Sorry it took me so long to pick up on this. I've been involved with some volunteer work away from home. I've had a Valby Model 140 for a few years and it serves my needs well. It's very well designed and built--thick metal shroud, excellent assembly and welding, excellent primer and paint, massive flywheel (220 lbs.), huge roller bearings, large knives, etc. The
chipper weighs somewhere between 450 and 500 pounds. For me, it was a good choice. When I prune trees or remove some of the junipers (called cedars here) I can immediately get rid of the brush without hauling it off or scaring the bejabers out of the neighbors with a roaring brush fire. It was expensive--a little under $3,000--but it will certainly outlast me by many years. However, there are other considerations. Chipping with my Valby 140 is a slow, dirty, noisy process. I don't have a hydraulic feed so everything must be fed by hand. This works well with my JD Model 670 with 18 PTO HP; the tractor has adequate power. But his means that you have to stand and patiently feed in the brush. The Valby 140 is a direct drive; the flywheel rotates at 540 RPM. The huge flywheel has plenty of momentum; however, there is not enough speed to properly eject the chips. Leaves, vines and such plug up the chute and it is a real pain to stop the tractor, wait for the flywheel to stop, open the top of the shroud (I have replaced the bolts with a big ViseGrip) and clean out the mess. Bear in mind that the Valby is not a shredder--it's a
chipper--and it does a great job of doing what it's intended to do. I can feed in quite large live oak branches--4 or 5 inches in diameter--and does a good job with them. But of course this means feeding them in SLOWLY. The chute is nice and large and it feeds into the bottom of the flywheel and this is safer than having the brush fed into the top of the flywheel and closer to the operator's face. The blades are larger than those in many other chippers and they are easily removed for sharpening. If I had a larger tractor I would have considered the Valby 160 because it has a belt drive which approximately doubles the speed of the flywheel and should take care of the problem with plugging up the chute. Also, a hydraulic or mechanical drive would certainly speed up the process; the operator could be retrieving another branch while the
chipper is chewing away on one. The weight is a bit of a problem; the front end of the tractor is rather light--even with 200 lbs. of suitcase weights. I have purchased some small wheels and plan to add them to the back of the chippper (removable when the
chipper is in place). In summary, I am satisfied with my machine. For my small acreage and my occasional needs, it was a good choice. Hey, I really like the orange color, too.