts are getting hard to come by since they have not made these in a long time.  I machine parts for their machine when they break.  They are easy parts to make if you have a lathe.  
When I bought my own house I needed to clear lots of trees.  My wife saw the bonfires I was having and freaked out so I had to rent a chipper for the day.  I rented a vermeer 635 and could chip more brush in a day with that then I could with the old tomahawk in a month, plus my hands didn't hurt after using it.  Auto feed is so nice!


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## LLigetfa (Apr 5, 2009)

AOD said:
			
		

> Whats wrong with a gas can and a match?


Gas is too volatile.  I use diesel.


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## fossil (Apr 5, 2009)

jabush said:
			
		

> I've had my 10 horse MTD "Yardmachine" for 5-6 years and like it.  The claim is a 3" limb, but I've found this to be species dependent.  I'd hesitate to put a 3" oak limb in there, but it chews up 3" pine limbs easily.  Engine is a B&S;..no complaints with that.  Always starts on the 2nd or 3rd pull.
> For what you are describing this unit would definitely meet your needs.  The unit also has a (bigger) hopper opposite the limb chute.  The hopper pivots down so you can rake leaves and small stuff in.  Also comes with a 5 bushel collection bag in case you don't want to blow chips all over the place.
> All in all I'm a satisfied customer.  I use my chipper a lot and it always does what I need it to do.



When I lived in Northern Virginia (urban setting/no outside burning), I had a unit just about like that (I think mine was 8hp), and it did the job I needed it to do quite nicely.  Anything up to about 2", it would just eat.  No need to hold onto the branches, just get them started in the chute and they'd disappear.  The pivoting bin was a nice feature...just rake stuff into it.  It wasn't too difficult to get to the chipper blades and sharpen or replace them.  Don't have it anymore, I gave it to a friend when I was leaving for Oregon.  Rick


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## computeruser (Apr 6, 2009)

Been there, done that.  If you need to actually chip up wood, rent the big guy once a year or every other year.  For around the house tasks - shredding up the odd limb, hedge trimmings, etc. - then a homeowner-type chipper will work...but not very quickly.  And for a bunch of 1.5-2.5" branches, hope you've got some spare time...and get ready to have your arms vibrated silly as you manually feed the stick into the machine...while it kicks back, vibrates, jams in the chute...

I've run  the vertical Troy-Bilt hammermill chippers, the disc style Troy-Bilt and Craftsman chippers, and the MacKissic Leaf Shredder-Chipper machines.  The simple and unavoidable truth is that bigger is better when it comes to engines.  For my use, I settled on the MacKissic Leaf Shredder-Chipper, and find it works fine on trimmings, general yard waste, leaves, and the occasional smaller branch.  For more serious debris, I either take it to the yard waste recycling station in the trailer or pay my $200 and rent a 37hp 6" Bandit chipper for the day.

I had an old vertical Troy-Bilt without an engine that I had planned to set up to be belt driven off my Wheelhorse tractor...but then I got rid of the tractor.  Something like that setup would probably be ideal, because you can put enough HP behind the darned thing to actually get work done, would be easy to move it around, and you'd be able to do without one more engine.  There are older MacKissic (and others) units that would mount to the belt- or shaft-drive PTO on Deere and Bolens (and others) tractors, but they're fairly rare and pretty pricey when you do find one in good shape.


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## Gooserider (Apr 6, 2009)

Well, I was hitting Craig's list, and hopefully made out OK...  As of about noon this morning, I have a new (VERY old) chipper....  

According to the instruction plate, it says it is a Kemp, model Z60H.  Googling for Kemp seems to suggest that they are out of business, but there may be another outfit making parts for them (assuming one would ever need parts, the unit doesn't look like there's a lot to break on it, and what parts there are look like pretty standard industrial stuff.)

The dataplate says Kemp was around since 1890, but I don't think the unit is QUITE that old - though it might be close....  Actually it has warning signs on it to tell stupid people not to stick their hands in the machine (presumably it is OK to put other body parts in?  :bug: ) which makes me think it might be early liability lawyer vintage...

Engine is a Briggs and Stratton 205cc / 5hp "Magnetronic", model 130202.  The engine is connected to the business end with a centrifugal clutch and a pretty hefty belt.

I couldn't get it started when I was looking at it, however the engine turned over and appeared to have decent compression.  Otherwise, it was rusty, but appeared to work.

I got it home, and found the tank was full of something that might have been gas, once upon a time, and that it had no air filter.  I was able to get the engine to start and run for a few seconds on ether (IMHO a useful diagnostic tool if used with discretion...) so took the tank and carb off, and sprayed everything I could off with carb cleaner, freed up the pivots on the throttle, and did some other minor cleanup w/o getting to drastic.  Put everything back together and filled it w/ gas and a good slug of Sea Foam - got it running and gave it a bunch of Sea Foam spray down the carb throat.

It's not running real good, but it is tolerable for now, I figure to get an air filter and run a couple tanks of gas through it before deciding if it needs more serious attention...

