Chipper recommendation

[WinterDeere]

My parameters:

4 acre lawn with ~85 mature trees that drop miles of branches (+60 more under 10 year age, that will be soon enough)
A lot of landscaping around the house, hedges, shrubs, flower beds, etc.
5 acre adjacent woods that I don't own, but help maintain
woodburner, processing 6 - 10 cords per year, generates lots of loose bark and swarf
one tractor = Deere 3033R (33hp)
one wagon = 4x8 dump (Country Mfg. 8300), which is always filled with firewood in cold weather, but could be made available in summer

I have been burning branches, hedge trimmings, and wood processing swarf nearly every second or third weekend for the last 12 years. But due to changes in surrounding properties, I'm in a situation where the prevailing summer wind takes the smoke right toward a neighbor's house and property, so I'm looking for an alternative to use at least during nicer weather. I have a good place to put the chippings, either the perimeter of the woods, or along my property line, so no issues there.

Debating what type of chipper might be best for me, and what the workflow might be. With a 3-point/PTO unit, I'd lose use of my loader while running the chipper, but I could use the loader to build a pile on the ground, before backing up to that with the chipper and then doing my work. With a separately-powered unit, I have another engine to maintain, probably higher cost and lower HP, but it does free up the tractor.

Since I heat my home with wood, I really have no need to ever chip anything over 3" - 4" diameter, I can put that stuff in the wood pile (or scrap burn pile). But I do have need for a input chute wide enough to handle branching messes of 1" stuff, I don't want to be breaking them up and feeding this thing one stick at a time. Ideally, it'd be something that can take wide swaths of small diameter trimmings.

Advice? Not so much needing brand and model (although that's welcome), but initially more workflow and type.

 

[Fxfymn413]

Why not look at a PTO powered chipper instead of a hydraulic powered unit? The PTO models are plentiful on the used market and will do everything you want for no more than $2500.00 for a good used unit. 33 HP is plenty adequate for these units as well.

 

[sea2summit]

We'll you sound like a one man show so not sure why you're worried about using your loader while your chipping? I typically make 3-4 large piles of material, or what I estimate is as much as I want to chip in a day, then I chip into my ranger from the pile and dump it wherever I want to use it. Generally I pile it for hog bedding and compost pile.

Anyway, a PTO mounted unit dollar for dollar is going to outperform a self powered unit until you get to some of the commercial level chippers. I would just chip into your wagon and put it where needed or in your case you might even be able to just make your pile where you plan to use the chips just as easily. You'll actually be surprised at how much material you have to chip to actually get a meaningful amount of chips if you're trying to use it for anything like bedding or compost.

I have a woodmaxx and would recommend, mine is probably too large for your tractor but they make smaller gravity fed units that would work.

 

[nisaacs]

I recommend one with two infeed rollers and a clam shell type flywheel housing. This is the one I have but use the tractor remotes for hydraulics. This one is self contained. I use a 33 hp JD970 but, like you, anything over 3" is fire wood.

BX72RSH heavy duty wood chipper

 

[ericm979]

I usually build piles by hand. Sometimes I load material into the grapple and use it to carry to a pile, or use the grapple to move or consolidate piles. Then I put the PTO chipper on and chip into a trailer or into a pile. I like to have a pile ready to go so I can keep a constant feed to the chipper rather than having it running doing nothing while I'm finding the next branch.

I have a Woodmaxx 8H, which is an 8" square throat hydraulic feed chipper. The tractor has 32hp at the PTO. That's enough to chip stuff up to about 4" at full feed speed. Larger than that and I need to slow the feed down, or even stop and start the feed to let the tractor pull the flywheel back up to speed. I try to burn stuff that needs that but sometimes it gets chipped.

I used to use a manual feed chipper and find the hydraulic feed to be safer and work better. There are a few people here who are happy with manual feed but often they are chipping the easier to chip species like pine.

Woodmaxx and Woodland Mills sell inexpensive 8" chippers designed in North America and made in China. There are a lot of Woodmaxx 8H users here and a lot of videos on youtube so there's a lot of info about them. The Woodland Mills has some nice features but in the end I went with the Woodmaxx.

It's difficult to burn in my county and the land is very productive so I do a lot of chipping. The Woodmaxx, while it has a few design features I'd like to improve, has been very useful for me and I would not hesitate to recommend it.

 

[Omega Woods]

I just bought a Woodmaxx MX-8600. I wanted something USA made because that's just the way I am.

I have 17 acres but only maintain about six of it. I almost went with the 8800 but I wanted something I could run with either tractor (45 HP Branson or 20+ HP Kubota) so I saved myself the money and went with the smaller unit. In your case, I'd probably go with the 8800 or the 8h if you don't care about it being from China. For me, anything smaller than 4" is firewood anyway and I don't get in a hurry to get stuff done so I'm anticipating being just fine with the 8600 smaller size. I didn't want to get anything with a gravity or manual feed so the 8600 seemed perfect for what I have. I'll come back and post photo/video when it arrives.

