Small self-propelled chipper

[PeteB]

I'd look at a powered barrow and a standard machine myself. Then you have two machines that do their quoted jobs rather than a chipper that cannot carry anything on other jobs etc..

[Stephen Blair]

The tracks cause more hassle than they benefit from my experience.

  You loose all the nimbleness and ease of weaving through patios, conservatories and even houses.

  2 fit lads can lift a wee chipper up and down stairs with using a bit of grunt and some ingenuity.

  Tracks in a garden just shove paving stones around and rip up grass.  Also very unstable and messing around with 2 engines is just a pain.

  First thing I did when I got mine was go to the gym and tell the instructor I need the strength to pull a wheely bin full of bricks.

  4 weeks later I could shove the chipper almost anywhere myself.  

  I don’t know how Pezalto are getting away with shortened hopper, it’s only removed because it sits too high for anyone under 6’4” to feed. 

[Guest Gimlet]

Thanks Dan, and thanks Philip Anderson for the heads up on your used machine.

I'm in Dorset. I was hoping to have a meeting with my clients this weekend but they've rrushed off to London and rescheduled it for next week now. I have to be sure they are willing to continue with the landscape work for the next two years. 

 

They're on a ten year environmental stewardship programme so they will have to do it but there's supposed to be cattle grazing the site now and that hasn't happened yet so I want to be sure they've got the commitment and aren't planning to pick at it piecemeal. If the work is there for next year as well as this, I'll buy one. But I don't want to buy a machine unless I know there's work waiting for it. So I'll let you know how it goes. 

 

There are thousands of self-seeded saplings, mostly hawthorn, to remove from steep and bumpy valley sides which is supposed to be calcareous wildflower grassland. Some of them are quite big but 100 mm capability would suffice. I'm just concerned about tipping the machine over. 

[Guest Gimlet]

27 minutes ago, Stephen Blair said:

The tracks cause more hassle than they benefit from my experience.

  You loose all the nimbleness and ease of weaving through patios, conservatories and even houses.

  2 fit lads can lift a wee chipper up and down stairs with using a bit of grunt and some ingenuity.

  Tracks in a garden just shove paving stones around and rip up grass.  Also very unstable and messing around with 2 engines is just a pain.

  First thing I did when I got mine was go to the gym and tell the instructor I need the strength to pull a wheely bin full of bricks.

  4 weeks later I could shove the chipper almost anywhere myself.  

  I don’t know how Pezalto are getting away with shortened hopper, it’s only removed because it sits too high for anyone under 6’4” to feed. 

I hear what you're saying. I don't know how much garden work it's likely to get though. At the moment I'm more involved with countryside management/ landscape side of things. 

 

Saying that, I cut some of my own hazel for my hedgelaying from this site and some of the coppice is high up on valley sides that are too steep for most vehicles. A tracked barrow would be handy for extraction but I don't know what else I'd use it for. Not sure I'd get both a barrow and a 100 mm chipper for the price of the tracked machine. 

[Stephen Blair]

Sounds like you need a tracked chipper, as useable as a wee chipper is, it’s still a wee chipper.  The bigger the chipper the better has always been my motto until you can’t get 1 in.  

  I’ve just bought a safetrak 1928 off Arbtrader, I rarely do domestic work now, it’s mostly woodland and commercial clearances with chip staying on site.  I wouldn’t entertain a micro chipper on those applications.

[GlobalNewark]

I have a couple of demo M500’s I’ll do you a deal on or any other Jo Beau?