Steelfan: Sorry it took me so long to pick up on this; I've been out of state celebrating my mother's birthday (99 years old!). Anyway, you've got some decision making to do when it comes to a
chipper. How big is the stuff you will be chipping? Some sources recommend that you have at least 8 HP per inch of wood that you are chipping (e.g., 4 inches requires at least 32 HP). I certainly don't have that (18 PTO HP), but I cut material that is 4 inches or more at times. However, it is SLOW GOING. With limited horsepower, you will need to decide if a belt drive is going to place too great a burden on your tractor (my Valby 140 is a direct drive model). Realize that a direct drive doesn't throw out the chips very well and will plug up with leaves, grass, or damp material at times. A
chipper is a
chipper--not a shredder. With limited horsepower you also need to decide if you can have a mechanical or hydraulic feed mechanism. In a sense you wind up feeding either of these manually anyway, because you must feed material in slowly so that you don't bog down the tractor. A shredder is a heavy implement (400 pounds or more) and it will raise the front end of a light tractor at times, even with front weights. Do you really have that much use for a shredder or would it make more sense to stockpile your material and rent a big shredder when you get a substantial pile. A shredder rents for $100 per day where I live. Can you justify spending $3,000 or more (much more if you add belt drive and a mechanical or hydraulic feed)? On the other hand, if you buy a good machine (Danuser, Patu, Valby, etc. in my opinon), you have a machine which will never wear out if given a bit of maintenance now and again. Yea, verily, verily, thy machine shalt serve generations to come. Also, it is very nice to be able to hook up the
chipper at a moment's notice and get rid of that crap that you just trimmed off of those trees up in the grove--BEFORE it gets damp and moldy and the skunks move in and take possession. Small stand-alone models with gas engines are competitive pricewise, but I wanted to avoid acquiring ANOTHER engine to maintain--especially when it is not used regularly. If you do decide to buy a
chipper and can't find a good used one (they seem to be scarcer than hens' teeth), take a good look at the machine you're considering without the salesman breathing down your neck and consider such things as thickness of sheet metal, size and weight of disk, robustness of bearings, size of blades, ease of lubrication, ease of cleaning out the inside when it plugs up (and it will sometime), ease of removing blades for sharpening, size of opening in feed chute (think branches). And please realize that chipping brush is not America's favorite recreation. It's a slow, dirty, tedious, and somewhat dangerous activity. Can you get your brother-in-law to do it? Good luck.
