Who's got a wood chipper?

[thecook]

I figured that this would be a great place to ask for advice on buying a wood chipper, since, like me, I'm sure most H.I. khukuri owners generate piles and piles of cleared brush. I usually end up breaking all of my brush piles into smaller pieces with loppers and a chain saw, but this is time consuming and dangerous (I hate using the chain saw).

I'd like to invest in a wood chipper to turn my brush piles into wood chips to use around my property. My budget will allow me $1400 to spend on the chipper. Does anyone have any recommendations for or against any particular brand?

My first choice appears to be a Patriot Model 10F-CSV.

http://www.patriot-products-inc.com/products.htm

Please chime in with any thoughts on this.

Best regards,

Nick

 

[STR]

I've got one. I've owned two. Get at least a 10HP one. The 5 HP is worthless IMO> I bought one of the 10HP Patriot Foresters from Builders Square in Tulsa years ago and have used the crap out of it for many years. I just replaced the motor last summer with one from Northern's Master Catalog just like it and had it shipped directly to me. Went right on and saved me money.

Actually come to think of it my neighbors have used the crap out of it too and just as many times as I have. Every time we have another dust devel of a twister come through knocking down limbs all over the neighborhood we get it out and everyone uses it on the block. Get at least three sets of the blades. They come in handy to have more than one set that comes on it.

You have to watch the screws and check them to make sure they are tight because they can vibrate lose. I actually had to take mine to a guy here in town right after buying it because I broke the shaft trying to make it eat a log too big. He welded it back together and its still balanced. One place told me sorry it couldn't be done but the other said he fixed them all the time. Sure enough its great and has lasted a long time since. Always starts up easy too and is pretty much maintenance free other than sharpening which you will have to get good at. I use my KMG grinder but when I didn't have that I used my other one on slow speed.

Also, whatever you do don't run it with the bags over filled. Stop or slow down the machine to change out the bags before its filled up all the way or you will bog it down and get the gunk all jammed up inside the machine and its a royal pain in the rump to fix once it stalls believe me. I use a wrench to continually move the rotor blades back and forth as I work material out of the thing and you don't want it left with stuff down in there or in the rain because the moisture will rust it all up inside. Speaking of bags get extras of those too because you'll be glad you have them. I have four for mine. The customer service desk for these guys is top notch. I've been very happy with them everytime I've needed something.

STR

 

[thecook]

STR-

Thanks for the insightful reply. I'm really happy to hear from someone unbiased who actually uses one of the chippers I've been considering. Let me ask you this- How much preparation of the material is required before you're able to process it in the chipper? I mean, do you pretty much have to remove any branches from the main body of the material or leaves before they go inside the business end? One of the reasons I like this design is that the feed tube looks to be a straight shot to the chipping blades, whereas other designs have a slight bend to them making it awkward to feed branches in.

Nick

 

[STR]

Nick sorry for the delay. I forgot about the thread until just now.

Honestly I don't use the big chute on the top for branches and smaller debris. In my experience its fine for leaves but it tends to get all gummed up inside and the vines and other smaller branches seem more likely to bend than shred so I rarely even use that part of the business end. I've found that the policy that everything goes through the chipper end at the bottom works a lot better and that is how the wife and I do it. As my unit aged I eventually did away with the entire upper part and built my own handle covering that top part. The old big mouth chute is long gone. I use just the chipper anyways and never missed that top shroud for branches at all although it was a nice place to store bags I guess. That big mouth end caused me more problems than it did any real work. If you leave it outside in even just a little rain fall the insides get rusted up from that chute so to me its a worthless part of the machine all around. It will mulch leaves but you have to let the machine spit stuff out and take your time. You can easily get ahead of it. You can bundle a big wad of smaller branches and just stuff that down in the chipper end and get better results for what you need for your garden or other areas and not have to stop in the middle to declog the machine and clear out all thats jammed it up to stall it that way. Well, unless you over fill the bag and it can't expel the chips. If you don't rememeber to keep the bags from overfilling it won't take long to see what I mean. Its a royal pain to have to manually get that junk out of there.

Oh and I forgot one other tid bit I learned. I have a Honda Rider mower. Nice mower too that you can no longer buy in the states. This things built better than most autos I've owned. Has a small two cylinder engine and a radiator just a mini car motor really. Great machine! I pulled up to the chipper with the trailer behind the tractor which we often do because you make better use of trips to the garden to dump with that tilt trailer behind the tractor and I was of course running the chipper. Parked the mower such that it was facing the chute and the chipper bag was off the machine. My wife came up and said I missed something so I grabbed it and stuffed it down in there with no bag. A stick came flying out of that exit port like an arrow and shot straight into the radiator of the mower and popped it a nice big leak no time flat! If my wife or I had been there I'm sure it would have nailed us instead but all I had to do next was no fun even still. Removing the radiator and repairing that was a chore but it was a lesson learned. The stuff exits out of there pretty darn fast so just be aware and make sure that anyone using it knows. If it exits without a bag it may hurt ya!

STR