Bandit blocking shute

[Rob Murphy]

Some Mates have a bandit chipper that keeps blocking in the shute. It has one off those adjustable height shutes.
It can take hours to unblock.
Anyone have the same problem???
Possible/proven solutions??
Dont know the model number, but its 12" and fairly new.

 

[treeclimber165]

Three possible causes jump to mind.
1. The chute got bent- jacknifing the truck or something (Seen it a hundred times with the Vermeers).
2. The cutter knives are set at too large of a gap. This could cause chips that are too large, which could get trapped in the bend of the chute, causing a blockage. I'd measure the gap and compare to factory specs.
3. Dull knives, which would shred rather than chip, creating long, stringy chips which are easily caught in the chute causing blockage.

 

[Treeman14]

Its also easier to unblock if you can catch the blockage early enough. Get in the habit of keeping an eye on the discharge as you feed the chipper. If you put a piece in and nothing comes out, shut down immediately and clean it out. When you keep feeding until it backs up to the feed wheels, you've got a major problem.

And check the chute carefully with a flashlight. There may be a stray piece stuck in a joint or a rough weld that's catching stuff.

What are they chipping? We've had problems with heavy, wet stuff like banana trees, schefflera, certain palms, and citrus loaded with fruit.

 

[Tom Dunlap]

Most of the reasons have been mentioned already. Now its time to look at procedures.

Keeping the rpms up is important too. Otherwise there isn't enough air volume to keep the chips in suspension. If I chip wet stuff I jog the feed more to keep the air blast going. This sweeps out any chips that drop out of suspension. Paying really close attention to BICO too, Brush In, Chips Out.

Having an access door on the side of the chute might not be a bad idea if you can still maintain a smooth interior. If there's a crease, you;ll catch chips which will lead to clogging.

Chips Ahoy!

Tom

 

[Rob Murphy]

Thanks Guys.
Don't have this problem with my Vermeer(BC 1000), but boy is it hard on the knives.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

One last thing to look for is a crack in the chute, I had a bandit with some metal fatigue that a twig would catch in the wrong way and that was it. Wetter debris was the worst, pulpy fruit would choke in a heart beat.

 

[jsirbasku]

How are the knives maintained?
Personally i made a decision to run through many sets of new knives first before i would start having dull ones sharpened. The advantage here is that the anvil requires less adjustment, rather than adjusting for each set of sharpened knives use several sets of new then have them all sharpened at once. Your knives come back a little shorter and you adjust the anvil accordingly, usaully only once(or twice). Does this make sense?
Ive known guys who would not do this, and every set of sharp knives that went in were a different width, thus requireing anvil adjustment evry time.
Ive had my morbark for just about 2 years now, and im proud to say that it has never, not once been clogged. It is a newer model with extra wide paddles on the disc. As Tom mentioned it depends on what your chipping, old punky wood, stringy elm or willow usually is when you can expect a clog. and air flow is very important. Auto feed also is great option, but do not reley on it. My owners manual recommends that when chipping logs over 6" that you turn the auto feed off and control feeding manually to prevent the possiblity of clogging. One nice feature ive seen on the new vermeers is the clean out door on the discharge chute.
JS