Mitts & Merrill wood chipper: Anyone know the approximate weight for towing?

[bingospal]

I will be picking up an M&M wood chipper in the morning but I'd like to know the approximate towing weight before I head out. The owner has no idea and the only manual I can find (on this site) does not show weight.

Chipper has a Ford straight 6 engine. Looks to be from the late 50's or early 60's, maybe (?).

If you happen to know the model or any other info that would be fantastic.



Here is a picture of the unit if that helps anyone.

We will be removing the rear shoot and the throw shoot to shrink the size a bit.

I'd also like to find a manual. The one on this site is so light it's very hard to read. Willing to pay for it.

 

[bingospal]

Anyway, I got it home. Towed with my Ford ranger V6 at 40 mph all the way.

This might be a later version as it has a hydraulic clutch to drive the drum. Others I've seen on the internet use a lever to engage the drum. Prior owner told me it will engage on it's own when the engine reaches speed.

There is a separate section on the top with a water hose from the radiator running in and out. Assume this is some type of heater for the fluid??



If anyone has more information on just how any of this works or what to watch out for... please reply.

 

[ZinTrees]

just a wild guess but id think around 4500 pounds, lot heavier than I would ever want to pull with a ranger!

watch the temp while its running, also make sure to keep the knives and anvil in perfect shape with the perfect gap, these self feeders are much more picky about knives than a hydraulic feed machine, and don't put anything through it that bogs it down a lot, need the air flow to avoid clogging the chute (clogged my bandit a while back and had to use a trackhoe to hammer a big stick down the chute to un clog it)

 

[bingospal]

just a wild guess but id think around 4500 pounds, lot heavier than I would ever want to pull with a ranger!

watch the temp while its running, also make sure to keep the knives and anvil in perfect shape with the perfect gap, these self feeders are much more picky about knives than a hydraulic feed machine, and don't put anything through it that bogs it down a lot, need the air flow to avoid clogging the chute (clogged my bandit a while back and had to use a trackhoe to hammer a big stick down the chute to un clog it)

Thanks for the reply.

Looking for some guidance on sharpening the knives. There are 9 of them in the drum. Most seem quite sharp and some have some nicks. The seller gave me three he had in a coffee can. When I look at them is it evident they have been ground on the beveled side as they are all a slightly different width at the widest (what the pic calls the flat side) side.

Now that I have the manual off this site printed so I can read it, it clearly shows you do not grind them on the beveled edge but rather on the "flat" side.



None of the knives in the drum appear to have been ground on the flat side... or the beveled edge as far as I can tell (read on for the reason).

Now, the clearance between the knives and the anvil (what the manual calls the "throat bar") calls for it to be .001--005".

That's darn close, is it not? Right now just peering in from the back it looks like it is a good 1/8" or better.

Unless every knife was ground at the same time this anvil-to-knife spec cannot be met as a ground knife will be that much shorter than the rest. Therefore, I assume all knives must be ground together.

The fact that the clearance is as wide as it is now.... how does that affect the operation as far as chipping and especially as far as the unit drawing in the material on it's own?

Thanks for the help!

 

[ZinTrees]

every knife has to be ground at once, to the same depth, usually this is done on a big commercial sharpener with every knife bolted into it

my chipper calls for 1/8" gap from knife to anvil I think, I actually just set mine to where the edge of the knives will just scrape a business card thats between the knife and anvil, chips great, I also always sharpen my knives with a flap disk on a grinder and only ever sharpen the tapered side


my chipper is a 2002 bandit 250XP for reference, hydro feed disk chipper instead of a self feeder drum, so my measurements will be way off

self feeding chippers are notorious for needing knives and anvil in perfect condition and set to the correct gap, otherwise they won't pull material in properly, but I do agree 0.001-0.005" is very, very close, mine are probably 0.010 at the tightest and it sketches me out still, more so after I forgot to check the anvil bolts, the top adjuster on mine came off and the anvil slid into the disk, that wasn't a fun day

 

[bingospal]

Looks like one of the prior owners did not read the manual and was grinding on the tapered side at least for the ones in the coffee can.





These knives (turns out there are 12 not 9 like I stated above) have two sides you can use. So, you can grind three times on one, flip it over and grind three more on the second side. That gives you four per side or eight total for each knife.

Not a bad deal since these sell for $80 a piece, now.

Agree, these will need to be sharpened by a machine shop with the proper surface grinder. No way these can be done by hand.

 

[ZinTrees]

I would replace all 12, its not cheap but you will likely never have to buy more unless you're chipping a lot, and I mean a LOT

I run my 12" bandit probably about a thousand hours a year give or take a few hundred (sometimes we run it for a month straight, sometimes it sits for 2 months, and the hr meter doesn't work)
since I got it over 2 years ago I've flipped the knives 4 times, sharpened the set twice, and its on its last of 4 good edges on the anvil (was really bad when I got it, one side of the anvil was new, and one side was almost gone, not sure exactly how it still chipped if im being honest)


I don't remember exactly how long since this set was sharpened, but I know we cleared at least an acre of forest and shoved everything through it that would fit, did this job which was 70 pine trees, and a bunch of other small jobs on this one set




edit before safety sally shows up, everyone in the video has ear protection, I was the only one with a helmet on at the time since I was the one working from the bucket on that job, nobody else was even close to my dropzone and we figured it was safer this way since it was an incredibly hot few days and we have all had heatstroke before

 

[bingospal]

Thanks for that.

