What not to feed a woodchipper

[Oz_Kioti]

The offending item must have been delivered in a load of mulch years ago, and spread under our olive trees. During pruning and chipping yesterday, I raked the prunings into a heap and into the chipper!

The anvil (bedding plate) on the Woodland Mills WC88 is totally unscathed. Must be made of tough stuff!!!

 

[arto98607]

Ouch!

I was helping my neighbor few weeks ago and did not want to feed into my chipper any of the stuff he had raked into a pile.

Mine is S&R Pro Chip from the 80's and I have few spare sets of knives, but new sets are no longer readily available.

 

[TimberFarm]

I don't put anything in my chipper that I can't readily see all around it. In other words only wood and branches that I have just cut myself.

 

[Jstpssng]

Did it make a sound when it fell?

 

[Fuddyduddy1952]

I don't wear gloves or long sleeve shirt chipping either. Too easy getting snagged on a limb or bark.

 

[bigtiller]

I don't wear gloves or long sleeve shirt chipping either. Too easy getting snagged on a limb or bark.

I'm just the opposite.
I have to wear gloves and if I don't have a long sleeve shirt on, I had better have a few bandages and a roll of Coban.

 

[CalG]

A case for the combo "Chipper/Shredder", anything that is not wood goes in the hopper, not the chute.

Still, I have turned the hammers three times to present sharp and square corners to restore performance due to dulling.
Small stones mostly. ;-(

 

[RalphVa]

When I had the MacKissic shredder/chipper I'd get bags of leaves from town and dribble them into the big chute for the hammer shredders. One time a pair of hand pruners came slamming back at me. No damage to me, but after than I wore gloves up to my elbows and a full face shield. The hand pruners did get damaged.

 

[mikester]

I've been clearing my fence line trees and burning brush piles and found a 3/8" steel rod x 3' long in the ashes yesterday morning. I don't know where it came from or how it got there but I'm glad I didn't find it with my chain saw. After seeing your photos I'm really glad I decided to burn the brush piles instead of using my chipper!

 

[oosik]

Back in the day - we drank soft drinks and took our aluminum cans into Spokane for recycling. Then I got a brilliant idea. The cans took up lots of room - in transport. I'd just run them thru the shredder and reduce the volume. At the time I had a nondescript stand alone shredder. At first it worked well. Then things went south. The bits of shredded cans started wrapping around the shredder main shaft. I finally had to quit and it took quite a while to correct this condition.

The final solution - we quit drinking beverages that came in aluminum cans.

I always wear a pair of leather gloves when chipping. As far as a shirt - a T-shirt. For that matter - I wear leather gloves when felling, dragging & chipping my pine stands. When doing 800 to 1200 small pines - the bark will abrade the skin right off the palms of your hands. This spring time thinning of my pine stands takes a month or so. If I didn't wear gloves - it would take a good two to three months for the palms of my hands to recover.

The only "tough" material I've ever put thru my chipper - old, age & weather hardened apple trees. It chipped them OK but it wasn't easy like the young, soft & small pines I usually chip.

 

[oosik]

I had several old homestead out buildings on the property. All grouped in one area about 200 feet west of my house. Over the years I've clean up this area. I was considering running the old lumber thru my chipper. Then I checked this lumber closely. There are nails of all sizes - everywhere in and on this lumber. Now I have a very specific place where I burn this stuff. I run a big 'ol magnet over and thru the ashes after I burn. I alway get a bucket of old nails.

 

[nyone]

Why would you take rakings from the ground and throw them through a very expensive chipper? Just the amount of dirt and junk thrown through could be bad.

 

[oosik]

Many chippers do not handle "viney" material well. That's where a shredder comes into play.

What is raked up from the ground should never be run thru a chipper. The chipper blades are uber sharp and can easily be damaged by what might be in a raked up pile. Rocks, nails, chunks of wire, chunks of metal, etc.

I've had my Wally BX62S for nine years now. I've chipped more than 8000 young green pines. The blades are still on their original side and are sharp as razors. I probably - with due care - won't need to reverse the cutting blades for another five to seven years.

At that rate - I'll either get too old to do any thinning/chipping or I will have croaked - before the blades need sharpening.

 

[RoyJackson]

Many chippers do not handle "viney" material well. That's where a shredder comes into play.

What is raked up from the ground should never be run thru a chipper. The chipper blades are uber sharp and can easily be damaged by what might be in a raked up pile. Rocks, nails, chunks of wire, chunks of metal, etc.

Agree 100%

 

[GeneV]

What not to feed a woodchipper...

 

[RoyJackson]

What not to feed a woodchipper...


View attachment 758077

Fargo!!!
Great movie!!!

 

[scaredychicken]

The final solution - we quit drinking beverages that came in aluminum cans.

the wobbily pops aluminum cans, get shredded down to a dime where i live every few months i have enough dimes for lunch money

 

[5030]

I sharpen chipper knifes as a side business, own a knife sharpener and I can sharpen any knife or anvil except the Vermeer 'cone head' anvils. Do them for mostly commercial tree companies locally but ocasionally non commercial owners as well.

Things you don't want to go through ANY chipper is any type of metal (nails, screws, bolts or glass ort even plastic parts as the plastic will melt and adhere to the knives).

String vines like grape vines don't chip will either and neither do pine tree branches.

The clearance between the knives and anvil is very important and rule of thumb is the clearance needs to be set with an old plastic credit card, how most commercial operators set theirs.

When the knives get chipped or the anvils get rounded off, the chip quality degrades. Anvils usually have 4 working edges and can be flipped and re used 4 times and most knives will have 2 working edges as well.

Never seen a knife fracture like that in the pictures. I'd say the knives were improperly heat treated. All knives are hardened and then normalized (stress relieved). I'd say the pictured ones were never normalized and were brittle and I cannot believe the anvil escaped damage or the anvil mounting for that matter. I'd be having a hard look at the mounting to see if it was impacted at all.

Commercial units have many times the power of residential units and commercial units can really eat up a set of knives as well but I've never seen knives fracture like them before.

 

[RoyJackson]

I chip only branches, including pine branches, and trees up to about a 6" trunk...nothing else
Never leaves or anything else.
My chipper, a Woodmaxx-8H, is a dedicated chipper...not a chipper/shredder.
I had a Woods 5000 chipper shredder years back that would chip up to 5" and shred. I kind of wish I'd kept it as it was a great implement.
But at all times, I know exactly what's going down the chute...never any metals or other stuff...

 

[Raul-02]

Hugel

When doing 800 to 1200 small pines - the bark will abrade the skin right off the palms of your hands. This spring time thinning of my pine stands takes a month or so.

ever looked into hugelculture