Wallenstein BXM32 or 42 for my John Deere 1025R TLB

[Sun Treader]

I'm running a WoodMaxx WM-8H and its a great machine. I throw everything in there. Its chipped up twenty foot long 6" dried black locust logs, the kind of stuff I can barely get a chainsaw through. Amazing. I've fed in vines right off the tree or fence and it just keeps pulling it in. I don't know what counts as 'shredding' vs chipping but its all chips on the other side.

All that said, its getting 45hp at the PTO. The kind of all-day all-stuff chipping you're talking about takes power and hydraulic infeed.

You'd be time, money, and frustration ahead to rent or hire out a compact track loader with a front mulcher. It would make short work of the job and would mulch up everything under your 3" size down to the leaves. Just guessing without seeing the place but I don't think it would take more than a day or two to do everything you want.

Pick out some garden areas and spend the first season tilling it over whenever the weeds start coming up and it'll be perfect next year.

 

[Fiziksgeek]

Fiziksgeek,

I just talked to Karen at Woodward Crossings (Outstanding by the way if any is wondering. She has responded 3 times today via email and its Sunday. You don't find customer service like that anymore) Anyhow she highly discouraged the BXM42 because of the weight. I had thought about that. She said it would be very dangerous on a tractor that size.

What are your no B.S. thoughts about the BXM32? We are clearing literally 20 years of overgrowth from about 4.5 acres on our property. The brush, trees, and honey suckle are so thick we couldn't make it to the back property line even before the leaves came on this spring. (we were hiking with our kiddo's who were 3 and 5). Anyhow there are already brush piles everywhere from the previous owners, plus i have weeks of thinning with a brush cutter to do. Once i get the overgrowth thinned out I'll get in there with my landscape rake to start cleaning up the years of leaves, fallen logs, etc which is really why i think the Chipper/Shredder would be most beneficial.

My wife is a huge gardener. (last vegetable garden was 40'x100' and a 40'x40' strawberry patch). I would really like to have the finer mulch for our compost also. I've wrestled for months on getting just a straight chipper vs the chipper/shredder and i really think for our needs, the BXM32 would be the best bet. What are your thoughts as an owner of one?

I bought from Woodward crossings as well. I drove out there and picked it up, real nice folks.

Regarding your clean up job. I guess the first question I have is what is your time frame? I use the BXM32 on my 1.5 acres. I put maybe 10 hours a year on it...give or take...is 3-4 chipping sessions. The work you describe sounds like it would take an eternity....

I think you have the power to run the larger chipper carefully, but I hadn't considered weight. The BXM32 is ~450lbs if i recall, and it sticks out pretty far from the rear of the tractor. It is considerable ballast, the tractor definitely squats when picking it up. I think the BXM42 is like 800 lbs...and I assume it sticks out even further, so Karen may have a point. I don't know if its "dangerous"...but it is a lot of weight hanging pretty far out there!

 

[ericm979]

I run a lot of different stuff through my Woodmaxx. Both old dead and newly cut coyotebrush, douglas fir, elderberry, redwood. Anything from less than a half inch to nearly the 8" capacity of the unit. Being a chipper alone, it's not as good at running very small stuff as the hammer mill shredder on the MacKissick. I've found that I can handle the small pieces that come along with brush clearing and tree cleanup by putting them in on top of larger pieces once the rollers have grabbed them. It's not so good at chipping handfulls of small stuff by itself- I need one slightly longer piece to get grabbed by the rollers and pull it all in. I'm not willing to stick my hands too far into the machine.

Speaking of safety I feel this machine is safer than the old chipper. When it grabs material even at the fastest feed speed it's not moving that fast. While the MacKissick can grab and pull things in FAST. And the chute is shorter than the 8H so even with your hands at the edge of the chute they're already closer to the business end.

The shredder can deal with handfuls of small stuff better than the chipper. But that's not something I do often, maybe a few times a year. I kept it because my wife wanted to be able to shred green stuff for compost, which we've done a few times a year when we do it. If we don't do it much we'll sell the chipper/shredder.

The weight could be an issue. Your tractor has to be able to pick it up and safely transport it. The MacKissick was just at the 3pt limit on the Kubota B7100 I had but it would handle it on slopes ok.