I did see a couple of the Yardman style machines for around $300, but this was enough less that I thought it was worth a try...

Look at the pictures, and tell me if you think I got a reasonable deal for $75....


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## Gooserider (Apr 6, 2009)

More photos - the other side


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## Gooserider (Apr 6, 2009)

Last Two - the engine and name plate


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## computeruser (Apr 6, 2009)

Looks good.  Assuming the engine is toast or in need of work, a swap to 8+hp would probably be a worthwhile investment.


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## Gooserider (Apr 6, 2009)

Agreed, I probably wouldn't put any serious effort into this engine, but a few bucks for an air filter and a few other minor parts doesn't seem like a bad deal.  As I said, earlier, I worked on it for a couple hours this afternoon doing relatively minor cleaning, and it now runs OK if not great.  I think it will do...  Definitely would put something bigger on it if this engine dies, but it may be OK once I get a filter on it and run some gas through it.

Seems strange to me that chippers seem to have so much trouble with branches - our lawn tractor doesn't seem to have much problem at all when I run over things with the mower...

Gooserider


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## mpilihp (Apr 13, 2009)

Hello Gooserider I was searching on chippers and I saw your post about this green chipper you got.  I was wondering how it was working for you?  I have the opportunity to buy one similiar but its a PTO version of hte same chipper.  

Does it pull in branches or do you need to push them in?  I would be using it mainly for branches and tree tops which would have small branches branching off of it.  Was looking for one with feed rollers on it but found this one.

THanks

~ Phil


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## YZF1R (Apr 13, 2009)

I believe that is probably a very good home owner chipper. I had a direct drive Troy-Bilt and it just was not up to the task. If the flails come off the flywheel and jam on a direct drive, you risk crankshaft problems. (Don't ask me how I know.) The belt drive, the way your flails are attached, and the design in general are much better on yours. This link http://www.mackissic.com/HSC_12P.html looks like the new model of what you have.

Steve


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## mpilihp (Apr 14, 2009)

Hi YZF1R thanks for the link, Ive searched on the name Kemp but didnt run across that.  The one Im looking at is a 3pth model and was looking to see if my 15hp tractor could run it.  Looks like it could.  A 269cc engine I think equates to about a 15 hp engine...

~ Phil


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## Gooserider (Apr 14, 2009)

So far I haven't gotten mine running enough to tell...  The engine wasn't working when I got it, but I've gotten that running, though it's hard to tell how "tired" the engine might be.  However the centrifugal clutch was also fried, and the belt was pretty bad, so I've got new ones on order.  To the extent that I was able to run it on the existing clutch and belt, I was rather underwhelmed, but it was hard to tell how much of that was because of the weak drive train. 

However I did find a manual for a similar looking Kemp shredder over on MyTractorForum.com, (one of the few places that actually has any info on the units) and have reversed the teeth in the shredder part, and cleaned up the chipper side, and gotten some better instructions on how to set up the unit (it varies depending on what kind of material you are working with) - hopefully when I get my parts and finish putting it back together I will see much better performance.

You will find VERY little on "Kemp" brand chippers, the company went under at least 10-15 years ago.  There was an outfit in PA that was supposedly took over their parts business, but that outfit went under four or five years ago as well...  However this is probably not a huge problem, as it appears that aside from sheet metal and some of the major castings, everything that is likely to wear out are common industrial type parts that should be easy enough to replace with generic parts.

My local OPE guy says the Kemp shredders were good machines - and that my 5hp unit will probably out do a new 8-10 hp MTD / Yard Machines or Troy-built.  He is only one of several that have described it as comparable to a MacKissic machine, which it does certainly resemble at first glance.  I think it may have significant internal differences however - my hammers are fixed to the rotor, not free swinging for one thing.  Another major difference is that the belt drive and chipper hopper are on opposite sides - which I think reverses the rotation direction on the inside drum - if so that would make the MacKissic a potentially better design as it would force everything to go accross the screen before it could be ejected, giving more chance to chop it up...


mpilihp - I suspect this wouldn't do what you want - I cut my trees down to the point where I'm turning everything over about an inch or two into firewood, and even so, my limited attempts at feeding this unit branches were not real positive - you have to shove them in, and they get chewed up relatively slowly, with lots of vibration...  I was hoping to get rid of a bunch of brush piles from previous years, as well as the left over tree tops from this year's cutting, and a bunch of other brush, but it doesn't seem like these units are really designed to cope with that sort of load.  I think they are targetted more towards dealing with leaves and an occasional branch or two, not large volumes of wood...  Hate to say it, but I think you may be needing to find a commercial size "eats whole trees" style unit...

I'd also check your engine size equation - the engine on my unit is 206cc = FIVE HP, I'm not sure but I suspect a 269cc is going to be more on the order of a 6-8 hp engine.


