bher
Bronze Member
I bought a used Patu DC65 chipper and tried it over the weekend. I had been looking into chippers for over a year. The decision with regard to manual fed verses power feed was very hard. Powerfeed chippers were at least $5k, with nothing used to be found. I finally came to the realization that I was just not going to spend that kind of money for a chipper. The Patu is manual feed and uses four knives to help pull the brush in. It is in very nice condition and appeared to be used very little. The unit appears well-made and heavy duty. I paid $2000 plus $350 for freight and an extra set knives was included. If I had not found the Patu, I probably would have a gotten a new Wallenstein BX60 or Salsco 627. The Patu works pretty well. The knives do pull the material in rather well, but limbs and bushy material require some assistance. Most rather straight limbs go right in with no help. The chipping opening is about 8 by 9 inches. The unit is direct drive and will not throw the chips more that about 15 feet. This is not problem for me. The chipper weighs about 650 pounds and my TC29 lifts it easily. It does not feel at all unstable with the chipper. I can realistically chip about 4-inch-diameter hardwood with my ~24 pto horsepower. I did stall the tractor and clog the chipper once on one very wet and nasty piece of 5+-inch poplar. Otherwise, once I got some experience and was reasonable, the tractor powered the chipper pretty well. More horsepower would be nice, but not really needed for many uses. I plan to do some decent clearing work. I am chipping all the small brush and trees and piling the larger stuff in about 5 foot lengths. I will either burn or bury the piles. Much of the volume of the debris is reduced greatly by the chipping. Overall, I am happy with my purchase. A pto chipper does not need to be powerfeed to be a very useful tool.