 

[oosik]

My chipping operation does not match what most are doing. I have 80 acres and it's covered with stands of Ponderosa pines. So...every other year or so - I thin and chip the stands of young pines. 800 to 1200 small pines ( 1" to 6" on the butt ) in one operation.

I - identify - fell - drag to piles - pull and chip from the piles. A single stand will end up looking like a giants game of Pick-Up-Sticks. Then I drag all the fallen trees to a pile. I will usually end up with ten to twelve piles. This project can take up to two months.

I have a Wallenstein BX62S. It's gravity feed and works very well. No limbs are ever trimmed - just feed the tree, butt first - into the chipper.

I've had two Wallenstein PTO chippers. First was the BX42S - now the BX62S. Wallenstein makes a superior chipper. The BX62S is powered with my 62hp Kubota M6040.

 

[ericm979]

If I was to buy the tractor and chipper now I'd get a tractor with more power and probably a Woodmaxx MX8800. I like the level chute design on my WM8H vs a chute that angles up as it allows me to chip a branch that's too heavy for me to lift up at an angle. I only have to be able to lift the butt end into the chute and lift the other end enough to get the rollers to grab it.

The 8H has dual feel rollers while the MX series has single rollers. I have not used a single roller chipper but one of the factors that made me decide on the 8H vs the Woodland Mills 8" was their videos, which made it look like it takes effort to get the single roller to bite. The 8H dual rollers are smaller and won't grab a big square butt, but there's a manual lift lever to lift the upper roller up and on top of the material. It works pretty well.

 

[oosik]

Eric - that's the same way I do my largest pine trees. Huff the butt end up and over the lip of the chute. Walk out to the mid point - lift the entire tree - push it into the chipper. The majority - lift at the mid point and slide it into the chipper. The chipper pulls so hard when its chipping - it often frightens those who have come to help.

I've found I must wear gloves. After an hour or so of chipping - without gloves - the bark on the pines will abrade the palms of my hand to the point they will be bleeding. I wear heavy duty leather gloves. Aerostich - Elk skin ropers. Actually - I wear these leather gloves throughout the entire process.

 

[ericm979]

With the level chute bottom I only have to lift the tree up to chute level to get it to feed. When the chute is at an angle I have to lift the tree higher than the lip of the chute to get it to feed. Basically the tree has to be at the same angle as the chute. When it's a long tree that can be a lot of weight to lift up high. My manual feed chipper has a chute that's fairly high up and at a steep angle, which made getting anything that was long and heavy in there a challenge.

Today I was chipping long fir branches off a pile that was as high as the chute. I didn't even have to hold the ends of the branches up. All I had to do was get the butt end into the chute and let the chipper eat.

 

[WinterDeere]

Lots of great info to chew here, although with only 4 acres, I'm not probably generating nearly as much material as most of you with these larger units. My biggest "burn burden" is green stuff coming out of flower beds, which for annuals can still contain the potted dirt they came in. I do have a lot of tree branches, but I'm only discarding the 1" - 3" diameter stuff. Anything much smaller just gets mowed over, and anything much larger gets cut and stacked with the firewood.

This probably pushes me more toward a chipper shredder, than a standard chipper. That said, I do see the advantage of hydraulic feed, especially if it will suck in a widely-forking branch. For example, this group of piles was one of my several chores yesterday:



So, to redirect a biit:

1. Any smaller (< 4" max) units with hydraulic feed?
2. Any type of unit that's more adept at handling green leafy stuff, possibly with soil still stuck to roots?

Maybe this is more a question for a gardening forum than a tractor forum, although they'd have no clue on 3-point options, if such a thing even exists in this class.

 

[WinterDeere]

Maybe MightyMac? Mighty Mac Three Point Hitch Shredder Chippers: Mackissic

Samson? https://www.amazon.com/Tractor-Chipper-Shredder-BX42S-540-1000/dp/B01KPD5FGU

Both combiner chipper with 24 or 48 hammer shredders, and both aimed at smaller and greener stuff.

 

[ericm979]

I have a MacKissick TPH184. It only gets used once a year for shredding leaves. I use the Woodmaxx 8H for everything else.

