3pt or stand alone chipper/shredder ?

[DHD]

Rent a chipper and try it, either stand alone or 3 pt (if it can be rented).
I have a small stand alone (8hp) that will take up to 2.5" dia stick.
I only use the chipper if I think I have a use for the end resulting wood chips it produces. ( Mulch around trees on our yard)
Most of the time I pile my brush and let it rot down.

 

[Threepoint]

Rent a chipper and try it, either stand alone or 3 pt (if it can be rented).
I have a small stand alone (8hp) that will take up to 2.5" dia stick.
I only use the chipper if I think I have a use for the end resulting wood chips it produces. ( Mulch around trees on our yard)
Most of the time I pile my brush and let it rot down.

I'm with DHD on this. Rent or borrow to try it out before you commit, unless you have prior experience with a small chipper. Chipping is a lot of work, even with a large residential or small commercial unit, because you have to handle the material so much. If you want the chips for mulch, that's different, and it may be worth it to you. But be careful of what you're recycling. We have many Black Walnut trees on our property, with lots of deadfall, and using BW chips for mulching plant and garden beds, or for animal stall bedding, is a big no no due to toxicity. The juglone inhibits growth of many other plants, and in horse stalls can trigger laminitis.

If you have the room on your property, I second the suggestion of just piling the small stuff in an out-of-the way spot, run over it a few times (or break it up with your FEL), then let Mother Nature do the rest. It will go quickly. I just sold a nice 8 hp stand-alone chipper on Craigs List because I used it so rarely. It would chip to 3". Any branches that size qualify as firewood, IMO, but if you're going to bother chipping, get something big enough that you don't have to spend most of your time with the chainsaw or loppers just cutting things up enough to get in the hopper! Been there, done that.

 

[davesl708]

Rent a chipper and try it, either stand alone or 3 pt (if it can be rented).
I have a small stand alone (8hp) that will take up to 2.5" dia stick.
I only use the chipper if I think I have a use for the end resulting wood chips it produces. ( Mulch around trees on our yard)
Most of the time I pile my brush and let it rot down.

What DHD said. I have a 3" chipper/shredder. Us it mainly for making mulch. I rent a 9" Vermeer for large jobs. Cheap and easy. Burn everything else or make brush piles for the rabbits.

 

[Baby Grand]

I'm sort of partial to the 3pt chipper, myself. For us, anything over 3" is firewood.
What I like most about it is that, after I added a drawbar & trailer hitch, I can drive around to wherever the limbs are, chip them and have the chips blow right into the attached trailer. Aside from greatly reducing the brush piles, the chips have become a welcome, "free" landscaping material.
Here's a thread with some more discussion:

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/kubota-owning-operating/242406-wood-chipper-choice-3.html

 

[oosik]

Every year I cut 750-900 small (less than 5" in diameter) ponderosa pine to thin out and maintain my trees. When I chip these pines I would chip them whole - in the round. I had a smaller chipper - Wallenstein BX-42S - that did not like chipping green pine trees. The pitch/sap from the needles would coat the chute and quite soon the unit would be plugged. I'd clean it out and coat the chute, etc with kerosene and it would work for another hour or so. So I got a bigger tractor and a bigger Wally - BX62S. For whatever reason - I no longer have a bit of a problem with the pine pitch/sap.

I have always had and used a pto powered chipper. Mainly because I have the tractor and its power and I don't want another motor to have to contend with.

I found if I let the little pines "season/dry out" for a year - there was never a moments problem with the pitch/sap when I then chipped them.

I have also found that huffing" the 4", 5", & 6" pines that the new Wally BX62S will chip can be VERY MUCH a PITA. Its just almost more than this old bod can do to man handle a 6" pine out and into a position to chip it. I've kind of decided that from now on I will let any P. pine that has reached 6" remain standing. Let nature take it - if it needs to be thinned.

 

[mark02tj]

I'll throw in my $.02 as well....

