Mackissic PTO Chipper/shredder review

[Cliff_Johns]

I've put about twelve hours on my Mackissic chipper/shredder which I bought used on Ebay a couple months ago.

It's rated for 3&1/2 inch and I think will work with 12 PTO Hp or more.

I run it behind my JD4110 and it does not appear to have any affect on the motor even when feeding 3&1/2" branches at speed. It does use a belt and it will slip if you jam something. I've smelled the belt slipping a couple times.

Very solidly built, easy to run.

Chips to a nice size for mulch with the standard screen, but can produce smaller or larger chips if you buy another screen, but the standard one is perfect for me.

I would not consider a chipper without a shredder now that I have used one that has a shredder. Note that the chipper feeds the chips into the shredder so the chips come out a fairly uniform size.

The shredder will suck brush in so fast, it can strip your fingers if you're not wearing stout gloves. Up to an inch or so, you just toss it in the shredder hopper.

The Shredder had a broken hammer when I got it. I can't imagine how the previous owner broke it since it's a thick piece of steel, but when I called the company and explained that one broke, they just sent me two replacements without any questions. I talked directly to the maintence manager who was very helpful and quite friendly. It felt like a family business. I didn't have a manual either and they sent me one of those too, again without any question. I would say their service is top rate.

It dumps the chips on the ground below the chipper, which can be annoying when you have to scoup the chips away once in a while. On the plus side, when I feed some rotten stuff in the turns to mostly powder, it doesn't get blown in the air nearly as much.

The chipper is not self feed, which I don't view as a problem especially given the price and safty difference for a feed system, but when a branch gets maybe 10" long and you have to let go, it tends to bounce around in the hopper until you feed the next one in. I glued up a push stick (3&1/2" square end and a handle) to push the last bit in. Just my preference, I suppose you don't really need that.

The chipper sells for $1,399 at Northern. I think it's a very good price for the quality and support of the product. It is a really robust and well designed machine.

Cliff

 

[Steve2210]

Cliff,

Thanks for the review. I've been thinking about getting one of these for my 2210 for a while (it'll have to wait a while longer now that I just got the log splitter). It sounds like one nice mid-range chipper for the money, especially when you look at the alternatives.

Just curious, but what's the rear PTO HP on the 4110? I remember the 2210 being rated at 15 HP.

 

[RalphVa]

Steve,

The 4110 PTO is probably about 18. It's about 2 more than my 4010, which is about 16.

Cliff,

That's a great review. The local JD dealer has these on for about $1,700. Didn't know they were in Northern for so much less.

I've a MacKissic that goes on my Gravely and also have a Troy Bilt Tomahawk. Both these are almost identical in the shredder design. Unfortunately, the MacKissic for the Gravely does not have a chipper and a ridiculously skinny belt from the input shaft to the hammer shaft. (By the way, go to an industrial belt place to get your belt replacements. If MacKissic's belts are like the ones TroyBilt provided, they just don't last; whereas, an industrial one lasts almost indefinitely unless you "burn" it a lot.)

I'd like to replace my TroyBilt. Trying to sell the Gravely MacKissic. Got my eye on the MacKissic like you have. My TroyBilt is getting long in the tooth.

On my TroyBilt, I slit some heater hose, slid it over the hopper edge at the slit and Gooped it around the top of the hopper of the Tomahawk. Otherwise, I was getting branches sucked into it and sometimes getting my wrists pounded against the metal edges of the hopper.

Neither my Gravely MacKissic nor TroyBilt will do much more than about 1" fresh branches. They'll do 3-4" chunks IF you're sure they're pretty well broken down already.

By the way, how're the hammers to remove and replace? On the TroyBilt (done it 2 times), you drive out little keepers holding one of the spacers between the hammers. Then you drive out the shaft with 4 hammers/spacers on it from the machine, using holes provided and an old pice of shafting or the shafting for holding the screens in places. It's not a painless job for us old guys. Gotta have the right punch size for those keepers and use vise grips to hold them together to drive new ones back in.