Gooserider


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## mpilihp (Apr 14, 2009)

Hi Gooserider thanks for the info, guess ill hold off and look for a pto chipper with feed rollers.  We also turn every over into firewood down to 1-2" but still have huge piles of branchs left over.  Dont want to drag all the way back to the house where we have a cleared area for a burn pile or deal with bringing to the dump, also alot of work.  

As for my calculations, I got a converter off of the web that stated 15-17cc = 1 HP  guess they were wrong.

Again many thanks.

~ Phil


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## Gooserider (Apr 17, 2009)

Status update...

I've basically put everything back together, my OPE guy has been having trouble getting the parts, so I told him I'd go on-line, and have ordered a new belt and clutch - should be in Monday next week.  

In the meantime, I'm running the old tired belt and clutch.  

Chipping through the small branch chute is slow and shaky, but it does a little, however it also seems to get stuck if you lean on it even a little bit hard - the drum stops spinning, the clutch slips and starts smoking, so you have to stop the engine and clear it out, general hassle.  

The big chute will take small branches and chunks of wood mixed in with my half rotted leaves, but a lot of them tend to get blown through with minimal chomping.  

The material I'm most anxious to chop up right now are the leaves from my compost pile that I started last fall - essentially I had a bunch of lawn guys dump their loads into a big pile, and left it sit over the winter, no special effort to turn or do anything to make it "cook" faster.  The resulting pile is very mixed in it's composition; some parts are fairly well composted, though there are a lot of leaf fragments still there, other areas are largely dry and seemingly little changed beyond clumping togther.

The unit has a door on the end opposite the chute, that can be set to three different positions - according to the manual, wet leaves should take the middle position.  With this kind of mixed quality of leaves, I'm getting a very mixed output, some of the dryer leaves tend to just blow through with little damage, other leaves get chopped up pretty small, but the size varies a lot.  I get a certain amount of really fine dirt that comes out through the grates under the machine, but only until that space fills up.

It is a very slow process, as the leaves don't seem to want to flow through the hopper, essentially I have to punch each scoop down into the shredder, using a stick of some sort (which gets slowly consumed as I do find the teeth every once in a while - If I poke too much in at a time, it clogs and either stalls the engine or slips the clutch - either requires openning up the back end of the machine and cleaning it out.  I had left the belt guard off knowing that I would need to remove it to change the clutch, but I'm finding it very good that I have as it makes it easier to turn the drum by hand while cleaning it out.  However I've now chopped up enough leaves to fill my raised garden beds about 1/2 way (36" wide beds, ~6" deep, a little over 100' total length)  Now I have to filter / grind the couple yards of finished compost that my friend gave me - nice stuff, but lots of debris in it - and fill the beds the rest of the way.  Should be really good for the garden.

The engine (fortunately) seems to start pretty well, which is a good thing as I'm needing to start it often     It does seem a bit on the tired side though, as it doesn't seem to have much "oomph" when I dump a big load of leaves in it - I'm not sure just how much the new clutch will help, other than making the engine stall more instead of having the clutch slip.  Once I cleaned the carb out and gotten it running the only trouble it gave me is the recoil clutch got stuck, which melted center out of the recoil rope pulley - $30 from the local OPE guy for a new clutch and pulley...

I'm not thrilled with the purchase, but it is doing at least some of what I wanted it to do.

Gooserider


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## mpilihp (Apr 17, 2009)

Thanks for the info, I think im going to save my pennies and wait for the opportunity to get a true chipper unit that doesnt also do shredding.  Those appear to have a heavier flywheel more blades and some have feed rollers which will suck the wood in, thats what I really want.

Thanks and good luck with it.

~ Phil


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## velvetfoot (Jun 27, 2009)

I'm thinking it'd be nice to have a chipper too, but the little ones don't seem to be worth it?
Are the electrics a total waste?


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## Gooserider (Jun 27, 2009)

velvetfoot said:
			
		

> I'm thinking it'd be nice to have a chipper too, but the little ones don't seem to be worth it?
> Are the electrics a total waste?



Haven't tried the electrics, but I'd assume they would be like a small gas unit only more so, which makes me feel very doubtful about them.  

Based on my experience with the Kemp, I would say that the small gas units depend on what you do with them - they do OK chopping up leaves, and MAYBE the very occasional limb - as in what naturally falls off the trees, but are not at all effective for any significant amount of limbs or other such...

Gooserider


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## JustWood (Jun 27, 2009)

I once saw a push mower at a yard sale that had a hole cut in the top of the deck right above the sharpened part of the blade  with a chute welded on the hole. Prolly worked all right on really small stuff. Never asked the guy about it but it did make me go hmmmmmmmm?????????? !!


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## Gooserider (Jun 29, 2009)

I don't know, but it would seem reasonable to me that it SHOULD be possible to make a dedicated, small engine powered, chipper that could handle brush and small branches reasonably quickly and efficiently, especially if one wasn't really worried about chip consistency, or making it fancy...  welding a bottom onto a lawnmower deck, and adding a chute, maybe a couple more blades and an engine in the 8-10 hp range would seem like a decent start...

Gooserider


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