Chipper I finally ordered a Wallenstein BX42 chipper

[lostcause]

i've had a bx42 for a couple of years now, and it does work good for me with one exception - tops of leafy trees tend to clog it easily.

i can run solid wood through it all day without missing a beat, but when it gets to the tops, or even very leafy branches, it will often plug. what happens is that the tops have little solid wood, and the thin stems and all the leaves get in the flywheel, but they don't have enough mass to fly out the chute - they just flutter around and eventually too many get in there and they plug up by the chute opening.

my unit is power feed, but that really doesn't matter when it gets to the tops, i've tried controlling the feed, but the cutters will just pull the small tops in, regardless of feed speed. anyone else have this issue and find a solution? the only one i have is to try to feed a solid piece of wood in along with the top, so it has the wood mass to help pull everything out. this works pretty well, but you can't always be ready to feed at the exact time, so i don't consider this a real solution.

oh yeah, my personal $0.02 on power feed - this is my second chipper. first was an old pto driven chipper/shredder with manual feed. my belief is that nobody will ever buy a second manual feed chipper. some will buy manual and eventually sell it, others will end up keeping it, but anyone who decides to buy another chipper will always opt for the feeder the next time.

 

[FLHayman]

I have the BX62 and imagine it's similar. Wet leaves clog mine, too, if I don't chase them with some dry or semi rotted wood. What I do is force myself to let the fallen branches sit long enough to dry a little, then they don't clog. In Florida, we get Spanish moss stuck to every other branch, plus there are some palmetto branches that are very waxy. In both of these cases, I can deal with them as long as I chase them with pieces of easy wood branches The Wallenstein is super easy to clean out, in any case, with the hinged chute. Most of my clogs lately have been me holding back one incredibly knotty piece that 'may, or may not' make it through. I wait till the end and try it. On my old gas JD, they will often slow it down enough to start a problem, but with a more energetic Ford 5000 diesel, it will chew up anything I can fit in......so far.
One more tip is to keep the rpm up, and don't hold on to anything once you've put it in and it starts to chip it.