Ralph

 

[graybeard451]

<<The shredder will suck brush in so fast, it can strip your fingers if you're not wearing stout gloves. Up to an inch or so, you just toss it in the shredder hopper.>>

This is one chipper I have been looking at. If you put a 2 or 3 inch limb in the chipper do you have to push it in or is it drawn in by the chipper? Thanks for the review.

 

[Cliff_Johns]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( This is one chipper I have been looking at. If you put a 2 or 3 inch limb in the chipper do you have to push it in or is it drawn in by the chipper? Thanks for the review. )</font>

The chipper is gravity feed, or in other words, you push a little and it chews it up. The sharper the blade the less you push. If you're in a hurry, you can push hard and it chips faster. There are no gears to pull the branch (or your hand) into the chipper.

Cliff

 

[Cliff_Johns]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( By the way, how're the hammers to remove and replace? )</font>

There are 24 hammers in the Shredder. They are held on four horizontal posts with varying sized spacers between them. The posts are held in place with a head on one end and a tapered groved pin on the other. To remove the pin, you pound it out with a punch. When I called Mackissic, the guy took the time to explain the process fully and also said to take off the whole top before I attempted to remove the hammers. This proved to be very wise advice.

Note that the hammers usually are never replaced. They are reversable four times should you use the shredder a whole lot, but I suspect it will be years before I will need to take the hammer section apart again.

Cliff

 

[KiotiJohn]

Cliff, thanks for this great review. I was wondering whether you ever got the one you wanted or not, and how it performed. Sounds like a pretty good all around chipper/shredder and just what I need to get.
John

 

[RalphVa]

The hammers on my TroyBilt and MacKissic are that way, too: rectangular hammers slung on horizontal shafts with spacers between. Each hammer has a tiny rectangular cutout at each corner. Over time, the leading corner will get completely rounded off. You'll find that they won't pull the brush in too well then. Think this is what the cutouts on each corner do. I'm turned the hammers 2 or 3 times (can do them 4 times cuz only the leading corners get rounded) and replaced them a couple times on the TroyBilt. As I said, it's getting kinda long in the tooth. Turning the hammers is as much a job as replacing them.

A sharp chipper blade will tend to pull the branch being chipped in, too. If it's dull, you'll have to push, and it maybe won't chip very fast. The chipper blades are held onto the TroyBilt with a couple of allen head screws with hefty nuts on the other side. They're reasonably easy to take off, sharpen (on a grinder lightly) and to put back on.

Ralph

 

[fpc]

I just picked up the same model MacKissic chipper/shredder recently and ran it off my 2210 for several hours producing a pile of chips nearly six feet high (by the way, the loader on the 2210 is great for piling up those chips which you have to clear from the bottom of the chipper/shredder from time to time). The machine worked great and ate up branches that were every bit of 3 1/2" wide like nothing. The shredder was great for the small branches (instructions say not more than 1" thick stuff in the shredder).

The only time I had to screw around with what I put into the chipper was when there were alot of smaller pine branches full of pine needles attached to thick branches. The thick branches would be ground up but the smaller needle filled ones that were attached to it would get severed from the main branch and end up clogging the chipper chute. I had to either pull out the smaller braches that clogged the chute and toss them in the shredder or push them through the chipper with about a three or so foot long length of thick branch I cut with by chain saw to use as a ramrod. It was quite manageable after a little bit of work with the machine.

All in all, I was very happy with the MacKissic.

By the way, you can order different screens for the machine which control the size of the chips it produces. That could be useful for those looking to produce smaller chips for flower beds and such.

 

[Cliff_Johns]

One thing I forgot to mention is that is comes as a cat-0 hitch. I think they supply the spacers to make the pin sizes right, but I would not be sure on a larger tractor if the 20" spacing would be workable. It fit on the 4110 OK though.

Just something else to consider.

Cliff