Considering a 3pt chipper

[Mahindra2615]

I found a Harper Goossen chipper/shredder in the used section at a local tractor dealership. The owner of the place knows nothing about the chipper, he said it's been there for ages and that he's sick of looking at it. It's for sale under consignment.
The price is $1000, but the dealer said he'd give the guys number to me so I can see what kind of price he will go down to.

Just lately I've been considering a chipper so I don't need to deal with loading the brush on a trailer and haul it to my brush pile.

Realistically I'd be chipping 3" max stuff. How fast do these 3pt chippers eat? Are they fairly speedy or do they take a long time?

The dealer thought this thing only requires 20hp to run it, which isn't a big deal. I have a 165 Massey, it should be more than adequate .

I have found very little info on these chippers, are they any good? Knowing nothing about chippers, are knives pretty standard if they need replacing, or if I buy the thing and it needs new knives will I discover they are NLA and I now own a expensive barn door stop?

Being it's been sitting outside for the past few years.... Is there anything I should check over in regards to the knives?

Also, the price now is $1000, what would be a fair price on a unit like this?

I recently purchased a Goossen Chipper/shredder for $600. I have used it approximately 3 hours now and it is worth every penny! The chipper turns 3" branches into chips with little effort and it gravity feeds nicely. I run this off of my Mahindra 2615 (26 HP, 21HP @ PTO) with no problems with bogging down.

 

[066blaster]

I was considering buying a new 3 point chipper. the one i wanted was about $2200 . but then i thought i burn wood so i cut pretty small to burn anyway, and the time it takes to pick up and feed the chipper. I might as well haul the branches i wanted to get rid of to my burn pile like i always did with my pallet forks and tractor,, saved myself $2200.

 

[cantoo]

I buy these Chinese ones at auctions and then resell them for $1500. I've bought 6 or 7 now but have never run a stick of wood thru one. I likely should someday, there is one sitting at the end of my driveway for sale right now.

 

[rancher2]

I had a older model gas powered one 300 Ford six that a guy had bought it from a tree service tore it down to do some rebuild on it and never did. I bought it cheap and fixed it up one winter. Even it was too slow chipping out in the timber. I sold it to a small tree service and made a little money. Unless its hard to get burning permits in you area it just too slow with these small chippers. The kind of mulch these chippers make you can get in my area for free from the city's so there is no market for selling the mulch to off set the cost of the chipper.

 

[blades]

Still beats hauling to dump if ya can't burn

 

[Swamp Yankee]

Been there,

Done that, have the financial loss to prove it.

Gravity feed 3pt chippers are pretty much useless unless you're chipping broom handles. No matter what the salesman says about the knife angles, they do not self feed and require the operator to push the material thru. Power feed if the tractor has the hydraulic outlets is a completely different animal.

3pt chippers can take a long time and several explitive deleted to hook up as well, if you're doing it alone.

My suggestion, call a rental place and get rates for day or 1/2 day rental. Prices vary, but I can get a 6 inch Vermeer for $90 - $100 for a 1/2 day. If you prep the brush in windrows instead of a pile the operation goes very fast with little trimming of small limbs. Money well spent. Assuming $100 for 1/2 day rental and a purchase price of $1000 for a used unknown machine you can rent the Vermeer 10 times with no maintenance or hassles.

Take Care

 

[Sawyer Rob]

Still beats hauling to dump if ya can't burn

I don't burn OR take it to the dump...

I pile it some place on my property out of the way, and it rots down plenty fast.

SR

 

[blades]

When not urban you can do that. Urban folks have problems with codes and long nosed neighbors. Which is why I am out in boonies now.

 

[homemade]

We have two at work. One is a Vermeer and the other is an eager beaver brand. The beaver is the only one I have experience with. Drum style chipper with self contained hydro system to run the feed rolls. It doesn’t have auto feed that stops the feed based on rpm so if you throw something bigger the 4” or so. You have to pulse the stop bar to keep the rpms up. I wanted the shop to put an flow adjuster on the feed, so when your into larger brush, the feed slows down.
The
I would only do a power feed unless it’s a true chuck and duck. Those smaller “self/gravity feeding” ones are good for chipping broom handles and that’s it. And make sure the machine capacity is 60%-75% of your actual sized brush you plan on running. You say 3” and smaller, then the chipper should handle to to 5-6” stuff. You don’t buy a 1/2 ton pick up truck to haul a 15,000lb boat every day, even though it can do it.

I would never haul brush. Either chip, burn, or pile up for bunnies. Way too much work to handle at all.

 

[VirginiaIron]

I

I don't really see what could possibly go wrong....

With safety glasses on at least you won't get your eye poked out

 

[VirginiaIron]

With typical prices over $2k, I have been looking at this WoodMax

WoodMaxx_8_PTO_Wood_Chipper_Hydraulic_Feed_p/wm-8h.htm

 

[cantoo]

Virginiairon, I bought the same one a couple of years ago. I only used it for a day or two and sold it fairly quickly. I did a fair bit of research after buying it, their weak point is the Chinese bearings that they use. I bought mine used at an auction and it had been hardly used but the bearings had already failed. The race had actually cracked and fell apart. I replaced all three with American bearings and sold it before using it again. The original owner had never greased the bearings either but that was only part of the problem. It's a good chipper for the price but as soon as it gets noisy then replace all 3 bearings. I think they were 50 mm bearings.

