Chipper Went to BETST Chipper Dealer

[woodlandfarms]

Saw a few of these on Ebay, they are down the street (kinda) so i thought I would take a look.

To me, this company looks like it caters primarily to the internet (not a bad thing). They have a display up of their chipper up, with it pulled apart so you can see the upgrades.

Like I said, they appear more oriented to Ebay than to off the road sales, and where surprised by our drop in visit. But, they were very nice, although it was clear i was not going to get to talk to Keith as he was slammed.

The chipper itself has to be a Jinma, I think all of them are Jinmas. Let me back up. This sales guy claims that Keith designed the chipper 15 years ago and sent the design to China. That would make him the 4th person I have met who claims to have given China the idea. That said, the chipper looked like a Jinma. To me the big difference was the drive shaft (it looked like it was off a quad), the 5th belt, and a safety brake on top. They say they sell 8" version as well. It turns out that the gripper roller is just machined so it can take in a bit bigger...

A bit less expensive than Jinma, but upgraded guts... Maybe I will put some money on this one... who knows... Wifes in a mood today...

Carl

 

[Ranch_Hand_Supp]

I sell and support the Original Jinma 6 inch wood chipper [ not trying to change your mind] and on 8-6-2007 I received a email from Great Eagle Group Machinery Corp., Ltd. located in Yancheng City, Jinangsu, China with a offer to purchase the WC6 and WC8 wood chipper.

One of the questions I had when I replied was .... who manufactured the chippers.

He replied with a [PDF] Certificate of Conformity with ..... Binhai Xianda Shunda Mechanization of Farming Equipment Co. Ltd as being the... Applicant / Certificate Holder and Manufacturer of the WC6 and WC8 wood chipper.

Some of the parts may interchange with the Jinma chipper.

Ronald
Ranch Hand Supply

 

[JerryK]

I did a lot of comparison shopping before I bought my unit, and finally bought an 8" because the price was something I couldn't pass up. The Betst unit would have been my top choice other than that. They are selling it on EBAY for a GREAT price, and their shipping is about the same as the other dealers. The unit itself has an upgraded roller driveshaft, better guarding [if you can call it guarding], and I like their feed roller control system. They also supply the unit with a PTO shaft that contains a shear pin, most of the others rely on the belt slipage to keep your tractors PTO driveline from grenading. This may not be a problem on most tractors, but you never know how good of steel or castings you have, especially in an import tractor or smaller tractor, and don't need to be testing it more than you have to. As far as parts, they all seem to use the same cutting knifes, pullys, etc., and if you need parts you can probably source them many places [all the 'Jinma' and other chippers use the exact same parts drawing and list, as far as I can tell]. As to dealer support, I work on the principle of 'I break it, I fix it' with my vehicles, tractors, etc. As far as 'original Jinma', I did a lot of tearing apart, weld competency, checking torque, and look seeing on my unit when I got it, and it was put together 'as good' as anything I have ever bought.

 

[JerryK]

I see that Betst has their 6" chippers on sale now for $1300 to $1350.

Wood Chipper 6"dia. WC6 Cat.1 3pt 25-45HP Rating - (item 180147972656 end time Aug-14-07 17:45:00 PDT)

 

[RoyJackson]

Just don't eat the lead based paint...

 

[JerryK]

Just don't eat the lead based paint...

" YUP !!! "

[or the seafood, or the ..............]

 

[hill]

i have a chipper from Bestco and think it's an excellent value-for-dollar tool. The version sold by Bestco (WHATever it's design origin or name designation) incorporates several upgrades that resolve the problems experienced by buyers of the earlier machines, namely those to do with the feed roller driveline.

Where early versions had a ball and socket type of joint to allow driveline angles this one has universal joints of the type found in automotive steering columns. These are much more robust and allow for steeper angles if necessary (though steep angles are not necessary, the mechanism needs to easily change overall length as the feed roller is moved up or down to provide for entry and gripping of the material being decimated). A change to u-joints is one of the solutions early owners incorporated to fix the problems they had, and now it has been done more universally.

Some early versions had no method to disengage the feedroller in the case of urgent need, this one came with both a foot pedal operated cable system for that purpose as well as an across-the-top fast acting bar handle using it's own cable to do the same thing. Both methods can be setup and used simulteneously and kept available for the operator's quick use. I decided that two systems was more than I need so I removed both the foot pedal and the top bar, made a handle to put atop the operating lever for the disengagement mechanism and will do with that. Still, it is encouraging to see that prior problematic areas have been reacted to, even perhaps to the point of overreaction.

It is often recommended that factory fill oils be drained and replaced before use. In this case, with my machine, the feeddrive gearbox contained NO oil making it a simpler matter to assure that a quality gear oil is to be used. I didn't have to dispose of the typical goo!

The five belts supplied for turning the chipper cutting wheel seem to be of pretty high quality. They have what I take to be a Germanic name brand imprinted in white lettering, clearly visible. If I'm right that these are good ones it could mean that problems with poor quality belts were solved by outsourcing as necessary to obtain ones that would hold up better than what was available from China. I don't know any of this to be fact - it's only the impression I have after trying to figure out whether I needed to change out the drive belt set for something better. So far the supplied belts seem to be just fine on my machine.

In one of the websites that deal with ownership of these chippers it's recommended that a clearance of between .010" and .030" between the cutting blades and the stationary anvil was optimum for cutting. My machine had at least .20" and needed adjustment. There was a post from one of the sellers of these machines (was it you, Ranch Hand Supply?) stating that every machine they'd received needed this adjustment. And so did mine. Although not especially difficult to adjust, I'd wish for easier access to the bolts that attach the blades or perhaps a 'captive nut' arrangement so that it would not be necessary to be in more than one place at a time.

I have the impression that the cutting parts, blades and anvil, may not be made of good hard tool steel and that they may not be adequately hardened for their purpose. This is yet to be proved but I was easily able to reshape one corner of one of my blades in order to repair that corner's too early proximity to the anvil. It looked like a 1/4" or so of the edge had been missed in the manufacturing grind and closed the tolerance at that point to approx. nothing - I could hear it wisk by as I turned the cutting flywheel. The other blade was OK.


So despite poor included instructions and the awful bright yellow and red colors, overall I like it!


The dealings with Keith and Bestco et al could not have been better in my case. As I'm only 120 miles north of their location I first thought to drive down and pick up the chipper and a brush cutter on my trailer. Bu it would likely have meant at least a six hour drive round trip through Portland and it's unpredictable traffic. So I expressed to Keith my situation and willingness to make my pickup at a Portland freight terminal. He, despite the stated shipping charges in the auction listings, made arrangements for the shipment of the two implements to a terminal for a price much lower than expected and not much at all more than the auction stated cost for the shipment of only one item. This of course has little import to someone in Hoboken but I think it does imply something that we all like to hear - that the company has a high interest in their customer's satisfaction.


(I have no affiliation with bestco nor am I realizing any benefit or compensation for any of the above statements. This is merely a description of my personal experience in buying the topic chipper from that company)