PTO chipper WoodMaxx new MX-9900

[ultrarunner]

Spot on for species and type... lots of Nobles, but also Douglas Firs, Nordman and Fraser, Grand and rarely Silver Tips... none this year ;-(

Location is SF Bay Area...

The semi-retired guy with 12" chipper retired year before last... he would hire out with a helper and was reasonable... chipped Christmas Trees as fast as you could feed.

Went to Bandit to rent a chipper and liked what I heard... said any rental could be applied to a purchase... they had me all hitched up with a 12" and safety/operation instructed with my credit card on file... just as I was about to leave the manager came out and said he needed a copy of my Contractor License... I am not a contractor and was renting for personal use... after some discussion he said he could not rent to me and learned this was the same area wide... have to be a contractor or municipality...

Never had this issue in Olympia... even Home Depot/Lowes rents chippers and splitters

Brother jumped on the Woodmaxx and I cautioned it would be slow going... at least properly adjusting the knives made a big difference.

Any recommendation for a chipper for Christmas Trees... most are under 8' and most 5" dia or less... the larger 12-14' trees are about 1% of sales.

 

[ericm979]

Have you tried cutting off the lower foot or two of branches and feeding them separately?

 

[ultrarunner]

Not yet... will need to check with the boss on that.

I just get the from the field reports.

Good to know simply adjusting the knife clearance made a huge difference.

Not that long ago I was admiring a new 3 point chipper not from from Davenport...

 

[Tworude]

They won't sell to me because I live in Alaska and I was going to pay for shipping on the Chipper and their sawmill! Yet they have no problem shipping to Canada.

 

[ultrarunner]

Update with picture...

Had a chance to use the chipper today... in general it worked well... no bogging down of the L3800 and the chipper part worked well most of the time.

What did happen with larger branches... either on or separately fed is the tendency for them to wrap around the feed wheel...

It is still a leaning curve with more to learn.

I also had Mom there helping...

 

[ultrarunner]

PS... we still get a laugh from when the guys were first using the chipper.

That is when I posted about how it took 3 guys to chip... two to drag and feed and one to sit in the seat so the engine would not stop... but they did take turns sitting to be fair...

 

[ericm979]

I've yet to have anything wrap around the feed wheels on the 8H. OTOH a couple times I have had larger branches with stubs get wedged with the stub in the travel slot for the upper feed roller. Once I had to hack it apart through that slot before I could pull it back out. It's a known issue and the MX's design is different in that area. It doesn't happen often.

Is your MX's feed rate easily adjustable? On the 8H the feed speed control lever goes from 0-10 but all the speed change happens in a very narrow range at about 3.5 making it difficult to set. It's my one real problem with the unit (other than not being big enough, but a chipper's never big enough). I have a lower GPM valve on order.

 

[ultrarunner]

The bar adjusts the feed rate... did not play around with it as things were wrapping up when I got there after work...

The tree in the picture went right on through... no problems.

Some individual long branches from 12-14' Nobles are very supple... twice branches wrapped around the feed roller...

Maybe being so green and the species being a factor?

The unit sounds good and is well matched the L3800 from what I can tell.

The initial problem was greatly improved by resetting the clearance on the knives...

For a long time I had my sights set on a used Bandit 65 commercial unit... know a couple of tree guys that use them... mostly hired to take down a single tree in a city lot...

Of course the bigger machines are awesome...

 

[Glrret]

The only time I have ever had anything wrap around the feed roller is when I'm chopping up grape vines, and that's only if they get toward the outer edges of the feed roller. I've also noticed I have less of a chance of wrapping if I slow my feed rate down.

 

[ultrarunner]

All good tips for our learning curve...

The old homestead is already looking better and this is the first year the tree lot has been policed before New Years... weather cooperated in that we had 6 weeks of dry days... so no mud to deal with or rain keeping away tree shoppers.

Thinking about the 1650 trees sold plus the 30 donated to local shelters and the Food Bank event where those bringing canned goods got a picture with Santa... it was quite a nice holiday season... 99.9 of those out to bring home a holiday tree are in good spirits to begin with and I enjoyed the public interaction...

The only negative was parents letting their kids climb all over the restored 1949 Farmall Cub... but that is for a different thread...