 

[cantoo]

I found the pic of the bearing. You can see by the last picture that the machine had very little use on it. Part of the problem is that there are 3 bearings and a very short shaft so alignment is very very critical. I think I would let the middle bearing "float" if possible.

 

[ericm979]

I have a Woodmaxx 8H. Got it a year ago and it's a little different from the one cantoo pictured. 50 hours and nothing's broken yet. I maintain it though. We can't burn here so it's chip or pile. Renting equipment is expensive and a pain- between the round trip and time at the rental yard it's an hour to an hour and a half to pick up and drop off. That eats up time I could spend getting work done. I don't find it difficult to hook the chipper up but my tractor has extendable lift arms and a hydraulic top and tilt. At 1000 lbs the chipper is too heavy to muscle around unless you build a dolly for it and store it on nice level concrete. OTOH if you own it you have to maintain it. The knives last me 20 hours before they need sharpening and I grease it every 5. Settting the bed knife clearance is a pain- I'm tall and thin and I have to put the upper half of my body in the chute to reach it.

I had a "self feed" chipper before and would not want to be without hydraulic feed. It's safer and more effective. The hydraulic control lets me change the feed speed to handle brush or 6"+ hardwood. With 32 pto hp I have to slow the feed way down to handle 6"+ hardwood. I could use more power for that.

Woodland Mills also has a north america designed/China built machine that's a different design (with easily reached bed knife) but about the same price. Woodmaxx has a different model 8 and 9" that are US made but costs more.

 

[cantoo]

A couple more pics of the chipper before I sold it.
Copied from my old thread. ---> Well the crappy 3pth arms on the chipper didn't last long. My 3 pth would only lift it about 3" off the ground and when I backed up the rear end dug in and bent the crap out of them. They won't bend next time and now it will fit any size tractor.

 

[Jeff Lary]

I too have a Wallenstein 4" mine is bright Red, and I agree Cantoo. Mine also has no power feed and does have a tiny throat. If you have hardwood limbs with leaves on them forget it your done before you start. It will plug the Shute in 2 seconds as the leaves don't have enough mass / weight to fly out of the Shute.
If you have a limb that has a crotch ( i.e. all limbs are nothing but crotches / "Y"s) wider than 4" they will not pass through the narrow throat. The blades on mine are 2 sided and easily changed or sharpened.
I complained about this chipper plugging up to a Kubota shop I go to see if he had any advice, and he had some great advice. He told me that Brush hogs and Chippers are made to be operated at WOT and nothing less. I was basically mid throttle while running each. I am a very gentle on equipment sort of guy so I was running my Chipper at 1,500 rpm's. On my 30 hp Kubota WOT is about 2,400 rpms. The next time I used it I opened her up and yes it mad a BIG difference. My advice to you is this.

If this chipper has been sitting for sale forever it most likely does not have a feed roll , if it did it would have sold in a week tops. Next if you are going to chip hardwood limbs." cut them in the winter" when there are no leaves they will chip much better. Fir, Spruce, and Cedar will chip just fine White pine with its 3-4" long needles will also clog up the Shute as well. It will chip up to about 4" stuff quite well but if it has many limbs on it or has a "crook" in it you will work for your chips.

 

[morningwood]

I bought a Woodland Mills hydraulic feed unit a couple months ago and I love it. We can burn here but I don't think it is a good idea burning brush in the middle of the woods. I'm trying to streamline ( touch stuff less ) my firewood operation and a I see the chipper as being a huge part of that. Drop the tree, cut the limbs off, and chip everything under 3" or so, everything else goes for firewood. Before I'd find myself stacking brush in an area that two years down the road I'd need to access. I find renting equipment to be too big of a PITA, when it is time to go, I want to go. The weather lately has been so unpredictable that any day that we don't have rain or mud I'm out cutting firewood. I've heard a lot of rental yards won't rent chipper to home owners because of liability issues also.

 

[Whitbread]

I borrowed a friend's woodmaxx wm8 mechanical infeed chipper and it was fantastic. I burn anything over 3" in the boiler, so I used it to get rid of a 15'x15'x8' brush pile. It was definitely quicker than I could've burnt it. With two of us feeding, took maybe 35-40 mins. If the branches were in windrows instead of a tangled pile, it would've been even faster.

If the budget ever permits, I'll definitely be in the market for one.

 

[VirginiaIron]

I found the pic of the bearing. You can see by the last picture that the machine had very little use on it. Part of the problem is that there are 3 bearings and a very short shaft so alignment is very very critical. I think I would let the middle bearing "float" if possible.
View attachment 687619 View attachment 687620

There are definitely different grades of bearings. The real question is if the galling started before the failure. Likely so since the wear seems rather concentric along the shaft plane. Maybe the set screws were not properly torqued. I could see how a damaged shaft would cause the bearing to fail. Was the shaft damaged?

 

[cantoo]

Shaft only had a couple really light scratches on it. It was such a low hour machine that I don't think there was time to do much damage. And I'm not even sure there was set screws in this bearing, couldn't tell for sure. When things turn at high speed you have to do maintenance on them no matter how busy you are. I did like the machine but I buy and sell stuff all the time, someone wanted it so it went down the road. The guy was also only using it for small wood and was planning to use the chips on his bush walking trail. The little green one in my pics is a nice unit because it takes up very little space and there is very little that can go wrong with it but they are for occasional use only. At work I rent a big one when I have bigger stuff to do.