The Wee Chipper Club

[Jase hutch]

56 minutes ago, Ty Korrigan said:

Also, possibly a weld that's cracked on the cassette (drum)

Occured twice with mine, third cassette lucky...

Very difficult to spot, first one near invisible, second one less so.

Could well be that Stu. 

To find out , the rotor needs to be removed from the cassette and then you need to inspect both ends of the rotor to see if the welds that hold the blade carriers are still holding  ?

[Ty Korrigan]

On 14/12/2025 at 19:26, Jase hutch said:

Could well be that Stu. 

To find out , the rotor needs to be removed from the cassette and then you need to inspect both ends of the rotor to see if the welds that hold the blade carriers are still holding  ?

 

First cassette exchanged, no questions, known issue at the time, second one had David Turner saying NO WAY as they thought the problem had been resolved but this time the crack was visible so the exchange was made.

THEN.... THEN...

 I heard a familiar and unwelcome ting a ling a ling a ling again.

Felt like crying having to take it all apart AGAIN only to find a piece of fence wire as the culprit.

 

[kram]

On 13/12/2025 at 22:04, green heart said:

 

Not sure of any Heacksler or Scarpur dealers in Manchester/NW, so no experience, sorry.

 

But -we did have a Christmas cracker of an 'educational day' using a Forest master Professional 14hp chipper this week. Read on.. 

 

My Review/comments are moderated (for legal reasons!).. and based on a couple of decades of owning/using 4-8'' chippers for our work. 

We had also previously repaired and used a customer's (new) Forest master 6 hp chipper, which was ok-ish (considering it's size and for 'home use').

 

So after some consideration, we bought a 14hp direct drive 'Professional' unit (with less than 5 hours use), for one VERY awkward-access back garden job.

My plan was to make/fabricate some obvious improvements to the input and output shutes -something that Forest Master's Tech director wouldn't agree to consider, on a potential new 18hp machine. 

 

Once on site, mostly chipping up weeping willow, the machine (almost) lasted for just 4 hours of use.

 

In that time, we noted : 

A serious LOT of machine vibration -and noise too.

We (partially) bent/broke one blade.

Multiple engine fixings and lock-nuts rattled off/sheared off.

Multiple broken welds on the output Shute -it was unusable and destroyed in the 4 hours work. 

3 broken welds on input hopper flange welds -it actually fell apart, preventing any further safe use on our site.

So then, short and sweet !

 

And, in fair defence of this unit:

It has a VERY low centre of gravity -so is very stable.

Light enough at 120 kg, for 2 men to just get it up and down a big 45° slope.

Narrow enough to take through the customer's house doorway.

It also chipped up willow at an impressive rate, though I'd be nervous about feeding it much over 3'' diameter, in hindsight. 

I liked that strangely familiar very shiny orange paintwork.. 🫢

 

It appears customer reviews of their machines must be invited by Forest Master -so I'm unable to submit one, anyway..

Would I recommend/buy another one:  Sadly, er, not really. 

 

 

What happened with this, did you return it, scrap it or keep and repair?