looking for good commercial chipper

[blackwaterguide]

I'm finally starting my own business and would appreciate youradvice as to whichtype,drum vs.disc....diesel power needed, and of course your opinion as to brand. I would like a machine that grabs the brush and goes through fast. Ive used a Verneer whih had a much slower feed rate. I thank you for your opinion.

 

[topnotchtree]

It all boils down to the mighty dollar! Do you know how much you can afford to spend? A cheaper and less popular chipper would be a drum style chipper. These are what you need when you want something to chip brush quickly. These can handle large amounts of brush quickly. They are more or less designed to chip smaller, straighter branches. They love stuff like soft maples! Self feed chippers are great for chipping large gnarly branches with little effort.Limbs with lots of elbows like fruit trees or oaks or locusts are chipped easier with a self feed chipper. In general I believe a self feed chipper is the way to go if you can afford one. They are usually at least twice as expensive as a drum chipper. I myself have a very old drum chipper. very low maintenence and easy to work on.Fill us in on some more of your thoughts for a better idea of what you may need. Do you see lots of removals? Are you gonna start out with smaller trees at first?

 

[Frans]

check out baileys. they have some good chippers

 

[Koa Man]

Is quality of chips a factor? Discs will make better chips than the drums, especially on stringy material. The self feed large drums generally will have a larger chipping capacity than the discs, or seem to handle the larger material easier. I have one disc and one drum. Which chipper I take depends on the job.

 

[NeTree]

Drums handle stringy material better than discs, and they're almost always alot lighter to tow. They can produce chip quality quite comparable to discs, but you have to be very precise with the knife and anvil settings. Also, a drum will chip small non-forked stuff faster than you can keep up with. Bear in mind a 12" drum won't necessarily handle 12" material... it's merely a measure of the drum's width. If you plan on selling stuff 5" or over for firewood, this is likely a decent choice. Drum chippers are usually cheaper to obtain than discs.

If you plan on chipping alot of forked material, a machine with feed wheels will make you alot happier. Disc chippers also don't "thrash" material around the infeed chute as much. They're more tolerant of knife and anvil settings, and the knives are usually easier to change. If you plan on chipping larger material (up to 12" usually) you'll want the bigger capacity that mosts discs have over drums. They're more expensive, but if you can afford one, go for it.

 

[wiley_p]

Depending on the type of cleanup you do, meaning do you keep real clean chips to dump for free, or can you get rid of 90% chips with the dirt, gravel small busted twigs etc. because for the money for a first chipper the old whisper chippers are fine. They are mechanically simple easy to maintain and do well on limbs etc. the drawback is feeding that last part of the chipping, duff etc. if you do primarily pruning maybe look at the new 10" Bandit hydraulic feed drum, if you do lots of removals then get to the bank and get a loan for a 14" disc, Bandit, Woodchuck have the best action in that dept.IMO

 

[protreecare]

Whipper chippers are cheap and easy to maintain, but when you have brush to chip and the knives lose their edge, you will cussing it all day. A self feeding drum chipper would be a good choice, such as a Morbark model 13, we have a couple of them and they work like a beast compared to a Vermeer 1230 or equal size. Vermeer does have their Bc1000 self feeding drum that looks pretty nice for around $22,000 new. I would choose diesel power at at least 80-85 hp. Chipper capacity is not what it may appear. If a chipper is rated at 12inch, it will take 12 inch wood but if you do that all day its like driving your car 120 mph, it will do it, but may not like it. However the larger the capacity of the chipper the easier it will feed and chip branchy material. So if you plan on only chipping 4 inch wood a 12 inch machine will be much more user friendly. You might also look for machines with double edged knives. This way you should be able to run two edges without adjusting the cutter bar.

 

[wiley_p]

An often overlooked maintenence point that I often see in this area is folks don't change their knives/adjust anvil tolerances often enough. If you neglect this you will be cussing alot no matter the type whisper, hydraulic infeed drum, disc. Like the previous post stated, you can run max dia. in your chipper, but you are maxing it out, double that for dull cutting edges, but everyone knows this right?

 

[Stump Man]

I have a 1989 Morbark Chipper 12" For Sale Rebuilt Cummins Disesl, sandblasted painted and decals. $9,500. Looks and runs like new. Can e-mail pictures