The feed speed on mine is not very variable- there's two speeds, full and about 1/3. There's another thread about that on here. It's not what I expected and there's a few times where I'd like a different speed, usually slower for large material. But most of the time one of those speeds is ok.

 

[dbchaplin03]

Good evening. I wanted to provide a response to this thread with my experience.

First off, I'm an Air Force Officer who spent 7.5 years as a jet engine mechanic prior to commissioning. I want to throw that out there before I get into my experience because there are a lot of knuckleheads out there who don't take care of their stuff and complains when it breaks down.

I ordered the BXM32 from Woodward Crossings and the experience was fantastic. It arrived on time, un-crated easy, instructions were clear, seemed pretty well built, greased everything with high quality waterproof grease, hooked it up to the tractor.... kabooooom! It self destructed with the very first bush branch that went in the chipper (not even 1/4" diameter). One of the bolts that goes through the shredder shattered into about 4-5 pieces which in turn took out the entire inside of the machine. The bolt was a factory defect but the machine was trashed. Some of the pieces nearly went through the side of the sheet metal.

Karen was amazing and refunded my purchase price in full the next morning including shipping, plus paid for return shipping, and added an additional $200 on top for the inconvenience. I was blown away by how amazing they are. An absolutely A+++ company to work with.

I am gun shy on the Wallenstein though after seeing how something that simple can cause unrepairable damage so I opted for the refund instead of a new unit.

I did many more hours of research and ordered a Woodmaxx TM-86h. They are back orders so it doesn't look like I will get it for several weeks which is disappointing but I am very excited for hydraulic feed. I won't really have much to compare it to because the Wallenstein blew up before I got a chance to even use it. I will say though that they (Wallenstein's Rep) immediately authorized Karen to issue the refund. They refunded it before I even had it crated back up to ship back.

I truly believe that there is no way Wallenstein could have known the bolt was defective. There are just too many moving parts and at that kind of RPM, if something goes wrong, it goes really really wrong. I'm thankful no one was hurt because my wife and kids were out (in the distance) watching our expensive new machine being used for the first time.

The only reason I didn't go with Wallenstein for the straight chipper was because of the hydraulic feed that everyone raves about. I think it will help my JD 1025r baby tractor chip a lot larger brush I think. In the meantime, I have a massive brush pile that needs chipped so I'll probably have to rent one for a weekend and get started. We need a whole lot of wood chips.

 

[arizona98tj]

Sorry to hear about the problem with the BXM32. I can't imagine the surprise you must have experienced when that bolt let go. I hope you enjoy the Woodmaxx when it gets delivered.

I picked up a BXM32 earlier this year and have put about 10 hours on it so far, primarily chipping poplar along with a bit of oak, basswood, and brush. I've attached a couple of photos from a run of poplar and oak. I run the BXM32 on my MF 1529, 28HP engine, 23HP @ PTO. The worst I've been able to do to it thus far is to temporarily slow the tractor RPM by 200. It eats green and dry 3"~4" poplar without hesitation. Oak results in smaller chips than that from poplar but the chipper handles it well too. I feed the shredder hopper small branches, about the diameter of one's finger, and it processes them well. The output is very shredded.

The only issue I had was with the plastic PTO guard. The guard binds against the metal shield on the chipper. I removed the plastic guard and run without it. My Massey is a compact tractor so the PTO output isn't that high of the ground and I was quite surprised the first time I attached the PTO shaft to the tractor and noticed the problem. I read another comment where an owner put wooden blocks under the chipper to reduce the PTO shaft angle. I've got some treated timbers and just might give that a try so I can reinstall the plastic PTO guard.

I just wanted to share my limited experience with my BXM32. From your comments, it sounds like our wives both enjoy mulched gardens.

 

[dbchaplin03]

I forgot to mention that. I took some 2x4's and mounted some heavy duty caster wheels to the bottom. My thought was that it would help with hooking up the 3 PT since I don't have a quick hitch yet or the iMatch. I secured it to the chipper with some hex head screws and that worked great. It really leveled out the pto shaft also.

I love my 1025r but I do wish that I would have bought a larger tractor. I bought this one because it had the backhoe with it and I thought I'd use it to dig out stumps. So far my success with that is pretty limited. I bought it used with very low hours so I'll be able to get my money back without a problem if I want to upgrade someday. The price of what the backhoe added could easily get me several more hp and quite a bit more lift capacity. Other than that though, the little 1025r is a great little tractor