Garden shredder; recommendations?

[Chris Holford]

They seem to run from about£50 to £500 or more. I'm thing of getting one as my garden has a lot of shrubs that get pruned each year. Looking for a reasonably priced one which will be reliable. Thanks

[newshound]

Amazon reviews are your friend IMHO. FWIW I have a Bosch AXT Rapid 2200 which is fairly amazing, although you do need to replace the rotating blades regularly. People with "serious" gardens tend to go with the more expensive "grinder" type.

[Jeff Layman]

I've had Screwfix's own brand shredder for over a year, and thoroughly recommend it. Absolutely no problems and it works well using a slow-speed cogwheel-type blade to pull in and cut/crush branches.

Previously I used a high-speed shredder ()rotating blade) which I had to stop to unblock every few minutes. It was also extremely noisy.

[Rob Morley]

That looks like the one I hired - it filled my new compost bin with very well chewed vegetation - everything from inch-and-a-half thick branches to grass and soft green leafy stuff came out nicely crushed and chopped, and occasional jams were easily cleared by shifting into reverse.

I have one of those, it's crap. If I had paid more than a tenner for it I'd have been annoyed. No amount of careful cleaning, adjustment and sharpening will get it to run for more than a few minutes without jamming and even when it is working it doesn't do a very good job.

[Chris Hogg]

I have the Bosch ATX 25 TC 'Quiet Shredder' which I'm happy with, although I would prefer to be able to see at a glance how full the collector was getting, or even use my own buckets/trugs to collect the shreddings. But it copes with fairly thick branches, up to about

4.5cm, and is quiet, unlike some of the high-speed shredders. Quite a big beast for the amateur, and not particularly cheap.

I used to have a Bosch ATX Rapid 2200, which uses a cutting screw, and was also OK, although after an extended period unused it had seized up and wouldn't start. As I'd originally bought it by mistake (I thought it had the same cutting mechanism as the 25 TC above), rather than stripping it down and getting it going again, I went out and bought the one I had wanted in the first place.

[Huge]

I have one of these (the rotating disk type). It's rubbish. Don't buy one of those.

[Tim Watts]

Bosch Shredder AXT 25 TC

It's between a cutter and a grinder (slow conical cutting blade). Quiet enough to run for hours without upsetting the neighbours.

Been very impressed: It eats upto the stated thickness of branches and it will take fine fresh hedge trimmings without clogging (though these do need a bit of wiggling with the supplied push stick - partly down to the narrow safety chute mouth - but there's not avoiding this on domestic grade gear.

Munches cardboard too if you rip it into foot wide strips then roll up like a branch - handy for bulking out grass cuttings in compost.

[T i m]

I guess even those of a similar design can be different in use.

I bought one of the Bosch spinny disk ones (partly because of the good reviews here and elsewhere) and whilst it is a bit noisy, it is fast and therefore on for less time.

Daughter took down a small (25') conifer and I fed everything that would go though the chipper though it and it took it faster than I could clear the bags of chip away! You would just drop one or two of the branches in and it would just fall though about the speed of gravity. ;-)

There was also an old apple tree and that it also consumed but that was more difficult, simply because *nothing* was straight. It also took all the vegetation ok.

We have both used it on other jobs and still agree it's a great bit of kit (for something that small / light / cheap).

Her other flail chipper has a 13hp Honda engine and she has played with big trailered jobbies when working for a local Tree Surgery Co so should be able to judge 'a good chipper' from a bad one. ;-)

Not quite up to the capacity of the beast we saw at one of the Arb shows that was taking half a dozen telegraph (and bigger) sized tree trunks and chipping them at the same time!

Cheers, T i m

[Brian Gaff]

Sounds good. The noise factor is what would put me off of using these having heard many. Brian

[Bill]

In message , Chris Hogg writes

I have one of these here, partly dismantled until I couldn't get any further.

It just stopped one day. I thought it had jammed, but I couldn't see anything, and poking things in didn't help. I've given up until my health and stamina improves.

