chipper info

[chippermaster01]

dr wood chipper.

hey,what about getting a DR wood chipper? those are realy good. try the top discharge modle!

 

[Newfie]

hey,what about getting a DR wood chipper? those are realy good. try the top discharge modle!

Compared to what?

 

[chippermaster01]

compared to other chippers

well,i heard that they are great little chippers. they can handle 4 1/2" material. just a thought!:greenchainsaw:

 

[Newfie]

well,i heard that they are great little chippers. they can handle 4 1/2" material. just a thought!:greenchainsaw:

Great for harry homeowner. Not fast or durable.

 

[clearance]

Jak, I would get an old Asplundh-Whisper chipper, the duck and chuck. This is a proven machine, lots of them in BC, now people are using them for a backup because diesel self feeders are the way to go, but $40k. Ford six cylinder engine, all metal construction, exposed wiring like on a fishboat, you can get a shute that angles. When they are sharp, they are awesome, probably find one for under $10k in good shape, and a pickup will easily pull one around to do jobs where you can blow the chips into the bush.

2nd post in this thread I nailed it, thanks.

 

[Newfie]

2nd post in this thread I nailed it, thanks.

Take a bow sir.

 

[jmack]

ford

Thats a good one Tom, you are right, they just scream. I like ones that are not too beat up, on the chute you can see the rodent with a branch in his hand and his other hand making the Sshhh symbol. I think the 6 cyl is the best one, its the legendary Ford. The v-8s are real thirsty.

omigod those bad boys were screamers even with muffs sick machine fer sure

 

[Tree Machine]

If you're a small operation, there's certain 'must have's' in my opinion, and this is just my opinion.

Discharge chute that swivels at least 270 degrees. This allows you to chip into an area, rather than into the back of a truck. No swivel, no choice.

Light enough at the tongue to be able to handle the tongue, shift the tongue left or right and lift the coupler onto a ball, one man. If you're too heavy up front you must 1) depend on another person to direct you in backing up to get close enough that two men may lift and shift or 2) back up, get out, look, get back in, repeat as many times as it takes to align the coupler and the ball so you can do it yourself.

There are a lot of options I could suggest, but just these two features alone open up a lot of versatility. The chipper is there to help you, and to me, that means not limiting you in certain basic ways, things that affect you daily and repetitively. You chipper shouldn't automatically require you to have two men to deal with it and it shouldn't be a major pain in the butt to couple and uncouple by yourself. Those limitations are for bigger machines. A personal industrial chipper really needs to have versatility and abilities that the bigger chippers can't provide you, otherwise you might as well get a bigger chipper

Just something to think about.

 

[maxburton]

I have a Bandit 65 that works very well for pruning, and very not well for removals. For me, that's the bottom line. I can get it anywhere with my F-150 that, note, has neither four wheel drive or a limited-slip differential. I believe that those features are overrated, as I have only gotten stuck three or four times in the last two years, and every time I knew it was going to happen and went ahead anyway. A rope puller got me out quickly.
Anyway, the main problem I have with the 65 is that logs I could normally chip have to be hauled, and that everything has to be cut up to fit. It can't break crotches very well at all. I do a lot of takedowns and would like a bigger chipper for them.

 

[clearance]

I have a Bandit 65 that works very well for pruning, and very not well for removals. For me, that's the bottom line. I can get it anywhere with my F-150 that, note, has neither four wheel drive or a limited-slip differential. I believe that those features are overrated, as I have only gotten stuck three or four times in the last two years, and every time I knew it was going to happen and went ahead anyway. A rope puller got me out quickly.
Anyway, the main problem I have with the 65 is that logs I could normally chip have to be hauled, and that everything has to be cut up to fit. It can't break crotches very well at all. I do a lot of takedowns and would like a bigger chipper for them.

Get a 3/4 or 1 ton 4x4 and a Whisper, 4 wheel drive is not over rated and 1/2 tons have no place as a work truck.

 

[maxburton]

I respectfully disagree. Here are the numbers:

My F-150 has a towing capacity of over 6,000 lbs, and my chipper is only 2300.
Even when mounded up with chips, the truck is 1,000 lbs under GVWR

When loaded with green logs (and passengers, gas, etc), it is at GVWR.

Of the roughly 600 jobs I've done with the truck, it has only gotten stuck 4 times tops (I can't remember exactly). That's less than one percent!

I've put in over 50,000 hard, hard miles on this truck and the transmission has held up so far, as well as the engine and all other parts you'd expect to give up under that kind of stress.

Of course, I'd like to have a heavier truck. But right now, what I have works with no problems- except capacity. I can only move 3-4 yards of chips at a time. Oh, and I have to rake the chips out. Which is a pain. Anyway, my main point is that the truck physically can handle this kind of work. And in case anyone is wondering, I weighed all this out on the truck scale at my local quarry.

 

[Tree guycnd]

Man you guys are over thinking this one.

Who cares about tongue weights and all this crap, it's his first chipper and knowing how partnerships go in this biz probably his last.

Just find any thing that chips wood and you can afford, or be like all the start ups in this city "Vancouver" finance the BC1000 and after two years when you go **** up they will love to take it back for free and re-sell it.

 

[Tree Machine]

Hmmm.

