Dr wood chipper PTO driven

[NWL]

I don't have the DR chipper (I bought a Bear Cat), but I do own a DR Field and Brush Mower (bought new about 7 years ago) and I am very unhappy with the quality of construction of the machine. Springs break, shifting gears is clunky, can't take the mower deck off because the plastic bolt was stripped when I received the machine, etc. With all the hassles I've had, I hesitate to buy any other DR product.

I hope your chipper is built better than my field and brush mower.

 

[BATTY54]

I just picked up a Wallenstein BX42 off Craig's list. There are no belts to change, sucks the brush in like a power feed, unless it is really small stuff like pencil size.

I was really impressed with the company, I called them to see if the unit I was interested was still under warranty. The person answering (no buttons to push a real live person)the phone was able to tell me the date unit was built and a quick description of the model all in a few minutes.

The 4 blades make the unit run smooth on my 850JD I did run it down once when I ran a 16' dry cherry branch 4" through it, but it stopped feeding as the RPM's dropped and allowed the engine to get back up to speed to finish.


There was one in VT not that far from you for 1800 last week.

 

[ChuckinNH]

The Woods chipper you are looking at was made by Bearcat if that helps at all. My BX42 Wallenstein has a chute for discharge, and I really like that.

 

[RoyJackson]

The Woods chipper you are looking at was made by Bearcat if that helps at all.

Yep, and for some odd reason, Bearcat rates it for a higher PTO HP (Woods limits it to 30 PTO HP max, Bearcat rates it to 35 or 40 PTO HP).

From experience, as long as you have 20 or more HP at the PTO, these chippers will really hog down 5" branches and smaller trees.

 

[RalphVa]

I use the blue loctite on the MacKissic chipper blade. Think the red would be a bit extreme.

Have rotated the hammers once. A piece of cake compared to the hammering and swearing required to get the shafts out, etc. on a TroyBilt. The spacers always needed replacement on the TroyBilt, too. They're what locked up the shafts in trying to get them out. On the Mac, one just hammers the keeper pins out from the end of the shaft and more or less just push the shaft out.

 

[Deadman]

My DR CHipper HAS shook some of the Red Lock Tited parts off and lost them in the woods.
I think I found out WHY tho! When I bought my chipper, I bought 2 extra blades, so i can always have a spare on sharp. Well, they sold me the wrong length blades for it, and I was rotating in shorter blades and the blades were allowing small branches to go around the ends and actually go right thru the chipper without even being chipped up. :confused2:

 

[acs55812]

I had a similar unit and ended up selling it---as did the former owner,,,,,,,,here is what was disappointing, if you have a tree with a 3 inch trunk, you must trim all branches shorter than an inch to make the 4.5 inch requirement.

It was a major PIA to meet that requirement---think about it, your cutting/trimming and absolutely nothing larger than 4.5 total width can go in there----that's not really alot of material.

 

[jenkinsph]

I had a similar unit and ended up selling it---as did the former owner,,,,,,,,here is what was disappointing, if you have a tree with a 3 inch trunk, you must trim all branches shorter than an inch to make the 4.5 inch requirement.

It was a major PIA to meet that requirement---think about it, your cutting/trimming and absolutely nothing larger than 4.5 total width can go in there----that's not really alot of material.

I would have to agree with the above.
Sure, you can push fold and bend to a degree but a larger throat would be much easier to use. I am not trying to chip firewood sized stuff, I use it for cleaning up branches and the small throat makes it hard to use.

 

[Deadman]

^^^^^
That makes me mad everytime I use mine too.
I only run green stuff thru it, because I can bend the smaller branches over and jam them down in there, but it can be a pain on real branchy stuff.
I usually just grind up the easy stuff, and throw the odd stuff in the woods, which is kinda defeating the purpose of a chipper. :confused2:

 

[rbcsaver]

I have a DR 3 pt chipper for my 3320 and love it. It seems that it gets bashed some on the forums but I would buy it over again in an instant. $1000 is a steal as long as it is decent shape. I find that the blade needs to be changed after about 10-15 hours of chipping for best performance and spares can be bought for aboutt $50. I have 2 spares on hand.

Not to nitpick Bob, but what is with the exposed PTO shaft? Seems dangerous, unless I'm missing something.
regards,
Steve