Mackissic chipper/shredders

[gunner76]

Looking at getting a chipper/shredder to use around my home(I'm tired of hauling 5-6 car trailer loads of limbs out every year). I figured it would be easier to get rid of a pile of chips than branches. I was looking at different brands but really dont' want to spend over $2k for the nice one's. Came across a guy selling new Mackissic brand and he wanted $1400 for the TPH 123 model(10-30hp). Are these any good? It will be used for chipping/shredding branches& leaves from willow, maple, and cotton wood trees.

The tractor I'd be running it off of is a MF GC1715.

 

[ericm979]

I have a Merry Mac 4.5" PTO chipper. It's a different name plate on the MacKissick, sold by Northern. It's a decent quality machine but has a few drawbacks. Most notably the chips and shreddings just fall out of thebottom. Do much in one place and the pile reaches the bottom of the shredder and starts to plug up the outlet. So you have to move the chipper about every 20-30 minutes. Kind of a pain if you have a big pile. And the pile ends up where you parked the tractor, so if it's on a road you have to shovel it out of the way. With a discharge chute you can spray the chippings out in to the woods.

The shredder is nice for small stuff and for green material that will pass through a chipper without much change. It makes nice compost. The model you're looking at had half the shredding hammers mine has. It'll still work but you'll have to feed small branches and twigs a few at a time. The 3.5" chipper on that model sounds pretty small. Mine (4.5") works for small stuff but I have to cut it up so there's no side branches. The brush I have grows crooked and these chippers work best on straight limbs. Being a self-feed chipper blade sharpness affects feed speed. When the blades are sharp it'll pull branches out of your hands. I was running mine on a Kubota B7100HST with 13 pto hp. It was a little underpowered but did ok. I have a Woodmaxx WM-8H on a 32 pto HP Branson now. It's far more effective than the MacKissick. Witrh the hydraulic feed there's less reaching into the chute (carefully) to get a chunk to feed. So it's safer.

If you're mostly chipping branches and not shredding for compost you could go with the 6" hydraulic feed chippers from Woodmaxx or Woodland Mills. A bit over your budget but much more capable. Of course if you buy the MacKissick and it's not enough you can sell it for about what you paid for it.

 

[gunner76]

Thanks for the info eric. I'm not sure what I want to do yet. On one hand hauling the branches out doesn't cost me anything other than my time and the gas to truck them the 10 miles to my dump site. On the other hand with the chipper I could just spread the chips out around the tree line(and I'd have another implement to use.)

I think when it really comes down to it I'd use the chipper a lot. These willow trees(or whatever you call those quick growing trees)I have around the perimeter of my place are really messy and I'm always picking up dead branches. It's worse after a strong storm. I'm about ready to cut all those trees down but the good trees I've planted since moving in arent' big enough yet to give me good shade.

 

[CalG]

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http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/search.php?searchid=3220504

I've got the 184. It's a great addition to the garden, and keeps two acres of New England woods in check
MacKissic Inc.

If a branch is too big to chip, it goes on to the fire wood pile. ;-)

The shredder gets used about once a month for an all day session. I keep at least three compost heaps going year round in various stages of finish.

 

[oldballs]

They are a good old time company. Their equipment is USA made and top quality. I've got the stand alone gasoline powered towable model since 2009 and it gets used a lot. If I can burn the debris, I do....if It is too big I either burn it or stack it for later use. But it is handy to pull out for smaller issues. The larger screen I use the most and make paths and general mulch out of the end product.

 

[Mike_Kanzer]

I have had the TPH 123 on my Kubota L3830 (30 hp PTO) and have found it to work really well. I use the shredder a lot for the smaller branches with leaves on them and can chip branches up to about 3.5". It works really well and practically rips the branches out of you hands into the shredder. It is well built. I just replaced the knife after 7 years of use. It is nice to have a PTO model so you don't have to maintain another small engine.