Heavy duty garden shredders / chippers

[John Rumm]

Recommendations please...

I am getting fed up with my aged Bosch "quiet" shredder (this is the older design with a rotating helix / worm drive cutter). Its very good if you want to shred the stuff that it likes (dryish, woody branches without any leaves or too much green stuff), but its pretty slow and hopeless for much else - yo spend more time trying to get it to ungest stuff, and then unclogging it than anything else.

(It also has the ergonomics of bagpipes - being painful to wheel anywhere (the handle seems designed to try and break your wrist), and then it tends to fall over when being wheeled on anything other than a perfect flat surface (thus twisting your broken wrist for good measure!))

My main uses are disposing of cut / broken branches that are too small to be worth logging. (typically no more than 3" - often smaller), and shredding prunings from hedges, bushes, brambles etc.

Need something that is easy to feed and self feeding. That you can load up with leafy stuff as well as branches (without having to strip all the side shoots off).

Preferably petrol powered...

[T i m]

I have the Bosch ATX 2000 and that was brilliant on a fir tree (nice straight / thin stuff). The problem was dealing with the full garden bags of chip fast enough. ;-)

Mine loves the green stuff and rarely clogs.

If you are really talking about being 'able' to do 3", and depending on your budget, how about this:

Gravity or power 'self-fed'? I think you have to go quite big to get something with power feed.

Or the Bio50/55 if you can get away with 2"?

Honda powered, well engineered, pretty powerful.

Cheers, T i m

[Peter Parry]

[PeterC]

I'm considering getting a shredder. The AXT2000 seems to have been superceded by the AXT2500 - I wonder if that is an 'improvement'.

BTW, you put "ATX..." and I have the same tendecy, especially having built a new PC about 3 months ago.

[T i m]

Well if it's just the motor wattage then as long as you can give it that sort of juice (from your generator or thin extension lead) then I guess 'bigger is better. That said, I can't remember stalling the 2000 that often or at all but we could have been treating it 'reasonably'.

Hehe, it's funny isn't it how things work like that (I very familiar with the ATX term) but it's also my dyslexia (transposition). I can read a car number plate outside (with the intention of writing it down) and have either lost most of it or get stuff round the wrong way by the time I get indoors.

I simply don't have the ability to remember (in detail) non intuitive or logical / familiar number or letter sequences, unless I'm using them very very regularly. I've had the same mobile number over 20 years and haven't got a clue what it is (because I never ring it myself and rarely give it to others).

That's partly why I try to stay away from the Command Line Interface on most OS's, apart from the very basic stuff or stuff I've used many times (like sudo apt-get install ) because it's all just a blur. ;-(

Back to the chippers ... daughter and her partner borrowed my AXT 2000 but weren't sure if it was going to be up to it (both used to something much bigger). Afterwards they said they were very impressed (considering etc). No jams, ran all day, chipped stuff fairly fine and cleanly, took a range of material, wasn't too noisy etc etc.

Cheers, T i m

p.s. The only thing that would worry me about the 2500 over the 2000 is it may not be the same ol'e tried and tested beast. Even if they have only fitted an uprated motor, how might that then (say) put more strain on the drive belt and strip belt teeth, rather than just stalling etc?

[T i m]

We watched something even bigger than that at an Arb show. The feeder bed was a long as the longest tree they were putting on it (at least telegraph pole length) and they would put them on in bundles!

The *problem* they had demoing it at the show was having sufficient stock to put through it and replacing the *massive* bulk trailer they were using for the chip.

Maybe John could get one of each. The top one for the branchy bits and the bottom one for the greenery. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

p.s. Daughter would really love to have a go on one of these harvesters (she's only sat in one so far). ;-)

I love watching the dexterity of any good 'machine operator'. It's when they make it look like an extension of themselves I know they are 'good'. ;-)

[Reentrant]

That was our first "quiet" shredder and it was fine until the helix eventually got blunt, then it clogged too easily.

We replaced it with an AXT2200 (cog wheel against sacrificial plate) and that's pretty good but it's hard getting "branchy" wood into the hopper, and it doesn't like wet fibrous stuff.

A friend has the latest Bosch 2500 "turbo" type (slowly rotating fan-blade v static vanes) and that seems to cope easily with just about anything.

[Another John]

I am *so* glad you summarised your Bosch like this John -- I ditched mine a year ago, it having lain unused for at least 2 years in the shed, for all the reasons you outline. And it was never quiet. Furthermore, it was the second shredder I'd owned, the first being a cheaper product -- I had thought that if I splashed out on the Bosch, I'd have better success.

I determined that in future if I need to do a load of shredding I will hire a proper job from the (fortunately nearby) hire company.

