Chipper How often do you sharpen/replace wood chipper blades?

[lagomasino]

I am thinking on getting a PTO-driven wood chipper. Not having used one before, I am wondering how much maintenance it requires. I assume that sharpening and replacing the blades is the most routine maintenance task.

I need to maintain about 20 acres of mostly hickory and oak trees that has not been maintained in the last 20 years. Need to cut some trees and there are plenty of branches already around. So it would be a mixture of fresh cuts, dry branches and partly rotted ones. Anything that can be used as firewood would not be chipped.

I am inclined towards a Wallenstein BX42, but would like to hear input from all brands users. So, for the type of trees I would be chipping, how often would you have to replace/sharpen the blades on whichever brand of wood chipper you are currently using?

Thanks
Adolfo

 

[IslandTractor]

I have a similar PTO powered shredder chipper from Bearcat. I have only about 5-7 hours of chipping on it so I have not had to sharpen blades yet. My impression is that you sharpen or reverse blades when performance degrades which would be noted by dragging down the tractor RPMs more than usual with larger size branches. I'd imagine that is something that changes gradually so it may not be easy to decide when a change is needed. I'm expecting to get at least tens of hours on a set of blades before sharpening and that is quite a lot of wood. For me it would be once every couple of seasons at most.

 

[jfox]

I have a Liberty chipper.
It needs the blades reversed about every 15 minutes of use.
I am going to buy some better blades, I guess.

 

[IslandTractor]

I have a Liberty chipper.
It needs the blades reversed about every 15 minutes of use.
I am going to buy some better blades, I guess.

Something's wrong. You need more than just new blades. Are the blades dulling or are they nicked? Is the blade alignment correct? What are you chipping?

 

[radioman]

I dont have a pto chipper, but its on the dream list. However I do have a gas powered one and I sharpen it once a year from all the dry and green brush i chip every year. I run it probably about 40 hours a year or less.

 

[wedge40]

Something's wrong. You need more than just new blades. Are the blades dulling or are they nicked? Is the blade alignment correct? What are you chipping?

I'm guessing his statement was sarcasm. But I have heard that the cheaper woodchippers have poorer quality blades. Go a good machine shop and they should be able to bang out some news that will last a few seasons.

Wedge

 

[IslandTractor]

I'm guessing his statement was sarcasm.

You are most likely correct. However, if he has to change blades more than every 20 hours or so of use that would seem like a lot to me.

 

[Scooby074]

Its hard to give a definate answer. Alot depends on what type of wood your chipping (hard or soft, new or old and dry) and how dirty it is.

The best answer is when it stops self feeding, which for me and my gas powered troy built can be from 10-15 hrs or even less if i get into some nasty stuff. A hydraulic self feeding chipper can extend this considerably as its doing the feeding and forcing the wood thru the blades.

 

[Eaglebait Ranch]

It was interesting reading about changing the blades. I have about 20 hours on my gas Bearcat and haven't noticed any problems yet.

And, last year I found out what my chipper will do to a pair of fence pliers that accidentally dropped into the shoot. Now, I understand why it is recommended not to put your arm down that shoot!

 

[brandoro]

I have a BX42 and have yet to do anything with the blades. I suspect I am still under ten hours of use though and chip mostly soft woods. I have chipped some small dry stuff but usually burn that if I can and anything bigger than about 3" diameter looks like firewood to me. Just to see if it could I did chip a 4" poplar, no problem, and a 4" birch, nearly killed the tractor, B7610 at the time.
Surprising how quickly it can turn a big pile of branches into a small pile of chips.