Wood chipper advice - fairly specific application

[Freep]

Greetings, TBN!

I'm considering the purchase of a wood chipper. My wife has asked me to make wood chips available for various purposes (trails, mulch, etc) and I want them for distributing weight (under my kid's play area, and of my tractor when traversing near trees). It would be nice to have various sorts of different types of chips and mulch, but I assume that different wood chippers serve different purposes: That which is most important is to be able to create large wood chips that will distribute weight.

I don't need to be able to shred material, and I don't need to be able to run leafy material through the wood chipper. I have a 2-wheeled tractor with a flail mower on it, so I can just put stuff in a pile and run over it with that if I want it shredded. I would never run anything more than 3" through the chipper (unless necessary to make larger chips), as anything 3-4" and up goes on the wood pile.

Try as I might, I cannot find much information on what sort of wood chips various wood chippers produce, nor any information on what sort of 'input' is required for different types of wood chips. I'm sure this info is out there somewhere, but I am unable to lay my hands on it. I called several wood chipper manufacturers and the salespeople I spoke with were not particularly helpful. They said I would probably do best with something adjustable, but that their wood chippers were not adjustable, and they did not know who to direct me to.

So: What sort of wood chipper should I be looking for to create large wood chips? Should I be considering a PTO (I have a BCS 853 and a Kioti CK3510) or a standalone model? Can a relatively affordable wood-chipper even make these large wood chips or is it something only an industrial machine can manage with larger pieces of wood?

Help me TBN, you're my only hope!

 

[oosik]

I chip around 900 to 1200 small - 1" to 6" on the butt - pines every spring. Thinning my pine stands. Over the years I've used two chippers. First a Wallenstein BX42S and now a Wallenstein BX62S. The 42S would handle trees up to 4". The 62S handles trees up to 6".

Both are PTO powered. Both produced nice chips. The 62S produces larger chips. They are 1/4" thick and around 1 1/2" wide by 2 1/2" long.

I've never had a moments problem with either chipper. Since I only chip pines - both chippers were manual feed. I feed the trees in whole - butt first. The chippers pull the pines in and chip VERY AGGRESSIVELY. So much so - at first it's rather frightening.

I used the 62S to chip four old dead apple trees. This wood was dry and hard as carbonite. The chips produced were smaller. The chipper was not able to feed as fast and therefore took smaller bites.

If you need/want an excellent chipper that you can use every day and never worry about failure - I would definitely recommend Wallenstein.

 

[Gordon Gould]

I think what oosik alluded to is right. The chip size is a function of the chipper geometry and input power as well as the material size and hardness. On my BearCat chipper I can adjust the spacing between the knives and anvil. Smaller spacing makes smaller chips but it is a hard adjustment to make and the chip size variation not that pronounced. It is meant to be a take up the wear adjustment. By far the biggest variation in chip size for me is the wood. Green soft White pine that feeds fast makes bigger chips ( 1" square by 1/4" thick say ) while dry hardwood can be almost as small as a sharp chain saw chip. This is on a 5" pto hand feed chipper and 30 hp tractor. Maybe you can affect chip size with a hydraulic feed I don't know but You may be wanting to much out of a simple chipper.

gg

 

[Brant]

I have a Patu DC65 chipper. It has adjustable chip length.

 

[oosik]

I agree with Gordon. Different brands = different chip size. The amount of moisture in the wood( dry or green) will affect chip size. The species of tree will have a bearing on chip size.

AND I certainly WOULD NOT be attempting to alter chip size by adjusting the knife/anvil spacing. That is an adjustment intended to correct for spacing after the blades have been re-sharpened.

Your 35hp Kioti would handle PTO chippers with 4" material capacity.

A stand alone or PTO powered. Use Google - upper right hand corner - to find the many threads here on TBN for those discussions.

 

[ericm979]

I have a Woodmaxx 8H hydraulic feed chipper. I had a self-feed "chuck 'n duck" before. I would not go back to something other than hydraulic feed now. It's easier to use and safer.

It makes larger chips when the feed speed is turned up. But the chip size is not like what you get from a commercial trailer type chipper. Those have a lot more power to push the knives though wood. I can chip material up to the chipper's capacity with my 32 pto hp but I have to turn the feed down to the minimum. I get the best chips from bare wood with no small branches of leaves, 3" and larger. Then it gives clean wood chips about 1/2-3/4" long and about 1/4" thick. There's some large chips that come out when the wood first hits the knives and when the piece passes the rollers and goes into the knives.

 

[Freep]

Thanks for all the responses!

It sounds chip size is increased as material size is diminished and chipper power is increased. So, despite my intent to process primarily material under 2" or 3", it may be useful to get as powerful a chipper as my tractor can use. I do intend to check out some stand alone units as well, but I'm accumulating quite a collection of engines to service and using the tractor is appealing in this regard.

Will hydraulic feed make the feed speed more 'controlled'? It sounds from some of the responses like the manual feed can aggressively self-feed and produce larger chips, or am I misunderstanding?

The reduction in size when chipping dried (dead) wood is an unfortunate complication. I try to take down trees that are on their way out, and many branches are often standing dead.

Wallenstein seems to no longer sell the 42 and 62, having now moved to 32 and 52. Perhaps others will weigh in on other specific brands and the sizes of the chips they produce.

One further question: Should I be avoiding the chipper/shredder that has two separate chutes? Is a dedicated chipper going to be better for my desire for larger wood chips?

 

[oosik]

Freep - you are correct. Wallenstein no longer makes the 42 nor 62. Most unfortunate. Were I to purchase one now - it would have to be the 72 @ around $5400.

However - I did pay $4500 for my brand new 62 in 2013.

BTW - I only chip green pine. After six years of chipping ~ 900+ trees every spring - I'm still on the same side of all four knives. I haven't had to sharpen the blades or reverse them. The steel in those blade is obviously superior.

 

[ericm979]

If you want chips, the shredder part will be useless. It makes fine particles and does not handle branches over an inch or so.
Hydraulic feed is more controlled. Self-feed can rip the branch right out of your hands. The self feed chipper/shredder I have was used with my previous tractor that has 15 pto hp vs th 32 on the current one. It didn't make chips any larger than the hydraulic feed chipper I use now. But that could be a function of the power driving it.

Personally I would not trade the ease and safety of the power feed for possibly slightly larger chip size.

Wood that's been dead for long tends to chip smaller and make a lot of dust. It depends on the species. Some wood like Madrone chips up really well even when dry, if you can get the branches in (it doesn't grow straight). Dead tan oak is horrible to chip, lots of dust. Dead wood and hardwood will dull the knives faster than green softwood. Buy a second set so you can work while sending the first set out.

 

[BLSXJ]

I have a Woodland Mills WC68 on my Kubota L3400 (30hp at pto)
the Woodland units have a self contained hydraulic circuit with a flow control valve. you have some ability to control/adjust the feed rate.

If you search you will find my in depth review of the unit.

I borrowed a gravity feed unit before I bought the chipper and spending a bit more (in my case $1500) to get the hydraulic in feed was the best money I spent.