The MacKissick dumps the chips out the bottom. When the pile gets to the bottom of the chipper, the chipper clogs. So you need to pick up the chipper and move it often, and you can't shoot chips into a trailer. It's got a fraction of the chipping capacity of the 8H. Even if you don't chip larger material, that means a lot more cutting of forks and branches to get stuff to feed. Being manual feed, you often have to work the piece around to get it in just the right orientation so it will feed. And then the chipper grabs it and yanks it down very fast. That's dangerous. I always approached it from the side so if my hand got caught in a branch when it got sucked in, it would just ram my wrist into the side of the chute rather than suck my arm in. The 8H's power feed not only makes starting a piece easier, it feeds it at a consistent rate so its much safer. Now that I know how it works I can stick something in and walk away to get the next piece while it chews on the last one.

The MacKissick tends to spit out stubs of branches which can hurt if you get hit. The power feed chipper never does that.

I can get the 8H to chip small branches that would go into the MacKissicks' shredder. It does a better job on them, reducing them into chips that are smaller than the shreds. The only thing it won't handle is leaves and tiny branches that are too short to safely feed, and I can often get those in by pushing with a larger branch. More than a little of that type material clogs the MacKissick's shredder and you have to poke the stuff down with a stick. Carefully so the stick does not get yanked out of your hand.

The power chipper is so much more effective, faster and safer. And it costs less too. Yesterday I chipped part of a pile and filled a 4x8 utv trailer full of chips in about 30 minutes. That would take two days with the MacKissick.

Seriously, don't even bother with the MacKissick or a manual feed chipper especially if it costs about the same as a power feed one.

 

[DMW]

If you do not need to chip the larger diameter brush, a chipper /shredder makes quick work of things. Also good for cleaning up stuff that is too small for a chipper to deal with effectively. Big chipper better for ag/big jobs, smaller unit is easy to get around the yard. Move the chipper to the pile, don't spend a lot of time collecting it in one spot. My little BXM32 on a SCUT(23hp, 19hp pto) is an easy combination to use.
The BXM42 is a larger version, depending on need.

Wallenstein Equipment

All Wallenstein products are backed with a 5-year Warranty

www.wallensteinequipment.com

 

[oldballs]

Over the past 14 years I have bought both the MacKissic chipper/shredder (model SC1650 HTE) and the Woodland Mills

(WC68). I've found both machines to be effiecient when used as designed. And I have found that one or the other machine fills my particular job needs. Also, both companies have been quite suportive when called on.

I've lived on my 3 acres for 50 years and have seen a lot of mature Cedars, Pines, Russian Olive, Poplar, Maple, Walnut, Redbud, Fruit trees and garden/tree debris go thru these machines.

Cheers,
Mike

 

[RalphVa]

Had a TroyBilt Tomahawk for about 10 years because I enherited it with the house in Baton Rouge and moved it to here in Virginia. Then got a MacKissic TPH-122 for the 4010 (like a JD 2019E if they made it today) and 1025R and 2025R for about 16 years. Think I only ever stalled the tractor engine once. Stalling was a frequent thing on the TroyBilt, and it was a beast to maintain.

No longer needed the shredder for doing leaves; so, bought a WM WC46 about 3 years ago. It's great. Has a hydraulic infeed roller and almost horizontal input chute. Does up to 4 inches wide and 6 inches wide. You have to trim some stronger crotches that the roller will stall on if the crotch is too big to bend.

There's another Canadian manufacturer with similar equipment. WM does not provide a way to raise the feed roller in rare cases when you get a jam; whereas, the other manufacturer does, but they do not provide a foldup chute like WM does. I use a low profile floor jack to raise the feed roller for those occasional jams.

 

[ericm979]

The Woodmax 8H's chute does stick out pretty far and I wish it folded. It's not been a problem for me other than having to be aware of it. The whole chipper sticks out farther than any other implement I have (except the backhoe which isn't really an implement).

The upper roller lift lever is handy when it jams but when that happens I often undo the bolts that hold the tension springs to the lever (really easy) and prop it up with a block. The roller lift is also handy when chipping larger material to get the roller up and over the butt. The dual rollers are smaller diameter than the single roller on single roller chippers and sometimes the upper can't climb over a big butt without help. Once you figure it out it's pretty easy.

It's also useful when you have a stub to chip that's fat and short. I can lift the roller with one hand and toss it in between the rollers with the other.

Their MX series is very different and does not have the manual lift lever for the upper roller (for models with an upper roller).

 

[RidgeHiker]

Here is a review I did last year for the Mackissic TPH185 Chipper/Shredder. Mighty Mac® Hammermill Shredder Chipper TPH185 - MacKissic

I purchased it new this summer. It is rated to shred up to 1.5” diameter through the shredder and chip up to 4.5” diameter through the chipper. I sold my newer Woodmaxx WM-8M chipper because I wanted the PTO shredder capacity. The Woodmaxx was a very good chipper. I also had a 338cc Champion self-powered chipper shredder but wanted substantially more shredding capacity which the MacKissic provided. Shredding is now so much faster! The Champion was also heavy and awkward to move around the property. You can also purchase different size screens for smaller or larger chips/sheddings.

