suggestions for a PTO chipper, non-commercial work, please

[niftysteve]

why not leave the brash where your felling then hire in a chipper when theres enough for a good days chipping , then you will have no repair costs or machinery sitting idle

[william127]

I got this from ebay for£460, its a bearcat 5 inch chipper shredder well pleased with it, i am just using it as a stepping stone to a bigger and better 1 in the long term thou. The shredder makes dealing with more tangled stuff easier.

[rowan lee]

this is what we use down the woods -[ame=

]

[/ame]

 

does sub 4 inch material with ease, pto runs a hydraulic pump that's built into the system to power a single feed roller. Its from these guys Kilworth Machinery - Negri Bio Shredders

Edited December 31, 2013 by rowan lee

[mr_magicfingers]

why not leave the brash where your felling then hire in a chipper when theres enough for a good days chipping , then you will have no repair costs or machinery sitting idle

 

Mainly because when I looked at the cost of chippers to rent, I realised it wouldn't take many days to actually pay for one of our own. Plus, I could then use it whenever needed or when the urge took me to fell or clear an area.

[mr_magicfingers]

Those last couple of examples look idea. Getting the bearcat for £450 was a great deal. I think running some ebay searches is going to advisable. I'll look for that, any other ones worth keeping an eye out for?

[mr_magicfingers]

Also, those branch loggers look handy, might have to look into them, never heard of them before. Cheers.

[Pumpy]

I've got one of those 8" single roller Chinese PTO chippers, not from the same firm as the one pictured, mines in green and yellow colours, supplied from a chap near Cambridge who's been supplying them over 10yrs, carries all the spares etc.

 

It will chip 8" if you have just serviced it, but by lunchtime it wont. The main shaft is held in position by grub screws through the bearing housings, if you feed in 8" dia wood it will soon push the main shaft back a few mm so the chip width increases too much for the blades to cut efficiently, wood get battered instead of chipped, gets pushed down into the flywheel housing and jams the whole bloody thing up. I got round this design flaw by fitting collars to the main shaft behind the bearings, stops it getting pushed back, it's been pretty good since then, however I don't chip much over 2" as it all goes for firewood.

 

You get what you pay for, if you think it'll be on par with a professional UK machine you'll be disappointed, but it is a useful bit of kit for the price.

 

It will not do small stuff at all, the thin ends of weeping willow will wrap it's self around the feed roller, as will bramble etc. the small stuff is more trouble than it's worth to chip.

 

I would recommend having a look at one working before you decide, it works for me, but I can see how professional users would poo poo it as they're used to machines costing 4 or 5 times as much, and the price difference really does show in use.

 

HTH, you're welcome to come and see mine working.

[ArthurBottlesworth]

Whats rough price of pto branch logger?

[Woodworks]

Whats rough price of pto branch logger?

 

Think I paid £3600 inc Vat so a lot more than the cheap chippers mentioned but you have a potentially salable product coming out of it.

 

Magicfingures if you want to pop down for a demo you are more than welcome as we are only near Tavistock.

[njc110381]

People told me I was mad when I went out and bought my little Entec. Like you, my chipper doesn't get used a lot and it was a big outlay for the work it was going to be given.

 

However, I bought it used. They're now selling on ebay for more than I paid for it and the upkeep cost other than sharpening has been a couple of hundred pounds maximum. I hire it out on top of my standard day rate and it has paid for itself, so I now have a tool that is an asset, owes me nothing but makes a good trickle of extra income.

 

My advice is look to the used market - don't buy the cheap new one because it will depreciate pretty fast and they're not that good. Buy a well used but well maintained known brand and read up on the possible faults so you know what to look out for. Remember a tool that is considered nearly dead for a full time arb guy like most of the folk on here will last you years at the rate you plan to use it. To them down time costs in a big way and a machine like that will be binned but to you, you can sort the issue and simply chip another day. I'm not saying buy a scrapper, not at all, but it doesn't have to be a low houred machine that has thousands of hours of life left. You'll probably give it less hours in a year than these guys would give it in a week, so a cheap machine that would be passed over by most could be a really good buy, and it will out chip a cheap Chinese machine ten times over.