Should i buy a chipper

I started a part time tree service approx. 3 years ago one day when I retire from the fire service it will be full time, ok I have been looking at some drum chippers (altec morbark etc) due to the fact of low maintenance, lower cost and not used on a daily basis, I try and take as much info and consideration from my dad as possible and he strongly advises against any type of chipper (drum /disk) due to the fact he had one back in the early to mid 80's and says they are a constant headache and never just general maintenance always something major to fix or correct, I would like some opinions should I listen to my dad and value his past dealings with a piece of equipment like this or step out on a limb and go with my gut having not ever owned a piece of equipment like this. A little direction would be very helpful guys, I really appreciate it. Thanks in advance

I retired from tree work, and kept one of our stump grinders, thinking it was an easy one man tool for side work. It was, but I should have kept a chipper too. I wound up getting more take downs than stump work. It never failed, jobs always ran over on time because I was used to having a chipper. Handling brush is harder and much more time consuming than chipping. You can give away chips, nobody wants brush. Our landfill takes all brush and small wood free, but you still have to run 20 miles to get rid of it, and if you don't get there today, you can't work tomorrow till you empty your trailer. I have a dump trailer and it was a very good investment, but a chipper is just a tool I can't see anyone doing this full time not having. I rented a small Dosco, and 6" Vermeer, they are just too small for anything but a homeowner. The smallest I'd go with is a Vermeer BC1000, Brush Bandit in the 10" range, or an old 12" to 16" drum. I rented a small air cooled, 25HP diesel chipper that was rated at 6" but had a 10" feed shoot that worked great, but, I forget what model it was. When we were in business the Asplundh 16" was about the best machine going. We got about 20 years of trouble free use out of ours, general maintenance was all it got. Disc chippers do have more parts to fail, pumps, feed rollers, etc., but are much more user friendly. I used to rent a 10" Morbark and it was the best small chipper I ever used. The rental company I dealt with had 2 of them and I thought I was gonna cry when they sold them and went to the Vermeer BC1000. The Vermeer is a good machine, I just really liked that little Morbark. I'd rent a couple different ones and talk to the rental guys to see how much maintenance they take. If they took that much upkeep, with every "wingnut" in the world renting them, a rental company wouldn't be able to keep them. Good luck, Joe.

Buy a chipper. You won't regret it. My first chipper was an old 16" asplundh with a V8 engine. It did take a bit of repair to get it to a good working order, but it was totally worth it. You have to expect to do some maintenance on your equipment. I spent $1700 on it but it didn't run. I brought it home, pulled the pecan shells out of the carb and fired it up. Since then I put a drum bearing, new knives, battery, regulator, rebuilt generator and a few other odds and ends and wires. I still have it, and it works perfectly. I pull it with a 1 ton dump. I have maybe $2500 in it total because I did all the work myself, I had a guy offer me $3500 for it recently but I'm not ready to sell it. That machine paid for itself in about 2 months. So, unless you can afford to buy new stuff, buy some tools and an older chipper and be prepared to figure it out. This site has good info and people who are willing to help when you get stuck on something. Good luck

Thanks guys i really appreciate it, I've sat down and done some hard thinking and i have been looking @ a 16" Altec 4cyl drum chipper, I also put pen to paper and the time and gas i would save dumping brush compared to staying on site and chipping 70-80% of material I actually would be making money, I really do appreciate yalls advice and think im gonna pull the trigger and go get that drum chipper again i really do appreciate it Joe and issacvent I will keep an update on here how things are going

When you say 10" or 16" chipper. Do you mean that's the size wood it takes???? .

tramp bushler said:

When you say 10" or 16" chipper. Do you mean that's the size wood it takes???? .

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Yes sir I the one I'm looking @ is a Altec 16" drum chipper and I assume thats the size of material it takes again I'm new to this whole chipper deal

Be careful with the older chuck and duck units, rather than the controlled feed units. Never stand directly behind the chute. And always make sure you can get free quick of what you are feeding it.

