Safety of Disc vs. Drum? Tim Walsh?

[Toddppm]

After reading about the guy through the chipper again I was thinking about it all day today (bunch of storm work) and was wondering if there has been any records kept of the number of fatal accidents of drums and discs. Tim did your study separate the 2 ?
I'm thinking with the drums(chuck and duck not the new ones with safety bars) there is a whole lot more respect for the drums and people tend to stay back and chuck the branches in there.

Discs are so easy to get complacent with and think you're so much faster than the feed wheels and besides you have the safety bar right there right?

So have there been more deaths with Drum or disc? How many used to happen before there even were discs?

 

[Tom Dunlap]

Ive heard annecdotal talk confirming what you said. Chuck and ducks kept us far away and hands off. With slower infeeds there have been more injuries/deaths.

This week I stopped at the local Woodsman dealer to look at a friend's new chipper. While we looked at that nice wide infeed and wondered why there aren't warning labels on the inside stating something along the lines of "Keep out of infeed shoot area" It might seem silly but that might also make someone stop and think for a split second.

Tom

 

[kf_tree]

tom,
the reason the stickers were not on the woodsman is because your friend did not pay extra for them.

is it too late for me to try and talk your friend out of a woodsman? i hope he gets all his warranties in writing

 

[treeman82]

I have heard of a bunch of people that got hit with debris that came shooting out of the back of Chuck n' Ducks before. Also heard a couple stories about ropes getting sucked into the Chuck n' Ducks before. The stories I have heard about chippers with the feed rollers usually are more severe (death or permanent injury)

 

[Tim Gardner]

I will take a drum chipper over a disc any day. Disc chippers are more expensive and slower to use. Give me a sharp bush axe and a drum chipper and I will be raking up while you are still chipping with that disc. I have used both types of chippers and have watched people use both. I notice that disc users tend to leave the limbs larger and that means more energy and time being wasted trying to get them into the feed wheels. I can have that small piece of wood that slows down a disc, you know the one that the owner thinks he is saving sooo much money by chipping, tossed into the truck and back to chipping more limbs before it makes its way through. At $4.00 per square yard for dumping fees I can not see wasting time and energy feeding wood into a chipper unless it is a whole tree unit. Simply toss the wood into the truck and be done with it. You have to dump the truck anyway and wood takes up more room chipped than it does whole.

As far as safety goes, IMHO drum chippers are safer if used properly. Feed it from the side. It is so much faster to stack brush to the side of a drum chipper with the butts pointing opposite of the direction they are fed in and simply stand between the chipper and brush and toss them in. If chunks of wood fly out they will not hit you. I have had gloves snagged by limbs while they were feeding into a drum chipper and because of the speed and force of the limb the glove gave way or the limb broke apart. Same goes for clothing.

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

Hey you guys are useing the wrong terminology.
A vermeer 1800 is a drum chipper with a hydrolic autofeed. So it should be a choice between no autofeed and autofeed.

Man, I'm finally on these stupid boards long enough to start correcting peoples choice of words, even though I know what they are talking about.

 

[Tim Gardner]

Mike,

A drum chipper is also an auto feed. It just faster than the wannabe chippers with the feed wheels. Morbark also makes a drum with feed wheels. It is just as slow as a disc. I think the only advantage of the hybrid chippers is cost reduction, but if you think about it you loose the gain in man hours chipping.

I remember when my father and brother looked at a disc chipper years ago. The dealer sent it to one of our jobs to try it out. He was politely told to get that slow a$$ over priced piece of $hit off our jobsite. They are still slow today after years of development.

 

[kf_tree]

tim,
do you really feel with a chuck and duck you could out chip a big machine?
chipping every thing into one big 25-30 yard truck saves ins, fuel, repairs, a driver, plus origional purchase price. plus its easier to pick wood up for a 2 foot deck than load a truck.

with a big chipper if you lace the branch's right you could suck a huge pile right in , while guys are still pulling them a part to through them in a chuck and duck.

chuck and ducks should go the way of the dinosaur.

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

kf speaks the truth. The size of the motor and opening determine how fast they chip. The chuck and duck chippers are very simple machines, and therefore cheaper to buy. They can get the job done but... they have their limitations. they only chip small branches, the chips suck and can't be resold, they suck to work with getting slapped and all, they don't chip wide limbs well, and they suck at chipping big wood.
A big autofeed disk or drum chipper can take big wood, branches with wide crotches, you can stick a limb in and imediately stick another one in. On lot clearings, we use the bobcat witha claw to drag the branch to the chipper and push it in. The auto feed makes feeding all the little stuff at the end of the job easier too.
Perhaps your experience 10 years ago was with a crappy chipper, even in the last two or three years they have come a long way.

 

[kf_tree]

tim,

i'm not trying to piss you off....hell i still use a tautline hitch and refuse to change.

when i got into tree work i first used a 110hp morbark model 17. then i bought a 180hp woodsman 2018 then traded up for a woodsman 2019. plus i've used an 18 in bandit a few times.

the few times this past summer that i fed a chuck and duck, i was down right scared. it was a one year old altec chuck and duck and that thing just rips the branch's from you. if i was asked to chip on a daily basis, i would have to quit if i had to use a chuck and duck. those new big machines are just so sweet to use. if you stack 2 identical tree's in the street. one man and a big machine will clean it up quicker than 1 guy chipping and one guy loading wood.

just as you guys say to give a split tail a chance. don't knock the big chippers.

