tree farmer
Silver Member
Well, after a couple of years looking at mostly Chinese 3 pt. chippers, (yeah, my wallet was squeaking:laughing
I came home yesterday with a Wallenstein BX42R, which was the one I had hoped to get 2 years ago until I found out the price. I really felt I needed a power feed of some sort due to the forked branches on the Spruce, Fir, Cedar, and Alder on my tree farm. So far I'm glad I went with the BX42. Kind of hard to justify $2100.00 extra for the hydraulic feed, but at 65 years old, I gotta have all the help I can get and both the tractors have remotes, so why not? My dealer had this on his lot for a couple of years, but I guess no one around here wanted to spend 5 grand plus on something they would rarely use. I finally got it for $4200.00, so I'm happy. A little paint fade and a few scratches, but still unused. I went through it and checked all the bolts, greased the bearings, and set the bed knife (it was WAY out) last night. Started out this morning on several acres of spruce and fir prunings, only to find it doesn't like small green limbs and twigs. The chipper worked fine and didn't seem to slow down much at all, but the discharge pipe would plug no matter what speed the infeed was set at.:confused2: There is a lot of sap (think sticky pitch) in fir and spruce this time of year, so that might be an issue also. Worked like a champ on the stuff that had been on the ground awhile and also was great on fresh cut alder and cascara. Guess I'll have to wait awhile on the other stuff. I was running the 2740 Montana at about 2200rpm, so that was about 450 or so on the pto. The hydraulic feed on this thing is incredible. I fed it lots of 2"-3" alder and cascara saplings that were probably 15-20' long. Stuff the butt end in the feed rolls, and it would fold the limbs in and chip the whole thing without hesitation. Seems very well designed and built with quality materials, easy to service, parts are readily available, bolts are all SAE., and I feel much better about working around potentially hazardous equipment if it isn't made in China. Best part about this purchase was the wife was all in favor of it since it was made in Canada and it matched the tractor.
.....Dan