When I moved to this property 4 years ago, I bought an 8hp chipper/shredder. I don't recall the brand name, but it was a rental unit at a local tool rental and is pretty heavy duty. I needed/wanted something bigger though and after I bought my Deere 3520, I decided to get a PTO unit. I read all the reviews and decided to go with a non-Chinese unit although one of the Chinese units is often mentioned on here and gets rave reviews. Anyway, I started shopping both locally and using SearchTempest.com to scour Craigslist on a national basis. I found a few contenders and ended up with a Bearcat 73554 Chipper/Shredder that I found in WI (I'm in OH). Got it here, used it, LOVE IT!!

It's great to trim up brush around the edge of the yard and just chip it up so it's gone. I've run 4-5 inch stuff through it and it takes care of it with no problem. It's a manual feed unit, but once you've man-handled the material up into the feed chute, it pretty much feeds itself. The shredder takes care of all of the little stuff - just put it in the chute and it sucks it right in. The only "problem" that I've had is if I have a long (8' and up) piece that's at the high end of the thickness scale (4"-5"), it will start to bog down towards the "end of the grind". My solution is either to cut it up into smaller lengths or feed it and pull it out before it bogs down.

Overall I'm super satisfied with my decision to buy one. But, as oosik points out, these units will work you - at least mine works this old, gray haired fat guy! This past summer my very in-shape brother in law was visiting and helping me with some stuff around the place. We both were cutting and feeding the chipper hard for about 1.5 hours. Cleared a lot of brush, but we were both sweatin' like pigs when we were done. My point of this is that, as others have pointed out, feeding a chipper is not an easy task.

I rented a self-powered, self-feeding, tow behind unit many years ago to take care of some brush at my old house. I would advise that you rent a unit like that to see how much work it is to chip up wood. It might also lean you towards either burning (as many have suggested) or buying a self-feed Woodmaxx that many on here seem to like.

Before I bought my PTO chipper, I would pile stuff in my woods, let it settle for several weeks and then attack it with the 30" brush hog on the front of my walk behind gravely. That would take care of a surprising amount of stuff, but crap would fly everywhere doing that! I actually thought about buying a small, 48" brush hog for the back of my tractor and doing the same thing, but ended up with my chipper.

Hope this helps.

 

[oosik]

Mark02tj- you aren't just kidding about the chipper working you HARD. Most of what I cut is 1 1/2" to 3" with the occasional bigger one. I cut them down, then I come out and drag them into piles, then I hook up the chipper and drive around and chip up the piles. There never seems to be a good time to do all this - its either still to wet and you end up slogging thru mud or its hotter than popcorn and I sweat like a pig. The "normal" sized pine - 1.5" to 3"- gives me little problems but its those few that are 4"-5" or 6" where I almost blow a donut pulling them out to the pile. Nothing like falling, face down, in the mud while pulling out a 6" pine.

I've often wondered if a 48 inch brush hog, on the back of the tractor, would grind up the little pines while they are still standing.

 

[RalphVa]

I've all my 3ph stuff on castors; so, switching the Mac 122TPH off and on to the 3ph is no problem. Can't beat diesel power for running the chipper/shredder. I've had a standalone Troybilt and had a Mac on my Gravely. Have NEVER had a bog down to a stop with the chipper/shredder on the tractor. I need a good compost pile and get it with about 100-150 bags of leaves and lots of tree limbs every year. I love the Mac stuff because they're so easy to work on. The Troybilt Tomahawk was a beast to work rotate the hammers on.

Just today, I was out there chipping/shredding away.

Ralph

 

[TerryR]

You may have a different model than mine (70544). Here is one example of the discharge chute jamming issue. Google for more.

It looks like those are the little chipper/shredders, with an add-on blower attachment. I can see how they could cause jamming. Mine is a 73454 chipper, which has the blower built in. It's essentially the same as the current CH5540:



They are totally different animals, and as I said I've never seen an issue with this design.

Terry

 

[hslogger]

Three point brings up an excellent topic of Black Walnut and similar species toxicity toward livestock and other plant life. All chips are not created equal.

I got sick of burning brush and orchard prunnings and bought a Woodmax hydraulic feed and am really glad I did. I have run large single axle gas and diesel powered commercial chippers a lot over the years. The beauty of a chipper besides the material you get is simply the space reduction. And you handle it once. Pick it up, shove it in to the feed rollers and it is done. Packing and stacking is the PIA I don't miss