Chipper mistakes-non injury.

[Shaun Bowler]

Has anyone ever run anything other than tree material through a chipper?
I have. Aluminum/wooden handled shovel. The old "Wanye" chippers.
I also did a video for a friends art project... It was wood.

 

[Koa Man]

My groundman ran a aluminum/wood handle scoop shovel through my chipper. This was after I told him twice during the same afternoon that he was getting the shovel way too close to the feedwheel. I like to use those shovels to push small or thorny stuff to the feedwheel. It works the best of all the stuff I have tried....forked branches, Bandit's push stick, etc. In the 20 years of running chippers, that is the only time something unintentionally got sucked in.

 

[Newfie]

Ran 8 feet of grade 70 choker chain through the chipper once, choker hook and all. What a racket. Funny shaped tree got hung up in the rest of the hitch and caused the tree to fall out of the hitch and the choker to get caught up in the rest of the tops. Rushing at the end of the day, cut and stacked the logs and fed the tops before looking for the offending chain. Oops.

 

[Dadatwins]

With my own whisper, a few pagers and a cell phone, couple pairs of gloves and had a groundman get a baggy sweatshirt torn off and chipped doing a nasty pin oak. I can't count how many leaf rakes, scoop shovels, and push brooms I have seen go through city owned self feed chippers.

 

[CoreyTMorine]

Ira once told me that he was on a job where one of the ground guys threw a cat through the chipper He said the woman who owned the cat saw it happen and that it was a real bad scene. I guess this was years ago, back in the 70's probably.

 

[TreeJunkie]

threw a dead possum through we found under a storm thrown tree.

 

[iain]

a guy on our firm put a ally handled rake through once it still chipped it mind !!!
and another guy a wire cable on a different machine though!

i have heard of a mobile phone (cell phone) going through as well

also a small jack russell dog, it was chasing a ball when it went into a pto machine

squirrels and pigeons two

 

[Thor's Hammer]

Ira once told me that he was on a job where one of the ground guys threw a cat through the chipper He said the woman who owned the cat saw it happen and that it was a real bad scene. I guess this was years ago, back in the 70's probably.

If I'd have been there, throwing that cat in would have been the last thing he ever did.....

 

[turnkey4099]

First job in a lumber mill (Red Feather, Kamiah Id) at 18. Feed the chipper from stuff coming down the slash chain from the edgers. Chipper was about 12ft diameter and fed from the second story. Opened my shift by chucking a chunk back into the throat. Instead of a "bong" like it should have been, it was "rattle". Checked and only about 6" of weld was still holding a 2'x3' piece of the chute. Called the foreman. Said "keep feeding, I'll get a welder for it". He didn't get it in time. About 30 minutes later instead of "rattle' it was "swish" and the plate hit. I jumped the slash chain yelling "Iron in the chipper" and every body boogied. The entire 2x3' chunk of 1/4" iron went through and came out in curled shavings except for one small corner about 2" on a side.

Harry K

 

[timberwolf150]

THE WIFE!!!!!!!!!
No seriously, in 8 years of demonstrating chippers I have seen and heard lots of stories. One of the funniest things was a demo with the National Trust. All this one guy went on about was his new radio. It was one of those that did everythig including GPS Navigation etc. First time he went near chipper the brash dragged the radio from his belt and it went straight through the chipper. Had to walk away for a bit, couldn't stop laughing.

 

[Big A]

At one company I worked for, before I went there, an idiot threw a five foot long 1" diameter iron bar through the PTO driven Premier 330 to "see what would happen". Ripped the fly-wheel off the crank. No-one knew who the guilty party was until about six months later at the Xmas do when he got pi$$ed up, bragged, and got fired on the spot in front of everyone!!!

 

[kf_tree]

some guys i know run a 600hp land clearing morbark. they run around with small dozers with tree shears and the grapple feeds the chipper. they run car bumbers, pipes etc through the machine. when they run a pipe through it they said it spits out o rings.

 

[treeman82]

This person I used to be friends with, he one time a long time ago rented a chipper (this was before he bought his own). He was using it and decided to throw a lead pipe through the machine just for the heck of it. Shot the blades all to hell. Needless to say, I no longer associate myself with that *******.

Oh, and there was a guy a few years back in CT who decided to run his wife through a rental chipper of all things. They caught him because he forgot to clean out the discharge chute.

 

[BlueRidgeMark]

... a few pagers and a cell phone

Can you heear me now?

 

[Shaun Bowler]

How about disconnecting a chipper from the truck to turn around?
My people did that once and guess what?
See Ya!

 

[xander9727]

I chased my 15x down a driveway and pulled the electric brake disconnect the second week I had it...........Yeah, that guy doesn't work here anymore.

 

[JonnyHart]

I've only had a glove or two go through, but a former co-worker had one of those stupid strap keychain things, and the strap was always dangling out of his pocket. I always told him a saw would catch it, and to tuck it away. Well, I didn't always tell him, because his keys went through the whisper.

 

[topnotchtree]

I was told about a sledge hammer that went thru a drum whipper chipper. I guess it blew out the whole cutter bar assembly and drove it into the ashphalt a few inches.