Buy a chipper or a gallon of diesel and a mat5ch

[jimh406]

If you have things to do with the chipped bits, a chipper can make sense. But, from people on YouTube, you have to watch how big of material you put through, and it's more manual labor.

If you have room for brush piles, you can also just leave it for wildlife. Or, wait until it's good burning weather.

 

[Gaspasser]

I remember that one…. But another case that blows that away..was the airline pilot who got rid of his flight attendant wife….. blew her out into the lake one night for fish-food…. Which worked until they found a tooth in the rented chipper and ran DNA on it.
He was convicted on that. (and my Sister in law who worked for another airline as a gate agent had put up with his intense flirting for several months while he pretended to be a pitiful widower…. was glad she’d resisted his advances… )

(be certain to clean out any politician residue before returning the rental unit…. unless you want to start a go-fund-me to which we can all contribute…)

Name was Richard Crafts. Hence my earlier reference to divorce Connecticut style.

 

[bbxlr8]

FWIW I dove in out of curiosity with the MightyMac chipper-shredder that is made in the region here in PA. It is the same very solid design that is still sold after many decades. I bought it used and repowered with the bigger Predator engine, and have one for spare parts.

It is "fine" if you have the time, desire, and need to reduce material within your property footprint. It is fun for a while, but gets old to me. Everyone's definitions and needs are different, but it will do up to about 3" but struggles if it's old hardwood or is not sharp. Reduces a lot through the shredder fxn as well. It does not draw in the last bit of bigger stuff (will do smaller easily)

Jury is still out but don't pull it out much. A friend did a bunch of conifer branches w it. I process trees for FW have a dump spot up the mountain for trailer loads of branches so time and patience come into the equation.

 

[Mark_BX25D]

Having a chipper available all the time keeps our place a good bit more tidy than it used to be. It’s really nice to be able to chip the debris from a storm or downed tree immediately regardless of burn bans, weather conditions, etc.

Yep. And it's really nice to be able to chip on your schedule and energy level and not feel like you have to push hard through the weekend to get the whole thing done before you have to return your rented chipper Monday morning.

But again, only if it's an ongoing need. If it's a one-off, rent at least a 6" chipper and git-er-done.

But whether buying or renting, a chipper is one of those things where bigger is better and smaller will have you hating life.

 

[Killer Bee]

let's try this from another thread.

It’s a Woodland Mills WC-68. https://woodlandmills.com/wc68-6-pto-wood-chipper/. I co-own it with my brother. It doesn’t have an hour meter so hours on it is a swag, but I’ve probably put 150 hours on it. My brother has probably put another 50 on it for a total of around 200 hours.

So far, I’ve touched up the reversible blades with a diamond hone, but I haven’t needed to turn them around or have them professionally sharpened yet. Set the bed plate gap after. May not have been necessary. That was a bit of a trick being the gap you’re measuring is at the bottom of the flywheel housing, but not too difficult after planing out a board to the right thickness to act as an unusually long feeler gauge.

Replaced the rear pillow block bearing on the flywheel because I very stupidly pulled the wrong lever of the three to the right of the seat without looking, which pulled the hydraulic toplink on the tractor all the way in, bottomed out the PTO shaft, and thankfully busted the housing for the chipper bearing rather than busting the tractor’s PTO. Called Woodland Mills and had a replacement bearing in less than a week for less than I could buy the bearing from Grainger or McMaster Carr (it’s a pretty generic pillow block bearing).

PTO hp on my HST L4701 is listed in the manual at 37.8. Woodland Mills specs the chipper for 20 to 50 hp and 6” maximum material size. IME on my L, it will chip anything that fits in it, despite having only 37.8 hp. I do not run dirty/sandy wood through it or wood that may have imbedded metal (such as old wooden fence posts). The blades have to be paper slicing sharp to work correctly,

My only prior significant experience with a chipper was one I used long ago when I worked for a tree service for a couple years back in the late 80’s. That one was a 110hp Eager Beaver hydraulic feed with two infeed rollers and 12” capacity. The WC-68 has only one infeed roller, but I’ve found feeding the WC-68 to be very much the same as the old Eager Beaver. There’s a little bit of technique to getting a large thing started but it’s not difficult to figure out. Stand on the left side when feeding because if it kicks when the branch hits the flywheel, it kicks to the right. To avoid plugging the chip chute, slow the feed rate for sticky green stuff like fresh pine. If chipping a long hardwood limb near full capacity, if the engine starts losing RPM, pause the infeed to let it catch up and go at it again before it lugs down much.

Don’t have any regrets. Because I’d spent a fair amount of hours with a larger hydraulic fed chipper, I had some expectations. None of the “issues” or “tricks” mentioned above is any different than running the big commercial unit from the 80’s. It has met my expectations and has not disappointed me.

looks like it copied over.. thank you for taking the time to share!

 

[jaxs]

This is one of those "different strokes for different folks" things. You come to realize that you must be selective in which implements you buy but it's not uncommon to invest in things you wind up using very little and wish you had waited and bought something that would be used more.

I'd say most homeowners that tend their property rather than hiring it done can use a chipper. It might be an electric for a small yard with only a few trees and shrubs. Two acres with several large trees to trim , an orchard , a garden and several landscape beds can make use of a 8-10 hp chipper. 80 wooded acres with 200 yards heavily used lakefront, regularly used hiking/4 wheeler/horse trails and desire for manicured 3 acre yard might justify a unit capable of chewing up 4-6" limbs. Take the same 80 acres with certain conditions and the need might be met with same chipper as two acre place above. "Certain conditions" might be hillsides with moderate erosion and wildlife enthusiast owner.
This is similar to my situation and here's how I get by just fine with my antiquated 9 hp Craftsman chipper and a small electric shredder. When trees and large limbs are taken down, growth smaller than 2" is normally trimmed off and shredded nearby. On some occasions, trimmings are thrown on trailer to be chipped onto landscape beds or Hugie mounds throughout property. Trunks and large limbs moved and placed to prevent erosion or heaped where chips and soil added to create Hugie mound. The only things burned are invasives and disease/insect infested. A neighbor that burns a lot of wood for heat comes over to cut a tree now and then.

There's remarkable overall improvement to land since this began. It's tempting to stop here leaving the notion I'm a mean motor scooter and go getter but let's not. Based on fact my grandson and I had similar problem 50 miles apart, I believe it should be mentioned. Invasives quickly establish then thrive in rick soil. I noticed a few stubby shoots with stickers one Fall and by mid-Summer following year an entanglement of thorny vines emerged. Greenbriar. I hadn't seen any in several years when mom called them saw briars which imo fits them better. They are hard to eradicate, even with help of herbicides. Honey locust. Had a couple pop up in edge of a meadow and cut them down when I noticed wicked thorns. Rebound and retaliate is putting it mildly, dozens of new ones came up within a 20 yard radius. Mowed those down and a hundred others came right back. Carful applications of broadleaf killer did the job at the expense of a few other woody plants. Leaned to be vigilant in identifying and eliminating grapevine impostors before they got dug in. Land with livestock on it or heavy population of deer don't seem to harbor invasives so much.