 

[Toddppm]

See , exactly my point, he was scared Thats why I'm saying it's safer, more respect.
We do more trim work than removals so not alot of big wood. Now what if you had a knuckleboom wood truck and a whisper chipper?
My asplundh makes awesome chips by the way.

 

[Tim Gardner]

Well I guess if someone that does not know how to use a piece of equiptment would not be able to perform with it. Like I said, I have used both and prefer a drum. It is a good thing to have a choice. With a disc an employer can hire less skilled workers and still profit, I guess.

Those large chippers can not go very many places without tearing up the turf or rutting the yard. The short tounge on them makes hard to back. The Bandit 250 I use now will sink in a minute so it stayes out on the curb most of the time so you have to do a lot of dragging to chip and it is a small chipper. The extra weight is tuff on truck fuel too. They clog up and waste time also. etc. etc.

 

[Tom Dunlap]

The first chipper that I used was a 12" Asplundh with a 4 cylinder Ford gas engine, 6 volt so that tells you how long ago that was Back around '76. I bought my first chipper, a '62 Whisper Chipper, yeah, right! Huh? After using a Bandit 150 and now a Vermeer 1230, there is no way that I can agree that a chuck and duck will make more chips at the end of the week. Maybe on individual jobs, not in the long run. Another issue is machine maintenance. Chuck and duck is less complex but I had to do more repair work on the old timers than any of the discs. I know that I put many more tons of wood through the disc and have done almost no maintenance on them to speak of.

Too bad someone doesn't do a shoot out like they do with portable sawmills and other machines. It would be interesting to see how the machines stack up against each other.

Getting rid of chips is much easier than logs. Besides, if I chip the logs I reduce the number of times I handle the debris. In the drum days we had to seperate the logs into a trailer or on the end of the dump truck. Now we just chip more wood.

Tim, if an employer can profit by having employees who are only skilled to run simple, chuck and ducks, those same employees can't be expected to be very productive when it comes to the more complex issues of tree work. Doesn't seem like a very good justification for using a drum.

Tom

 

[Tim Gardner]

Originally posted by Tom Dunlap


Tim, if an employer can profit by having employees who are only skilled to run simple, chuck and ducks, those same employees can't be expected to be very productive when it comes to the more complex issues of tree work. Doesn't seem like a very good justification for using a drum.

Tom

Tom,

I ment that the owner could get away with less skilled workers with a disc. You have to have skills to run a drum. I have ran a drum for over 15 years and not many guys that have never used one were able to just go to work and run one. With a disc anyone can just stick a limb in and walk away. BTW, don't you have a truck for chips and a truck for wood and debris?


Bring that disc down here and I will take that challenge! I can find a 16" drum with a gas six cylinder.

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

A big chipper does not sink in a yard much more than a dump truck full of chips, so backing into a yard is the same for large or small chippers in most cases. Maybe even easier because the chute rotates on disk chippers.
kf makes another good point, change is hard.

 

[Tim Gardner]

Originally posted by Mike Maas
A big chipper does not sink in a yard much more than a dump truck full of chips, so backing into a yard is the same for large or small chippers in most cases. Maybe even easier because the chute rotates on disk chippers.
kf makes another good point, change is hard.

Mike,

Back a chipper like the one kf posted around in a yard and watch that thing start chewing turf. The chippers with a single axle are a little better but then all the weight is on two tires. A truck has it's weight spread out over for points.

 

[Tom Dunlap]

BTW, don't you have a
truck for chips and a truck for wood and debris?

Nope, a chip truck handles most of my work. If we have loggage it goes on a trailer or for the few pieces that don't chip, they get tossed in the chip truck.

I bid removals at the same net profit, not gross dollars, as shrub pruning so I don't do many large trees any more. Too many gorillas around here doing big work too cheap.

Tom

 

[Tim Gardner]

Originally posted by Tom Dunlap
BTW, don't you have a
truck for chips and a truck for wood and debris?

Nope, a chip truck handles most of my work. If we have loggage it goes on a trailer or for the few pieces that don't chip, they get tossed in the chip truck.

I bid removals at the same net profit, not gross dollars, as shrub pruning so I don't do many large trees any more. Too many gorillas around here doing big work too cheap.

Tom

Tom,

Your wisdom is showing again.

 

[Grizzly]

tim,
do you really feel with a chuck and duck you could out chip a big machine?
chipping every thing into one big 25-30 yard truck saves ins, fuel, repairs, a driver, plus origional purchase price. plus its easier to pick wood up for a 2 foot deck than load a truck.

with a big chipper if you lace the branch's right you could suck a huge pile right in , while guys are still pulling them a part to through them in a chuck and duck.

chuck and ducks should go the way of the dinosaur.

Chuck and duck chippers should be the only chipper highly recomended for brush reduction.
The disc type chippers that are only capible of taking on no more than 6" at a time should take the same way of the dinosaur.
They go the same speep as a home owners type wood chipper (crapsmen)

 

[Grizzly]

Tom,

Your wisdom is showing again.

Tom:
You can say that again, i had a bid on these italian cypresses and some shlob w/ a bunch of Moneys from home depot were there doing it for 1000.
there were four large ones @ 500 a peice.
For the other guy, unless he ownes his own landfill. Dumping that debris in the shape it was in (20' lengths) will be a pretty penny.
On the other hand i think he could have been undercutting not only the local trimmers, but his own company.