Chipper Jinma 8" Chipper - first hours

newbury · Apr 18, 2013

Well I had been asking all over about low cost and especially Jinma chippers.

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachments/268191-anyone-have-jinma-chipper.html

For the Chinese chipper market they seem fairly widely sold. You can buy one direct from China and save a few bucks. Google Jinma chipper china.

Background:

My planned long term usage is chipping trees I will have to clear for my deer plots and trails. My IMMEDIATE NEED is to take care of mounds of vines, brush, and trees.

Lot's of pieces 3" and bigger needed to be cut up.

These are pics of some that I and my son piled up while clearing a lot in northern Virginia. It was probably going to cost me $600 plus to rent a 6" chipper. And then have to use it regardless of weather.

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachments/276088-brush-removal-strategy.html

Not nice long branches, but twisted masses.

/edit - the twisted masses of vines were all cut in the winter and for the most part were getting dry

Purchasing decisions:
One of the main thing is cost - this is a hobby - not a paying job
There are two TBN advertisers that sell the Jinma, CircleGtractors in Ms. and RanchHand Supply in Va.

They are both within 100 miles of my normal driving areas.

Dealing with CircleG Jinma Tractors, Jinma Tractor Dealers, Wood Chipper Dealers over the phone was very pleasant. Prompt to answer and seemingly knowledgeable, but they are saying they will only be shipping the 6" model, for a very fair price. They also told me the only difference between the 6" and 8" was the size of the opening.
CircleG has them IN THE SHIPPING CRATE available for pick up or shipping. But when I called them they did not offer assembly.

RanchHand Supply Jinma Dealer, Wood Chipper , Compact Jinma Tractors seems to be a one man show. Ronald Macon is good to deal with and talked me out of several things. Prompt to answer and deals email quickly. He only sells the 8" model, and it has a different disengagement mechanism than what's pictured on the CircleG site.
A big difference is he sells it fully assembled, with upgraded belts, greased, oil changed and basically checked out such that it's fit to run at the start. But you need to pick it up in North Carolina. He also has a "members only" part of his web site with greasing and repair tips.

Reading many threads on the chinese chippers it seems that often there are small mistakes from the factory, what I think of as the "Harbor Freight" syndrome.

Since I think I saved a few $$$$ on my Kubota M4700 I was willing to spend an extra few $$$ for the assembly 8" throat and upgrades. And I'm GLAD I did.

So I bought from RanchHand Supply.

Pickup in North Carolina was a breeze. Ronald has a working buddy, Gene, who handles the putting it in the truck part. Another good guy. Gene pointed out special points (all of which are covered on Ronald's web site). Note it is a fairly big unit fully assembled.

I had to temporarily remove part of my homemade ladder rack (4 bolts) for him to slide it in. And later for me to slide it out.

My son and I unloaded it the next day, and after a quick look over (bolts and belts) hooked it up and was doing one of the main jobs of dad's - making little things from big things. The chips flew. Until my son got a log jammed in that due to a wide crotch started the belts squealing and sheared a PTO shear pin. Quickly replaced. I'm sure the upgraded belts saved the day.

We ran it for about 3 hours and all was well.

The next day I went and ran it for about an hour and decided to lube it. Thanks to the excellent pics on Ronalds website lubing was almost a breeze, just a lot of ratchet wrench work and a few pumps of the gun. None of the zerks took more than a few pumps and the recommended lube interval is 8 hours.

Today I ran it for a few more hours. I put one apple log about 4" thick and 4 feet long thru. Sure did smell good.
I had one vine about 25' long and started at about 2.5" in diameter (pic).

Made quite a pile. At one point I filled the hopper with medium vines and branches and just forced it all thru with a push stick. It just kept on chugging.

Summary - So far quality is what I expected for the $$$$. Picking it up in North Carolina cost me an extra $670, because I swung by Agrisupply (only an additional few miles) and got a PHD with 2 augers.

At this point I'd highly recommend RanchHandSupply and the Jinma chipper for the budget user.

Gordon Gould · Apr 19, 2013

Congrats on the new impliments. Very nice report. I was wondering how all that viney stuff would chip up. From what you say it goes OK. Sure is a lot of it around. I put green pea vines in mine once and it was like someone threw 1000 yds of fish line in it. Quite a mess to clean out.
Have fun and good luck.

newbury · Apr 19, 2013

Gordon Gould said:
<snip> I put green pea vines in mine once and it was like someone threw 1000 yds of fish line in it. Quite a mess to clean out.
Have fun and good luck.

