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Chippermulcher

Oak River Mike | Posted in Tools for Home Building on July 28, 2009 02:23am

I know its not a Homebuilding Tool but has anyone had any luck with the small Troy Built or other chippersmulchers?  Need one for around the house but being they are $500. thought I would get some first hand info before making the purchase.

Anyone have any experience with these?

I may post over at Fine Gardening to see if anyone there has as well.

Thanks

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Replies

  1. MrBill | Jul 28, 2009 03:00am | #1

    Mike,

     What do you mean by "smaller" ??  I have an 8HP Bolens and it does a pretty decent jobs on most limbs and other junk that falls out of the oak trees that surround the house. However it is lousy with leaves. Depends on what you plan on chipping/shredding with it.

     

    Bill Koustenis

    Advanced Automotive Machine

    Waldorf Md

  2. User avater
    Sphere | Jul 28, 2009 03:57am | #2

    I bought a small Troybilt from our buddy Gunner, pony or colt or something like that..maybe a 5 HP ?

    It ain't what it's all cracked up to be...it just shoots stuff out the chute, without really altering it much. The chipper function is OK sorta for small ( 2'') stuff, but it only has one "knife" on the side of the shedder flail, so it's slow going.

    If I'd had a choice to do over again, I'd pass on it.

    Heck, I'd give it to ya if you were closer.

    Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks

    Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations

    "If Brains was lard, you couldn't grease much of a pan"
    Jed Clampitt

    View Image

  3. Karl | Jul 28, 2009 07:52am | #3

    I tried the troy bilt about ten years ago and it was way to much work to feed it. Heaping it all up in a big compost pile and letting nature take its course is much easier if you have the space and ambience to accommodate a big pile.

    I found a high weed mower (I have snapper and a troy bilt) does a great job of grinding a big pile of 3/4" and smaller branches down into a workable mulch/groundcover in a matter of five or ten minutes of work.

    I always lusted after a big vermeer or similar chipper until I got a little 16hp kubota with a 3pt hitch mounted brush hog attachment.

    I pile up a giant stack of branches 2" and smaller and back the brush hog up to it and lower it down on top of it. I repeat this process over and over until the pile has disappeared. It makes a god awful racket and throws lethal wood chunks at likely a fatal velocity but the operators seat isn't in the line of fire.

    I find this way easier than feeding an industrial size chipper and ultimately a lot simpler.

    I have been told i will trash the brush hog using it this way but I don't have any other uses for it and don't think I could sell if for more than one or two hundred dollars so I will keep grinding up tree debris until I kill it. So far it has ground up more than 50 loads of branches (f350 with a 6' by 9' dump bed)

    Just to save someone the trouble of pointing it out, THIS IS NOT THE INTENDED USE FOR A BRUSH HOG AND WILL LIKELY KILL ME AND ANYONE ELSE WHO TRIES TO USE ONE IN THIS MANNER.

    Karl

    1. DaveRicheson | Jul 28, 2009 12:16pm | #4

      I have a 35 hp Deer with a three point hitch and use a Woods chipper/shredder to clean up after accumulating a fair size piles of debris. It has something like 200 flailing blades in the hopper and the chipper on the flywheel will eat a 3" branch in short order. The deadman switch under the seat of the tractor can be disengaged so the pto can be run while the operator is off.

      The chipper/shredder does have some drawbacks. Feeding small branches (up to 1") is a dance with chance. I have to start them in the hopper by shoving the butt ends past the nylon brushes that cover the shredder blades. At that point the blades grab the branches and jerk them in at a little less than light speed. that means I have to let go real quick or have an arm sucked in with them, and then simultanously duck away to keep from getting slapped upside the head with the tail end of the branches. The chipper is much better untill it gets down to the last 3 to 5" of a bigger branch. Then it will sometimes spit that last chunk out at mach 3. You don't want to be in line with the chute when that happens!

      The other major PITA is that it is a bottom discharge only. All the shredded stuff and chips pile up underneath it so I have to keep a rake handy to keep pulling it out and away. If this one ever dies I'll replace it with one that has a directional discharge chute.