I'm not a professional like yourself. I bought this chipper to use on my land in Vermont to chip up areas left a complete mess by the prior owner, a logger. That material has been sitting on the ground going on two years now so it should be very easy to chip. I will also use it to make chips to use as bedding for some walking pathways that get mushy after the runoff during March/April.

To rent one this size would have cost me $300/day (around $1,000 for 5 days) and a two hour drive. I paid $1500 for this one in great working shape. New muffler and tail lights ($60 on Amazon), rewired the electrical, cleaned the air filter, charged the 2023 battery. This has the Ford 300 inline 6 engine which puts out around 130hp. Considered one of the most reliable, longest lasting engines ever made.

According to the manual, this chipper will accept material up to 8". The throat being 12.5" x 9.5". There is nothing in the manual about adjusting the anvil to accommodate larger material. It appears it's just a matter of feeding the larger limbs in section by section so as not to bog down the engine. Something the more modern chippers do automatically, I assume.

I added two cutoff switches, one to each side of the shoot. Flipping either will cause the engine to come to a stop. You also cannot start the chipper unless both are in the up/on position.





While I realize this will not stop the drum immediately, (mine has the hydraulic clutch so it keeps rotating) once engine power is removed, if there is a jam up or something is getting drawn in I don't want, it will come to a stop.

Still, I've learned the safest way to operate these chuck & duck chippers is to throw the material in from the side and avoid, as much as possible, standing directly in back of the shoot. They tend to send sharp "daggers" out the back.

Will also help to keep your body away from being drawn in along with the material you are chipping.

BTW: As best as I can tell from the engine #, this chipper was made around 1971 as the engine appears to date from that year.

 

[bingospal]

Here is the M&M chipper manual I downloaded from this site.

I darkened up the pages so it can be read easier. It looses a bit with the PDF compression to fit the file size limitations of this forum but I think you can still make it out better than before.

 

[bingospal]

Found this great video on adjusting the anvil on this Mitts & Merril chipper.

Mitts & Merril Anvil Adjustment

He's setting the anvil-to-knife gap at .025" which makes a bit more sense to me, anyway.

 

[Chainsaw Pete]

Do you mean that the only way to stop the feeding in an emergency is by hitting those little (standard) switches? If so, I'd be inclined to rig up something a bit easier to hit with a wild swipe of the arm.

 

[ZinTrees]

Do you mean that the only way to stop the feeding in an emergency is by hitting those little (standard) switches? If so, I'd be inclined to rig up something a bit easier to hit with a wild swipe of the arm.

You can't stop the feeding on a chuck and duck, the switches shut off the engine and hopefully everything stops somewhat quick

 

[Chainsaw Pete]

You can't stop the feeding on a chuck and duck, the switches shut off the engine and hopefully everything stops somewhat quick

So this machine has no way to stop the feed mechanism in the event of an emergency? I'm thinking of those bars that surround the feed hopper on newer machines (the one's I've rented). I've also seen those bars on every chipper used by tree service guys in my and nearby communities.

By chuck and duck you are talking about throwing the branch/debris into the feed hopper and dodging off to the side to avoid splinters kicked out by the chipping wheel, correct?

 

[ZinTrees]

So this machine has no way to stop the feed mechanism in the event of an emergency? I'm thinking of those bars that surround the feed hopper on newer machines (the one's I've rented). I've also seen those bars on every chipper used by tree service guys in my and nearby communities.

By chuck and duck you are talking about throwing the branch/debris into the feed hopper and dodging off to the side to avoid splinters kicked out by the chipping wheel, correct?

there is no feed mechanism, the drum that does the chipping is what pulls brush in, all modern chippers have feed "wheels" or rollers that slowly pull brush in, and can be reversed, they are required by law to have the bar that surrounds the top 3 sides of the infeed hopper, and in some areas they are even required to have a bar across the back edge of the infeed, Bandit uses cables inside the hopper to reverse the feed, I've seen morbark use a system with magnetic wrist/ankle bands that stop the feed or shut the machine down if one passes sensors in the middle of the hopper


and yes, by chuck and duck, I mean exactly that, you chuck and you duck, mainly so you arent whipped or beheaded by the limb being yanked into the machine (again, no feed wheels, the drum pulls brush in with a quickness)

 

[bingospal]

This fellow is operating this M&M chuck and duck the correct way. He stands off to the side, throws the material in and quickly walks away.

Mitts & Merril operation

 

[bingospal]

Modified the rear deck of my chipper to allow me to raise it to make adjusting the arbor way easier. Now, I can use a winch to lift up the deck and see the gap without having to crawl into the back.

What would take two people before now takes just one.

Got this idea from the video, above, where that M&M allowed you to open the deck from the side and swing it over. My deck is so heavy that was not possible.



The arbor, now removed, the edge well worn and rounded. While it can be flipped, I will have the machine shop square up this edge so I will have both ready for next season.