How "green" were the green pea vines?
All of my vines were cut/pulled up January or February and were dormant. I did have several vines, about 3/4" thick or thinner wrap around the feed drive. When I saw that happening I made sure to feed in sticks and limbs till it cleared itself.

deezler · Apr 19, 2013

Excellent write up, many will find and appreciate this thread for years to come!

Makes a compelling argument for this chipper. Living near RandHand supply would make the decision even easier (comes assembled for same price).

newbury · Apr 21, 2013

deezler said:
<snip> Living near RandHand supply <snip>.

That's RanchHand Supply.

I've spent a few more hours using it, about time for me to grease again. I'm going to try and establish about how many "pumps" of the grease gun I need to put in after 4 hours of use. Then move up to an 8 hour lube interval. I've read that one of the most critical things on these is proper lubing and checking the belts.

I've gotten a couple of short "logs" (pieces 6" plus in diameter but shorter than the length of the first chute ) jammed a little crosswise in the machine. The feed roller seems to have trouble with pulling in big short pieces, the wood is really hard (some weed tree) and I made a rule my hand doesn't go past the chute. The chipper keeps running but it doesn't finish feeding the log.

So I've had to stop the machine, pop the two feed roller springs off at the bottom (real easy) and pull the pieces out.

I've also had a problem remembering to take pictures.

newbury · Apr 23, 2013

The saga continues -
Feed roller stopped rolling. First thought was broke the feed roller drive belt.

Looked in at the belt that drives it, the belt was slack. But off the pulley and intact.

After I took off the cover I found that somehow a chip sliver about 2" long and exactly as wide as the belt was wedged in the pulley, and apparently had popped the belt off the pulley. So loosen a few bolts, pull like the dickens and slip the belt back on the pulley.

After that I lubed the machine (it was approaching the 8 hour mark) and it only took about 5 pumps on my Lincoln grease gun for most of the zerks.

To grease two spots on the feed drum drive shaft requires a grease gun that allows you to push in the fitting and pump the grease in. RanchHand Supply recommends one from harbor freight. It's about $6 but it cost me almost $50 to get out of the harbor freight store

So far I've found one bolt that holds the chute on that I'm going to have to elongate the hole in the chute to better match up with where it fits on the machine.

After putting about 8 hours on using the chipper the alignment of the 5 drive belts appears fine and they are about as tight as when I first got it. RanchHand Supply mentions that

New belts can / will stretch and may require readjusting.

.

But these belts are the upgraded ones offered by RanchHand Supply, not the ones from China.

newbury · May 3, 2013

Another installment on the saga -

Another week another several hours.

As Gordon mentioned above green vines wrap. Now that it's May the vines I just cut are green and have running sap. After feeding a chute full of grape vines into the roller sometimes the entire roller becomes wrapped with woody grape vines.

Remembering Gordons "fish line" comment I've been very careful. Once the feed drum gets pretty well "wrapped" I make sure to put a big chunk of wood, at least 2" in diameter and several feet long, in and it clears itself pretty well.

Which brings up another point. Make sure you have what I'll call a "pusher stick" you don't mind sacrificing. I try to keep a pretty straight limb about 2" in diameter and 4 foot long to "push" vines, crooked limbs etc. in. Sometimes I let the chipper feed roller "grab hold" of the end of it, which effectively raises the feed roller, and the smaller crooked stuff will feed thru.

As I've mentioned I also own a Kemp 8hp? chipper/shredder. That had about a 3" branch diameter rating. But the branch had to be as straight as a copper pipe with no knobs etc. And for the shredder portion nothing thicker than about 3/4" would go thru.

But with the throat on my Jinma being 8" I've been able to "cram" a lot of twisty limbs down it effectively. So far the only two times it's "jammed" was when my son tried a really big piece (and maybe the rpm's were not up) and the time the chip got under the feed drive belt and it slipped the drive belt.

Now I'm starting to wonder how long will it be before I need to replace/sharpen the blades. Any advice from other users?

Willl · May 3, 2013

newbury said:
Now I'm starting to wonder how long will it be before I need to replace/sharpen the blades. Any advice from other users?

The blades on the Jinma I had were reversible so you may have a fresh edge just a few wrenches away.

Also remember somebody was selling replacement blades at a reasonable cost.

newbury · May 3, 2013

Willl said:
The blades on the Jinma I had were reversible so you may have a fresh edge just a few wrenches away.

Also remember somebody was selling replacement blades at a reasonable cost.

Thanks, yes they are double sided and I have an extra set but I was wondering how many hours of chipping should I get before I need to check? And how sharp is sharp?

thanks