However - equally fortunately - our council tip is on my way into town, and it turns out I never really needed a shredder in th first place: I just wanted a Boy's Toy :-) (not suggesting that you're in that category, but it turns out that I was)

John

[Bill]

In message , Another John writes

My son gave me his Bosch quiet shredder. It worked sort of OK for a few months, then it jammed and now it just bleeps at me when I turn it on. I can't see anything jamming it, and haven't stripped it down far enough to see if it's worth trying to repair.

He replaced it with a large petrol engined device made in China. Extremely noisy and he only runs it for relatively short periods for his and the neighbours' nerves. I don't know the make. I have been sent twice for replacement drive belts for it. It's difficult to get to switch it off before the belt starts to melt when it jams. He did have the foresight to photograph the markings on the belt when it was new. I, and the man at Fenner Belts, were both impressed.

[PeterC]

The supply is 2.5FT&E to the shed then 1.5 flex, so should be OK. I wouldn't use the 25m lead as about half that would be enough.

:-)

Indeed. 'Improvements'...!

[John Rumm]

I have replaced the helix once (after a mate borrowed it and accidentally tried shredding a bit of angle iron!)... Its possibly getting blunt again though.

Does it have the same narrow hopper entry though? That's one of the pains with mine, it has a slot[1] that is designed to limit the size of the stuff you put in, to about the maximum it can shred - but that makes it very difficult to get some stuff in - especially leafy green stuff?

[1] or at least it did have until last night when I attacked it with a reciprocating saw - now it has a 6 x 4" hole ;-)

[John Rumm]

That's probably the kind of thing I had in mind...

Although possibly a bit more than I wanted to pay.

I had looked at some of the titan pro range. Like:

But no idea what the quality or engine is like..

Self feed in the sense that you don't have to manually force every last branch through it. If you can lob a armload of stuff in the hopper and it will shred it, then I would be happy.

Ta

[Capitol]

I replaced the shredder with an 8 inch chop saw. Usually set to

6 inch cutting lengths. A lot less effort than a constantly jamming shredder. I've also had good results with the rotary mower on stuff less than 0.5inches dia. Couldn't believe how well it worked with the stuff just laid on the grass.

[Andrew Mawson]

Shredding is an immensely tedious operation. If there is any possibility of a bonfire it's far quicker. I had a very big shredder on the back of my 70 HP tractor and in the end sold it as it was so time consuming and we have the space for bonfires without an issue.

Andrew

[John Rumm]

Yup agreed - Things like big hedge trims and the annual massacre of pampas grass, I will pile up on the bonfire, leave to dry out a bit and then burn.

Branches on the other hand are harder to collect and take to the bonfire site and they take lots of space, plus some of the things are quite wicked and covered in thorns or other spiky bits. Quite often its nice to be able to cut a bit down and lob it straight into a shredder before you get any more cut up by it!

[Bill]

In message , John Rumm writes

I've only just managed to ask my son about his chipper.

It's a Titan. Made in the UK with a Chinese engine. He has modified some guards slightly to make it easier to feed. He has been heard to utter words after starting problems, but I don't think it's any worse than the Briggs & Strattons that he has on other machinery.

As I've said before, it works OK, but, probably like them all, is very noisy.

I have had to drive to Wales twice for a replacement belt because when it jams when being fed he has not got to the off button before the belt has started to melt.

[T i m]

I think many of these engines can have 'a knack'. How hard fast you pull the starter cord, how much choke, even maybe when still warm and how much throttle etc.

I think it's only after you have heard a petrol chipper running hard (especially one with flails) can you appreciate how they can call the smaller electric ones 'quiet'. ;-)

The first thing I suggested (and we did / do) when getting any such kit is get spares of the important bits (and replace them as they are used). Even the cutters on a stump grinder when £120 a set as 1) the cost of having the machine out of service for a few days could cost more than that and 2) when you have such spares you don't normally need them. ;-)

The big chipper came with a mullered V belt and we got one identical and two 'notched' versions (as the drive pulley is a fairly small diameter and that sort of bending can affect how efficiently a solid V belt drives).

Cheers, T i m

[John Rumm]

That is about the one advantage of my current word drive one - you can leave it running when say pruning brambles, and lob in each stem as you cut it free rather than having it laying about ready to mince your legs!

[T i m]

My one is the spinning cutter type so nowhere near as quiet as the crusher type and so we did generally turn it off between batches. The trouble is, if processing something like the long straight ends of Fir, they fall though pretty quickly and you can fill a bag up pretty fast. Even if you weren't bagging up the chip you would have to clear it away from underneath pretty frequently.

With anything less straight or 'green' (like a gnarly old apple tree) you can't get the material though so fast.

I'm not sure I'd want to chip much bramble or worse, pyracantha with the little Bosch AXT 2000 though, simply because of how bad it is to handle in general, how catchy / clingy it is. ;-(

Cheers, T i m

[John Rumm]

I think a set or armoured gauntlets would be handy as well - I find I can shred a set of rigger style gloves in one session!