Chipper Stop The Burn!! (New Jimna Chipper)

[kossetx]

Over the past 2 years I have cut and burned close to 10,000 (yes, I did count) mesquite trees on my place. That doesn't include 100's of eastern red cedar and lots of post oak and elms. With the drought here in full swing during that time it made burning them a somewhat scary option if and when a burn ban was not in effect. The soil in my area is not the best and I wanted to create lots of humus to mix in the sandy topsoil around the yard and to be honest, burning all that wood just bothered me. A chipper made sense.

We'll, My wife bought me a Jimna Chipper for Christmas, or at least she said it was for me. We took it out for the past 5 days and tried it out.

Putting it together was a bummer and I was not happy with it at the time. A lot of goofy chinese instructions. It tells you to push it up on the hopper to install the base but by myself I couldn't budge it. I finally got smart and hooked a clevis to the lift mounts and just picked it up and lowered it to the base. Much easier! I can't wait till the muscle in my hip quits hurting. If I would have used my head assembly would have been 1 hour VS the 4 it took me.

Using it was another matter. We chipped yards and yards of all the above mentioned trees and lots of yupon too. It makes chips much smaller than I expected. Cedar would chip into 1/4" squares. It all should compost well. It would stutter my tractor on the 4-5" elms and 5-6" oaks, but went through everything else like butter. I also thing I was at a couple of hundred rpm's lower that PTO speed. I was impressed with what the chipper could do. I would post pics but the site says they are too big. Anyone know how to resize them? I also reversed the discharge chute to keep it from shooting across the chipper. It piles them right where I want them.

Thanks to Lewis Gordon for posting pics of chips from one of these machines. It is part of the reason I bought it. Thanks also to Tommy at affordable tractor sales who made buying it fairly easy, was close to my house and was just a plain nice guy.

I have a question for those that own one of these. Anyone tried to change out the grease zirks? The ones on the feeder bearings and drive shaft are too small for my grease gun. The grease gets in but I waste a lot doing it. I think I should be able to find metric repacements but haven't tried yet.

Just FYI for those thinking of getting one of these. MP

 

[Fleagle]

Congrats! I'm interested to see how it works for you. I know what you mean about mesquite, poor soil and burn bans here in TX!

 

[LarryD]

I went to NAPA and purchased new zirks for mine. I seem to recall they were 6mm but don't quote me on that. Just carry one with you and match it up to their stock. Also think about a couple of 90º ones for greasing the pillow blocks under the pulley housing. I couldn't get my grease gun to seat on them and the 90's really make it easier.

We now have a permanent burn ban in effect for the "Urban Growth Areas" of Island County. I'm not sure how that affects me but I think all of Island County is considered urban growth area, I'll have to look into this a little more. I do prefer chipping but still have small root balls that I've burned as I remove the trees. Not sure how I'll dispose of those now if the burn ban affects me.

 

[davemhughes]

resizing your pics........easiest way is to open it with windows picture viewer that comes with Windows XP........click the little editing button on the bottom......then click "Image" on tool bar.....click stretch/skew......where it says 100% image size in box....just type in 50% or so and save.....your done. Sounds complicated but once you do it once its easy. Hope this helps

 

[thatguy]

Another way to resize the pics (Atleast with our Sony camera) is to use the 'resize' option in the "menu" of the camera... As we are viewing the pic, hit the "menu" button and go to 'resize'.. Then we select 'VGA (email)' and hit OK.. it will make a copy of the original pic in a email friendly size..

good luck
Brian

 

[kossetx]

Thanks for the help and replies! Here is some pics of the chipper working.

 

[kossetx]

and my chip piles.

 

[RalphVa]

Nice pictures. First ones I've seen of the unit. A friend of mine bought one and used it on the smallest (24 hp) of his 3 JD tractors. Think he had some trouble with the feed belt system because the Mexicans he had working for him weren't that careful with it. Hard to believe it's near about 900# from the pictures. They must have built it like my old TroyBilt Tomahawk, a very heavy machine, compared to my Mac.

I've been working on doing in the autumn olive trees on my property using my little MacKissic on my little 4010. Just checked the chipper blade this afternoon. Hardly any wear showing on it. Makes a big difference whether they're fresh cut vs. stuff that's been lying around in the dirt for a while in the wear on the chipper blade.

On the Mac, the trees have to be 3" or less and reasonably straight to get them to go into the chipper. Gotta be below about 1/2" (warning says 3/4", but they can cause some housing damage; I found) into the shredder hooper.

Think the Jinma uses multiple chipper blades of some sort.

You wear a bunch more clothes than I do while chipping.

Ralph

 

[gordon21]

I don't see any hearing protection!!! Get some now.

I have the discharge chute on mine set to go to the drivers right. That way if I am working roadside, the chips will blow into the woods away from the tractor and the road.

It is really cool to let it grab a 20' tree that is about 4"-5" at the base and just walk away. By the time you go back with the next one, the first tree has disappeared. Only very bushy stiff tops will sometimes not feed themself.

 

[BobQ]

Hey, what do those go for?

Thanks Bob