chipper shreader

[Ralph Mowery]

I bought a chipper/shreader to get rid of some trees that blew down.

I do not care to save the chips so do not care which hopper I put things in.

One hopper is for up to 3 inches for chipping and the other hopper is for up to 1/2 inch branches.

Would it be better to throw the small stuff in the shreader hopper to save wear on the chipper blades or not ? The manual does not say anything about that.

[Bob F]

Things too big or too hard going through the shredder have the potential to really mess up the machine. I had a 6 HP one my father passed on to me that gulped down something too big or hard, which bend the shredder input blade, and as I worked on it I determined that the engine shaft was bent too. I had been feeding somewhat bigger things into the shredder because the chipper did not seem to work very well, even after I sharpened the blade there.

I lucked out and found a similar $25 one on Craigslist that was missing the starter mechanism. I swapped that from mine to my "new" one and ended up with a better machine, that chips much better, And I usually try to make sure that only relatively soft materials near the 1/2 inch max go through the shredder, and even feed bunches of smaller twigs through the chipper, because it produces smaller chunks which compost faster.

So far, the chipper blade works as good as when I got it several years ago without sharpening.