That's a pretty big chipper . The Brush Bandit we r using 200+ is the biggest I've been around. Well aside from the pulp mill.

But I spose there are non burnable species. And prolly few people want firewood in L.A.

Tramp, the main advantage on running a 15-16" chipper isn't to necessarily run that big a log through it, but it will handle and crush larger branches with more forks, and the larger engines will handle hard wood better. And no, the firewood market isn't great down here. Way more wood than demand.

To the OP, I would definitely demo a chuck n duck before you buy it, and demo a controlled feed unit as well. Those old altecs are cheap for a reason, nobody wants to run em. Jeff

OK. That makes sense. I do spend plenty of time cutting crotches off small trees and brush so it will feed. If I don't the guys have some pretty futile wrasslin matches trying t get it to chip.
Thanks Jeff.

shongaloo said:

Yes sir I the one I'm looking @ is a Altec 16" drum chipper and I assume thats the size of material it takes again I'm new to this whole chipper deal

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If I am not mistaken, you are refering to a chuck and duck conventional drum chipper. The 16" is the length of the knives on the drum. You will be lucky to get it to eat 7" green material. If you plan to chip any dead wood, or any wood over 7", I would recommend looking into a self-feeder.

a 4 cylinder chuck and duck is most likely a 6" chipper. it has a larger opening than that but the engine doesn't have enough power to run the drum in large wood. I have one and it does great. I don't find it all that dangerous. it doesn't pull the wood in hard enough to suck a person in. really, other than whipping you, its only danger would be if you reached in and chipped your arm/leg. they are cheap. I paid $2500 for mine. its a simple design and low maintenance. good gas mileage too.

2500$ . Wow. Where can I find one.

So why r they called a chuck and duck.
Sounds like a meat dinner.

I used a 16" Asplundh for may years, it's a chuck-n-duck. Ours had a 300 cubic inch Ford inline. Others had Ford V8's. The knives spin at a very high rpm, making the very unmistakable high pitch whine of the old chippers. You can hand feed a modern controlled feed chipper. Not the old drums. It was common to get as big a load of brush on your shoulder and get a little bit of a run going to the side of the chute, toss the load into the chute opening and duck, FAST. If one little twig of the load hit the blades the whole pile was gone, FAST. When I got married my wife said my back looked like some one off a slave galley. Gloves, shirts, and hats were often taken off without your permission, One of the first things you would do is cut a stout push pole with a V on the end. If the pile hit the chute and didn't get the blades you would get your push pole and ram it in. If you grabbed a piece by hand and pushed it in, you would never do it again. I've had big chunks of meat ripped out of my fingers trying to push stuff through. Actually, I did do it again, and it usually hurt. But, that aside, if you use them right, chuck-n-duck, they work really well. You just can't be ho-hum I'm gonna stick this in. Until I got used to disc chippers I like the old drums better. Now I like watching other people run a chipper better, Joe.

P.S. As others have said, on a drum the the 12", 16", etc is the length of the knives. Our Asplundh 16" would grind half that, about 8", pretty easy. It would take a pole about as log as you could drag it to the machine, very seldom would it bog and stall out. But they do not have that stop and go of a controlled feed disc.

Chuck N Duck, Part 3 Ready and Willing - YouTube

There's ya a chuck n duck, pretty sure that's an old asplundh altec, like the OP was talkin bout. You've got a ford industrial 300 ci inline six running the drum via belts, and that's it, no feed wheels, no panic bars. Hence the name chuck n duck. Good news is ya get sucked in, it's over quick, won't even bog the motor.

Despite how cheap a chuck n duck is, i would never be able to justify it. It would only take one little mistake...he was there one second and gone the next..I couldn't live with myself know someone got pulled though because we wanted to save a few bucks. We run a bc1000xp and i get whipped enough from it, but I have to say despite what others may think..I love the bottom bump bar even if it dose get in the say sometimes.

My 2cents

Welcome to ArboristSite hour 18 .

tramp bushler said:

Welcome to ArboristSite hour 18 .

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Thank you.

The pics are just? Marks.

That's better. Must have been on my side.