We got it for nothing from my son who had become fed up with its slowness on his huge and in those days wild garden.

He replaced it with some horrendously noisy and slightly frightening Titan petrol driven thing. It has been fine, although I have already been on a mission to the nearest Fenner agents to buy it new drive belts.

[newshound]

I like the look of that. Nice big collection box. More than double the price, though.

My ATX rapid can wear out a set of blades inside an hour, the blade tips are induction hardened and I have never had any luck trying to sharpen them. Presumably yours last *much* longer.

Mind you, you can get through a HUGE pile of cuttings in an hour.

[newshound]

I was going to say I liked the look of that, until reading your experience!

Some Titan stuff seems to be OK for the price. But a clone of the Bosch £400 one for a quarter of the price looks too good to be true.

[Chris J Dixon]

For some time I have had, and been very pleased with, an Alko SP5000, cog type. It has recently needed the capacitor replacing, but that was reasonably easy and inexpensive.

Chris

[Halmyre]

I had a Champion BL1800 shredder from Focus many years ago, it has a rotati ng disk with a couple of double-sided blades screwed to it. When they wear out, unscrew them and turn them round. Fairly reliable as long as you were careful with larger knotty branches, but a bit noisy. Sadly I can't get new blades for love nor money.

[John Rumm]

IME what will work best for you will depend a bit on the type of shredding you want to do...

I had an old Bosch "silent" HP2000 which was their previous "quiet" design that used a sharp edged helix to draw stuff in and crush / section it. It was ok on woody stuff (or green stuff you had left to dry for several days prior to shredding), but easily clogged on fresh leafy green stuff. In the end it drove me nuts as it was difficult to feed, and I spent more time unclogging it than using it.

The modern cog type are better in that respect I understand. They also do a drum version that slices stuff obliquely, which is supposed to cope with a wider variety of stuff more easily.

In the end I had a chat with the arb specialists at FR Jones & Son to see if they could suggest something a little more "industrial". They were initially keen to promote the Viking shredders since they felt they were a good compromise at handing a wide range of waste types (entry level machines were also only about £200 - high end north of £1000). However in the end it became clear that what I really needed was a chipper rather than a shredder, since most of what I want to handle are tree branches, and I have very little need to shred shrubs or hedge clippings etc.

So I went for a semi-pro Lawnflite chipper. Its powered by a 6kW+ petrol engine, and that has been outstandingly good. Basically you lob a tree branch in (anything up to 80mm at the thick end[1]), and it spits it out the elevated disposal shoot into what ever container / pile you fancy, rather like a snow blower. A bit of a beast of a machine (135kg - but on big pneumatic tyres, so not actually that difficult to trundle about), loud (you need ear defenders if close to it), but its a kind of petrol mower not too disturbing kind of sound from a distance so not actually that bad for neighbours etc.

[1] Which basically means if it won't chip, its big enough to cut as a log instead.

[Tim Watts]

I've not touched mine - but I've only had it a year mind...

[Rob Morley]

Build the worn ones up with a bit of weld and regrind them?

[Halmyre]

That's a bit beyond my capabilities. But I might dig out my dad's old oilstone and have a go at sharpening them, and touch up the kitchen knives while I'm at it. A&E, here I come...

[newshound]

Did you check whether the Bosch ATX Rapid ones might be the same?

I can check the measurements for you if they look about right.

[Halmyre]

ilstone and have a go at sharpening them, and touch up the kitchen knives w hile I'm at it. A&E, here I come...

redder+blade

Thanks, but mine are like this:

only rectangular instead of rhomboidal. I did source a set from somewhere, but the shape was subtly different, they didn't sit quite right on the spin ner plate and were trying to take too much off at each pass, so it would ei ther jam on the thicker stuff or pass the lighter stuff through unshredded.

The stalls at vintage car or agricultural rallies used to be a good source for this sort of stuff. Also, it might be that the Al-Ko plate is a straigh tforward swap (hah!), I should look into that.