      The mulch I get is pretty good stuff. I ussually use the front loader to heap it all up and turn it all over every three or four months if I think about it. After a year it is ready for the plant beds or garden and the tiller.

      I think I paid about $2k for it new 15 years ago. I can burn here, but we made the decision early on that we wanted to be as environmentally friendly as we we reasonably could.

    2. peteshlagor | Jul 29, 2009 06:14am | #10

      BTDT.

      In my case, I ended up blowing the headgasket in the diesel.  (We really shouldn't use a tractor less than 25 horse for that bushhog.)  Still would run, and did for several years, but not with the same power.

      Plus, should you hit a stump going down, it'll take an acetelyene torch to heat up the blade to re-straighten it.

      Othe than that, it's great!

       

      1. Karl | Jul 29, 2009 06:54am | #11

        Good to know, thanks for mentioning it, I will be bummed if I blow the head gasket.What make/model did you blow it on?Karl

        1. peteshlagor | Jul 29, 2009 07:04am | #12

          B7100.

           

      2. DaveRicheson | Jul 29, 2009 01:06pm | #14

        >>Plus, should you hit a stump going down, it'll take an acetelyene torch to heat up the blade to re-straighten it.

        FIL did that, only he lowered it on a osage orange fence post that had been knock over. Managed to wrap about 10' of woven wire fence up in it too.

        Thank god for shear pins!

    3. User avater
      popawheelie | Jul 29, 2009 07:05am | #13

      i use the lawn mower for small stuff. You can run it over a few times and then pick it up with the bag.

      I don't see a problem with it unless you push it to hard. "There are three kinds of men: The one that learns by reading, the few who learn by observation and the rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves."Will Rogers

  4. dude | Jul 28, 2009 12:23pm | #5

    got a bearcat used from HD , rebuilt it with new blades all around , clutch and belts

    Got about 2600 cdn in it in the end

    it cuts up to 3" if you can stand the noise but saves a lot of hauling of brush if you have a lot

    im not impressed with the schreader as it bungs up easily if overfed

    I loaned it to my nephew who managed to bung up the schreader and attempted to clear it by hammering on the safety schield  ( new one cost me $225 )

    If you buy one dont lend it as most borrowers are idiots it seems

    The one you buy never seems to be big enough it seems also !

  5. fingersandtoes | Jul 28, 2009 10:57pm | #6

    Whatever type you get don't let your mother borrow it. Everytime I go over I have to take it apart and unjam the huge chunks she has fed into it, while she complains that it is too heavy for "ordinary people" to use. She's 82.

  6. OverKnight | Jul 29, 2009 03:59am | #7

    I have an old (mid to late 1980's) Troy-Built Tomohawk. My late brother bought it new, and it came with a 4 HP Tecumseh engine. This worked adequately as long as you didn't feed it too quickly. I just installed an 8 HP Kohler, and what a difference. You can still lug it down, but the difference is like night and day.

    Some other points: first, $500.00 is a pretty high price for these. You should be able to find a decent one for around $300.00. Second, these aren't designed for large volumes. Their best use is for smaller property (< one acre) clean-up, although you'll be spending a lot of time if where are a lot of trees on this one acre. Third, the Tomohawks (not the newer Troy-Builts) are extremely well-made; with care, they'll last forever. Fourth, my experience with these for chipping is much better than Sphere's, but I agree with Karl about the leaves. I pick up the leaves with my Snapper mulching mower and put them in a pile near the other compost.

    I hope this helps.

    1. User avater
      Sphere | Jul 29, 2009 04:05am | #8

      Thats what I got, the Tomohawk. Maybe there is a chute extension that I'm missing that allows the junk  to get shredded instead of just chucked out?  It appears something is missing, I oughtta ask Gunner if I got all the parts.Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks

      Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations

      "If Brains was lard, you couldn't grease much of a pan"Jed Clampitt

      View Image

      1. OverKnight | Jul 29, 2009 05:27am | #9

        Sphere, in fact, there are two different screens that mount under the flails. These keep the chips inside until they're small enough to pass through the holes. If there wasn't a screen mounted, this would absolutely explain what you've described. Definitely contact Gunner for these.

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