Chipper 3pt chippers? give me the low down

[ddaacc]

Hey,
I have a Deere 3320 ( 25 PTO hp ) and a Patu (Finnish) 4" disc type chipper, bought it about 5 years old with few hours. Wanted a Valby but too much money for me. I shred the trimmings, fallen tree limbs, etc- almost any thing that fits will chip no problem. I have stalled it but it has to be something relly hard, hard to predict, but its rare.

A couple of observations- first,it is a disk type chipper and is very safe, manually fed, the machine gently pulls the material in, and you can pull it out. Deep chute so you would be hard to get sucked in. No " chuck and duck" here. The other thing I like about the Valby and Patu, is the low flat(level) feed chute, so you do not have to lift it and slide it down a sloping chute, which is totally unnessary with mine. If I have a long branch that will fit, put in the but and walk way to get the next, it feeds itself in a controlled way.

I wish I had a 6" machine, just so I could do less clipping to get the crotches in, but another 5 or 10 hp might be needed.. Anyway totally worth it.

One more thing, the blades. Do not even think of using your grinder to sharpen them, the precise angle is critical and they must be ground wet. I sent my set of 3 to Tennessee Saw and Knife with the mfr's specified angle,
got em back in a week, and having run 2- 16" diam whole white pines and orchard prunings through, stikk look and feel like new. The replacement TTT blades are $90 a pop, but they are good for 45 sharpenings. When I took them out, they still looked good, but the guy I bought it from had never and them sharpened in 5 tears!

Good luck and work safe. I like my wood cutters helmet with face shield and ear muffs. You will need them.
Dave

 

[smfcpacfp]

I was also in the market for a PTO chipper and read many of the 200 posts the above person mentioned, and considered the three that you considered.

I ended up ordering a Wallenstein BX42 from a fairly local dealer. It should arrive in the next few weeks. I think that you would probably be satisfied with any of the three you are considering. Like you, I didn't want to buy one that I would have to modify before use (Jimna).

 

[jake98]

WOW, who's payin for all that stuff? Jake

 

[Treemonkey1000]

I don't have a PTO chipper. I do have a Vermeer 6" tow behind chipper. And in my mind anything that has feed teeth is labor saving. It will pull in Gnarly branches more consistently and chip them. If you read a few of the postings here where they mentioned recutting the branch to fit you will understand. It gets old real quick if you have to pull a branch out to spin it around or cut a piece off of it to get it to chip up. I tried a hopper feed chipper for awhile. It was way to slow and labor intensive. Another good thing to have if it is available for the feeding mechanism is a variable speed. I can slow the feed rate down for harder woods or to change the size of the chips. The Vermeer 625 uses a Kohler 25 horse to drive the 2 blade disc and the hydraulic feeder.
Jim

 

[wedge40]

I bought a Jinma this winter and finally got to try it out after following advice I got from here to do some basic maintenance before firing it up. Mind you I've only used it about 5 minutes, but it seems to work well. It has automatic feed roller so you can load a piece of wood and then go get another.
It will handle up to 6" logs. The price was well below most of the other chippers out there. I don't drive a Cadillac so I figured I didn't need the Cadillac of chippers either. It has gotten pretty good reviews here on TBN.

Wedge

 

[Kays Supply]

Any machine doing the work a chipper does will need some maintenance / tinkering. I have a Jinma. It took some set up. I personally like to tinker. I have seen several posts that Affordable will pretinker his machines for you. I just spent several hours this week chipping downed limbs from the ice storm we had. I wouldn't take my money back for mine.

 

[daveinnh]

We have the 6" Salsco w/ hydraulic feed. Our Kubota (35 HP-PTO) doesn't even slow down.

I had looked over the Wallenstein and found that the discharge tray (to swing up during transport) was too heavy. Metal had rough edges too.


Salsco seems to have good design features incl. rotating discharge chute and the housing to the chipper is easily opened to clear debris. (I fed in too many dead pine that just turn to dust - the key is to mix dead w/ green). The Salsco is heavy though with thick steel all around.

 

[Pete in FL]

From ~ 20hrs of personal experience, I'd go with my Jinma, so long as you allow an extra couple hundred $ for mandatory feed roll mechanism modifications. Having the feed system is great so long as it works properly.
The Jinma's chipping part is by far the most robust of any similiar machines, and all chippers require periodic sharpening and clearance adjustments

 

[quicksandfarmer]

I have the Jinma. It's good on straight branches that are thicker than an inch, but the feed mechanism won't pull in thin branches or dense brush. It does work well with a rough mower -- if I have brush, I run it over with the mower, then anything that's left over goes into the chipper.

 

[TractorLegend]

Took the refund and bought a new Jinma chipper, extra set of blades and knuckle from Tommy's Affordable Tractors Home of compact Jinma, Foton, and Koyker Tractors and Parts, Wood Chippers, Backhoes - Affordable Tractor Sales Company in Bellville, Texas. and still had money left over.
The Jinma has two cutting blades and they are reversible.
I have not regretted my decision one time. Have put 25 - 30 cutting hours on it so far. Reversed the original blades once and now have my back up set on.

Does this one have auto feed??