Chipper Looking at a tow behind wood chipper

[ericknight]

It's a Mitts & Merrill powered by a 300 Ford 6-cylinder. I don't have any pics of it, but it's very similar to the one in this auction, except the discharge chute is square and non-adjustable.

GovDeals.com - 1973 Mitts & Merrill Wood Chipper

It has a 12" wide drum with staggered blades (9 blades total). Seller ran some scrap 1"x pine lumber through it and it chipped it fine, but when we tried an approx. 3" dry piece of wood I brought with me, it was very slow and blackened the end like the blades were dull. I thought drum type chippers were known for their fast feed rate, but this one seemed slow, seller said you had to keep pressure on whatever limbs you fed into it. Does anyone on here have a chipper like this one? Does it chip dry wood well, or does it have to be green? Is it hard to adjust or sharpen the blades? Do you have to keep pressure on the limbs, or does it pull them through by itself?

 

[JerryK]

I am not familiar with this unit, but I looked at quite a few different ones years ago when I was thinking of going that route. Most of them, when the blades are sharp, you toss limb in and they seem to just about self feed. The drum should be turning up at a high RPM, and 'yeeeeeeet', the limb is gone... Really eats the limbs. These units are extremely heavy to pull around down the highway, but most tractors should have no problem around your property. The blades may just need sharpening. Most chainsaw sharpening stores can clean them up for you.

 

[studor]

Sounds like the blades are really dull (burning the end of the wood) and there should be some grippers on the drum to pull in the wood -- a chipper like that should just eat whatever is thrown into it -- look on you tube for drum chipper and you will see what one should do

 

[GE222]

It sounds like the blades as everyone else mentioned, are dull. Many people call these units, "Chuck & Duck". These are very dangerous since the limbs get pulled in so quickly. New large chippers have self feed rollers, which are much safer.

You should be able to get this for a very reasonable price.
I have a Morbark disk style chipper, but i rarely ever run anything greater than 2"-3" branches even though it is rated for much larger logs. With one or two phone calls, I can get someone who has a wood stove to get rid of anything larger.

The blades will have to be removed for sharpening by a company that specializes in knife sharpening. This assumes that the knives have not already been ground down to their minimum limit. With some searching, new replacements should be too difficult to find. Getting the knives in and out will probably also be time consuming as well. Knives should be sharpened roughly about every 20 hours of chipping time depending on the type of wood.

 

[radioman]

I agree- a sharpened chipper will pull in the wood for you, a dull one will cause dangerous things happening- like one have you stand there and feed it. I got a tiny little chipper that was 5 hp or 8 hp one ( dont remember) and i used to feed it when i got it. Now after I sharpened the knives- it pretty much feeds it self - dry or green.

 

[ericknight]

Is there any kind of adjustment on the blades? Or are they just "remove and replace"? All I could see were the blades mounted on the drum, but I know there has to be something for them to cut against.

 

[BarryinMN]

I've got an old Lindig drum type powered by a Ford V8.

Replacement blades may be off the shelf check with advertisers at arboristsite.com or forestryforums.com

The dimension between the feed lip and drum knives is critical. It should pull material in, dry hardwoods should chip as well just make more noise.