My land is predominantly forested with large conifers and some oaks. Each year they drop substantial amounts of needles, twigs, and branches. For a number of years I hauled large loads to the dump or burned which robbed the ground of the natural duff which acts as mulch as well as replenishing the soil. More recently I have been spreading the chips and shreds. They also provide a nice ground cover.

I am very pleased with the MacKissic. It is solidly built without excess complexity. After many hours use there has been no problems. The shredding capacity is way beyond the Champion. I have chipped over 3” trees and branches without a problem though it is slower than the Woodmaxx. Also the infeed opening is not as large which is less convenient for bushy branches. This works fine since I generally use over 3” for firewood.

The MacKissic is not set up to use a full 3 point quick hitch but does work fine with Pat’s Easy Change system though the included shaft ended up being too short which I solved with a Double HH 23556 Extension Adapter https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HR6Y0G0/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 . MacKissic normally stocks a longer PTO shaft but was unable to get them with the Covid supply issues.

The MacKissic does not have an upper discharge chute and discharges the chips onto the ground. I capture the debris with Shappell ice fishing type sleds. A JS1 JS1 Jet Sled on the side and a JSR Jet Sled Junior JSR Jet Sled Junior underneath. These slide fairly easily on the ground and makes it easy to distribute the chips. I use them a fair amount to haul debris and materials around as well. You can just discharge onto the ground but I found it inconvenient to have to stop and clear the buildup. If you want it to go directly into your trailer or pickup this is not for you.

 

[mikester]

My parameters:

4 acre lawn with ~85 mature trees that drop miles of branches (+60 more under 10 year age, that will be soon enough)
A lot of landscaping around the house, hedges, shrubs, flower beds, etc.
5 acre adjacent woods that I don't own, but help maintain
woodburner, processing 6 - 10 cords per year, generates lots of loose bark and swarf
one tractor = Deere 3033R (33hp)
one wagon = 4x8 dump (Country Mfg. 8300), which is always filled with firewood in cold weather, but could be made available in summer

I have been burning branches, hedge trimmings, and wood processing swarf nearly every second or third weekend for the last 12 years. But due to changes in surrounding properties, I'm in a situation where the prevailing summer wind takes the smoke right toward a neighbor's house and property, so I'm looking for an alternative to use at least during nicer weather. I have a good place to put the chippings, either the perimeter of the woods, or along my property line, so no issues there.

Debating what type of chipper might be best for me, and what the workflow might be. With a 3-point/PTO unit, I'd lose use of my loader while running the chipper, but I could use the loader to build a pile on the ground, before backing up to that with the chipper and then doing my work. With a separately-powered unit, I have another engine to maintain, probably higher cost and lower HP, but it does free up the tractor.

Since I heat my home with wood, I really have no need to ever chip anything over 3" - 4" diameter, I can put that stuff in the wood pile (or scrap burn pile). But I do have need for a input chute wide enough to handle branching messes of 1" stuff, I don't want to be breaking them up and feeding this thing one stick at a time. Ideally, it'd be something that can take wide swaths of small diameter trimmings.

Advice? Not so much needing brand and model (although that's welcome), but initially more workflow and type.

My experience is as follows: I bought a chinese knock off PTO powered 8" chipper with mechanical infeed and 200 lb flywheel. I bought this because the price was right and Manual feed sucks big time. I figured it was cheaper than trying to build the machine myself.

The machine basically breaks down every 15 minutes. Questionable safeties. If you enjoy fixing and modifying equipment this is a great option for you. After a lot of mods the machine is now ok for about 30 minutes at a time and is suitable if you need to take down 1 or 2 trees and want to chip the branches. If you are getting on in years and your reaction time is slow or you tend to be un-coordinated DON'T BUY ONE, or make sure you top up your life and accident insurance BIGLY.

If you need to do any kind of large scale chipping then forget it, rent a 12" powered chipper with hydraulic infeed.

If you need to chip nested branches like apple, dogwood, buckthorn, willow you are in for a major workout on one of these chinese chippers.

If you really enjoy using a chainsaw and shears to cut up all your branches into single stems to feed one at a time and like the tingling of numb fingers due to carpal tunnel then get a small 4-6" manual feed chipper. If your wife complains you don't help out enough around the house get a small chinese manual feed chipper she will see you sweating and swearing trying to chip stuff and make frequent field repairs. Also make sure you have a good welder and metal fab shop for making repairs.

 

[Bill Guenthner]

I got the WCBX42S from Titan. It handles everything I need to chip on my 50+ acres. I’ve had it for a couple or three years now and run mountains of limbs through it.