Considering a 3 pt. wood chipper

[oldballs]

I've never had a burn pile that was "out" by dusk... If the pile is big enough to burn.....it will be hot all night and into the next day. My weather forcast is the determinant for starting the burn.

Some years I don't have a burn pile. That's when the chipper (WoodlandMills WC 68)and/or the chipper/shredder (MacKissic 1650) is used. Sometimes the large logs (2 ft diameter)are just stacked up.... sometimes....or cut into 3 foot lengths and dumped into a overgrown handy ravine/erosion ....to rot away and slow down the erosion.

Cheers,
Mike

 

[Bigbutler1532]

I have a 6" Woodland Mills (WC68) with hydraulic infeed on a Massey 1532 (26ish PTO hp) and I'm fairly satisfied with it. It will eat 6" wood as long as it's reasonably soft or green for the harder woods. I generally don't chip wood that size though since it fits in the woodstove better. It does struggle a bit when there are a lot of leaves or pine needles in the branches: it clogs the fan and the chute up sometimes. I'm pretty curious about the newer model (TF68 Pro) that have a secondary fan that runs at a faster rpm than the main chipper flywheel, I would hope that solves the problem and gets the smaller/lighter debris out of the chute more effectively. The hydraulic feed is at times finnicky, but generally it works well and prevents the machine from pulling in wood in an uncontrolled fashion and allows you to reverse pieces out if they are causing problems.

Burning is cheaper for sure, and renting a pull behind may be cheaper as well (it used to be $125/day around here for a 6"), and the rental units are often more capable. That being the case, we seem to have fewer good burn days here in Maine then we used to, and the wood chips are useful for me for mulch or to keep hogs happy when I have some. If you want the flexibility of having a chipper available to you when you need one and $3-5k is in the budget, I think it's a worthwhile investment. They are a decent counterweight too, at least for my tractor.

 

[dstriplett]

We have a Woodland Mills hydraulically fed chipper that works well but it's limited to 6". They do make a larger model though.

 

[m5guy]

I have a Chinese chipper like the one above. It works fine, won't wingshot a speed competition. But it was cheap and gets rid of brush. I run it on 36 PTO hp. Will take 6" if you can finagle it into the chute.