Wood Chipper recommendations

[Gem99ultra]

How about a demo 20 miles east of columbus

A demo? No problem! I'll be chipping here this morning. Any and all are welcome to come cut and stack, and observe me standing around, sliding a tree in the chipper every few seconds/minutes. Better hurry though - I only have another thousand trash trees to go

 

[BLSXJ]

DONT STACK!

cut and feed.... only touch our wood once! lol

 

[oosik]

There is a man - BLSXJ - that seldom chips or has a lot of help when he does chip. I cut, drag, stack and then chip 750 to 900 small( 1" to 6" on the butt) Ponderosa pines every spring as I thin my pine stands. I would burn unlimited gallons of diesel fuel if I did not use my current procedure.

Been doing it for 36 years and this is the most efficient way, for me. Identify & cut - drag and stack - chip.

 

[GSVette]

oosik,

Considering adding a chipper (rather than renting) to munch a number of tree limbs(Ponderosa Pines, like you) left over from my recent land clearing for shop build-what do you use the chips you generate for? Mulch?, ground cover? Just a big **** pile?

Thanks

 

[ericm979]

I stack brush so I can chip it efficiently. The grapple helps though grapple gathered or moved piles are harder to pull apart at the chipper than hand stacked ones. When cutting trees that have many large branches that have to go through the chipper on their own I sometimes stack and sometimes do not. It depends on how easy it will be to get the branches to the chipper. I don't want to have the chipper running a lot with nothing in it. That just makes noise and burns fuel for no reason.

I use my chips as mulch around the house, on my dirt roads, and in the garden. There's also a big pile. The chips from my Woodmaxx 8H are smaller than what you get from big selfpowered tree service chipper and they degrade faster.

 

[BLSXJ]

whatever floats your boat.

I personally dont enjoy un-tangling brush piles. I might cut/trim an area, then bring the chipper in a close as i can, start it and grab the brach and feed it in.

Do you also enjoy moving and stacking firewood?

 

[BLSXJ]

whatever floats your boat.

I personally dont enjoy un-tangling brush piles. I might cut/trim an area, then bring the chipper in a close as i can, start it and grab the brach and feed it in.

Do you also enjoy moving and stacking firewood?

 

[oosik]

OH - MAN - - are we getting double posts again. Firewood - well, back in the dark ages when I burned firewood. Fall the tree - cut to length - split the stuff - load it in the firewood trailer - haul it across my property and stack it in the firewood shed. All my firewood was harvested on my property here.

If I were to do it now - fall the tree - cut to ten foot lengths - use grapple and bring lengths to firewood shed where it would be cut to length, split and stacked in shed.

Back when I burned firewood - I had no grapple on my little Ford 1700 AND my trees here are ancient growth Ponderosa pines. Mature tree will be anywhere from 32" to 42" in diameter on the butt. You don't pick up much trunk on a 38" green pine tree.

 

[4570Man]

Do you also enjoy moving and stacking firewood?

No, but I know a guy that does. He handles it at least twice as much as I do. He says it’s good exercise.

 

[oosik]

GSVette I've never really figured out a use for all the chips I generate. One year - quite a while back - I tried using them, like gravel, in certain spots on the driveway. They looked nice, they "drove nice" - but unfortunately they were not heavy enough to stay in place and they ended up on the side of the driveway with the plowed snow. And its a pretty long trip from where I generate the chips out to the driveway - so after that one time I've not used them for that purpose again.

However - If you had enough chips and had the patience - my problem - to wait for the driveway and pine chips to freeze up, rock hard, before you do any snow plowing - - pine chips DO make a really nice driveway cover material. Soft, quiet, no dust and locally available - providing you have stuff to continue to chip.

Otherwise - I've got piles of pine chips moldering away in many spots - all over the central portion of my property. In total probably half a dozen or more pickup loads.

My main reason to chip is to get rid of all the small pines I cut when thinning all my pine stands - soooo... I've really never given much thought to using the chips.

They do make good ground cover and are OK for mulch. I think you have to add something to the mix if you are going to use them for mulch - I read somewhere but don't remember what it was.

Ah - I HAVE used them - - I hauled some to a spot where the exposed bedrock and Mt St Helens ash cause an "ash cloud" when we get our winds out of the SW. I'm out here in the scab rock lands about twelve miles due SW of Cheney - near the old town of Amber and Rock Lk. Lots of volcanic ash still hanging around - not yet covered by soil yet.

I don't know where you are relative to a purchase of a chipper - send me a pm if you would like to come out and see a Wallenstein BX62S in action.

This HOT WX - hit 105F yesterday @ 3:30pm - has got to break, sooner or later. Oosik