My very first chipper was a 6 cyl chuck n duck, bought for cheap, thinking I was getting a deal. It did a few jobs, with much encouragement (ether) and eventually it did spit out a few truckloads of chips. But it was no fun to run, big, clunky, heavy, and on this one, undependable. I spent more timne wrenching on it, and bringing others in to help me wrench on it, it just sucked all the joy out of it. It was costing me major time, and hence, my good deal was souring steadily. Finally the stupid thing just fully puked and died. I sold it for $100 to someone who was into changing engines, just glad to get rid of it.


Now, this little story is not about whether a chuck n' duck is a good machine or not, it's more about that the Tree Machine got taken. And the moral here has a story:

Whatever you buy, you live with. "Just anything" isn't good enough if you're banking you business and career on the choice. The chipper is central to an arborist's operation. For me, chipping is fun. Chipping is amazingly swift and piles of brush disappear in mere moments into valuable, tiny landscape chips.

That's what it's about. Enjoying it, whenever there's a choice. Remember, this is your job, so make it as much of an ease as is humanly and mechanically possible, and get paid for it.

My chipper cooks an excellent double bratwurst.

 

[xtremetrees]

I agree TM.
I'm looking at vermeers 6 inch. Little Honda motor is nice and quiet.

but first I'm getting a dual axel landscape trailer, about $1600, buying it this month.opcorn:

 

[Tree Machine]

Nice, quiet motors are for lawn mowers. Chipping creates a racket, far louder than the motor. I would, and this is a valuable suggestion, focus on getting the most horsepower that can fit on the machine. Replace the muffler if you want more quiet. There's no replacement for displacement, even though having the knives sharp and engine tuned helps. Remember, chipping is a repetitive exercise. If there's something you don't enjoy about the chipper's performance, you're gonna not enjoy it just about every time you use it. There's no joy in that.

Dull knives can be sharpened. Dirty oil can be changed. Air cleaners can be cleaned, however, insufficient horsepower you're stuck with it. Your chipper shouldn't be the thing that limits your rate in the cleanup, otherwise it ends up easier to load the stuff onto a trailer. 6" models are the dividing line between homeowner toys and industrial workhorses. Make sure you're getting into the latter if this is your career.


I know on some of the 6" models they stick little 20 horse gas engines on them, probably for the guys who are more concerned with how much they're spending now, rather than how much money they'll be making later. I've seen these toys in rental yards, and rented one once (ugh!). My Dad has a 4" chipper with a 20-horse Kohler, but about all he does is chip palm fronds, so power is not the major issue there. He owns a lawn service, does palms in the Winter.

My 6" has a 35-horse, air-cooled, Wisconsin gas engine. That's pretty ample, though 40 horsepower would move the chipping performance from 'authoritative' to 'dominating'. Bandit said 'no' to me on putting a 40 horse on there, because around that power you begin needing a radiator and liquid cooling, and then you're into a bigger chipper and then we're not talkin 6" anymore.

Hope this helps define the search.

 

[ITPlanB]

new site

I found a site the other day - looks like its new and still being worked on... but looks like once complete will be a great place to compare chippers without having to go to lots of other sites... mostly shows the industrial (little bigger than avg homeowner might need) sized chippers. thought i'd pass on my find tho....

http://www.woodchippers.info

 

[trevmcrev]

[
Whatever you buy, you live with. "Just anything" isn't good enough if you're banking you business and career on the choice. The chipper is central to an arborist's operation. For me, chipping is fun. Chipping is amazingly swift and piles of brush disappear in mere moments into valuable, tiny landscape chips.

Agreed, My first chipper was a big old clunker bought from the auctions. Was probably the first version of a hydr fed disc chipper. It was cheap....to buy.
Expensive to run, lots of downtime. I then bought a bandit 65 with 31hp duetz diesel and it was an awsome little machine. There is no tree too big for it..... just means more firewood. I now have a vermeer bc1800a. yeah its a beast but the costs skyrocket from there. Needed bigger truck, use $200 per week in fuel instead of $20, need more men to feed it, more work to feed the men, i could go on......

I miss my 65

My chipper cooks an excellent double bratwurst.[/QUOTE]
LOL i always wanted to try that!!!
Though the 1800 is great for drying off your clothes in front of the radiator on a wet day

Trev

 

[Tree Machine]

I then bought a bandit 65 with 31hp duetz diesel and it was an awsome little machine. There is no tree too big for it..... just means more firewood.

More firewood, smaller chips. That's the difference. Brush 6" diameter and smaller get chipped, logs and limbs 6" and larger get bucked into firewood. I run a commercial tree service on this premise.

I love cutting firewood, I love it. I like cutting it on the ground, but most especially I like cutting it aloft. I can count on that I can climb out to the 4-6" diameter area and make the cut. That part's for the chipper. The rest is firewood (or an occasional saw log).

If you get a chipper in the 6" range, plan on becoming a firewood specialist, unless you have a crane truck to remove loggage.

6" is very economical to run, your operating costs are nil. If you can keep a list of people willing to come and take away the firewood, you and your little, tiny rig are capable of some full-scale tree care and takedowns.

Bigger may be better, but bigger will ALWAYS be more expensive.