garden shredders

[Stephen]

Hello,

I was considering buying a garden shredder. As I understand it there are two types: one that has rotating blades, like a large food processor. The pros are that it will cut leaves into a fine mulch but the cons are that they are noisy, the blades quickly blunt, and they don't like thick branches.

The other sort is supposed to crunch the waste between cogs. These are supposed to be much quieter and require less servicing and cope with thicker branches but apparently they do not shred leaves. Leaves get spat out whole, unless you can feed them in amongst some wood.

Have I got that about right?

I quite like the silence and reliability of the second type but I feel that although we prune branches, I would expect we would want to dispose more green matter than wood. Does these mean I need the first type?

Are they really noisy? Do the blades blunt that quickly? Can they be resharpened at home? What size branches can it cut without complaining?

I understand there is a third model made by Bosch that uses a helical blade. How does that compare? What are its pros and cons? Would that work in my situation?

I have seen Bosch ones at all the DIY stores but I also noticed Aldi and Focus are selling Einhell models, much cheaper than the Bosch. Who are Einhell and are their machines any good?

Thanks, Stephen.

[Dave Liquorice]

Yep.

Yes, I use ear defenders.

The do blunt but not exceptionaly quickly, at least not on our B&D model. I suspect what and how fast you feed hard materials into it has a bearing.

Ther are often reversable and I have sharpened them at home with an ordinary file and, once I had one, a grinder.

How long is a piece of string. Depends on the model, ours will eat broom handle sized stuff without much fuss.

German company:

to produce good quality tools at decent prices.

[alan.holmes]

Yes, they are noisy, and the blades do get blunt, but they can be sharpened at home.

Alan

[David in Normandy]

Avoid the Black and Decker one with rotating blades, it is rubbish. I spent more time unblocking it than using it and threw it away in the end. Complete waste of money. If I ever buy another it will be one of the Bosch quiet shredders which have been much praised on this group.

[Martin Bonner]

Sounds it. The bladed ones also tend to clog up quite easily if you feed sticky stuff in (slightly rotted leaves for example).

Probably not. The green matter doesn't need shredding (except for thick stuff like the stalks of broccolli plants - which the cogs will handle).

Yes

Pretty quickly - particularly if there is /any/ soil involved (it's the stone that blunts them)

Yes - but with difficulty (the nicks can be substantial)

Mine will cope with stuff a bit thicker than my thumb when the blades are sharp. If I bought a new one, I would get one of the cog ones.

No idea.

They produce stuff down to a price for places like Aldi.

[Peter Parry]

They are hideously noisy, jam frequently and tend not to last well.

Having had two rotating blade and one Bosch it is no competition. The Bosch is quiet, rarely jams, eats quite large branches and chops up leaves a bit - certainly sufficiently so they take up very little room. Vastly better than the high speed things.

[Andrew Gabriel]

I recently picked up an ALKO shredder second-hand. Not knowing anything much about shredders before, this one is the rotating blade type, and probably towards the more expensive and robust end of the market (so second hand is definitely a good move here, as I wouldn't pay anything like the new price).

It doesn't cut up leaves or any very fine twigs much -- they just get ejected. It is superb with branches though. Instructions say it works better if they've had time to dry out after pruning - mine were all very well dried. I haven't tried it with fresh cuttings, which are apparently more likely to jam.

No experience of this type.

Not in my experience.

The noise didn't bother me. The blades didn't noticably blunten during my long session. I sharpened them before I started. The (second-hand) machine came with completely blunt blades and it didn't work at all until I had sharpened them. That may be why it was discarded.

Search back for my previous article on uk.d-i-y which had more detail and lots of others' comments in the thread.

[The Natural Philosopher]

yeah. I simply use my ride on lawnmower, and accept the fact that the blades need replacing every year, and the deck welding up every other.

Still cheaper than buying a shredder.

13 bhp of rotating knives. Yumm!

[Graham Harrison]

I've had an Al-KO rotating thingy and I've currently got a Bosch. Much prefer the Bosch although I do find that if I get too carried away with very green stuff I can end up with a mush which blocks the shredding mech until I put something woody through.

[David Hansen]

On Wed, 30 Sep 2009 13:18:50 +0100 (BST) someone who may be "Dave Liquorice" wrote this:-

I have one I bought in Lidl. The gear type and not noisy.

Not silent, but not noisy enough to block having a conversation in a normal voice.

[pete]

I've got a "cogger" and it's reasonably quiet. Though you would still get abuse and other things hurled at you if you decided to do a quick bit of shredding at 3 a.m. I'm no expert, but ISTM the difference in noise level might be that my one uses an induction motor, whereas some (build to a budget) types use a brushed motor. So far as mulching leaves, I don't bother. The chips that come out of the shredder and any leaves in amongst them go straight back onto the flower beds and presumably the leaves just decay a little slower than if they'd been chopped up.

[OG]

dittos all the way through, except that we've not sharpened the blades and it still gets throough most things up to about 3/8 inch, which is the limit before we dry them out to burn on the chiminea*

• or sit on the log pile anyway - the chiminea's only been lit the once this summer.

[Halmyre]

The thing I found about the bladed ones is that after a couple of seasons the blades are practically welded to the plate and require lots of swearing and effort to undo the screws.

-- Halmyre

[davej]

I have the screw type bosch and it's great. The feed inlet is conical so a

3/4" branch can have a lot of leaves at the other end which can jam. Just break branches up so all the leaves don't go through at once. They are available on ebay just over £100. I bought mine off ebay 6-7 years ago and it's been outside all the time. Shredded a 40ft cherry into less than 1cube yd. this summer plus the logs -will shred as thick as a thumb -not 38mm! Sounds like a washing machine! Plus self feeding once the branch is put in.

[dennis]

I have the bigger of the two screw feed bosch ones and it will do branches a lot thicker than 3/4".

Mine can be made quieter by putting a wedge in the plastic motor cover to stop it vibrating.

[Lawrence]

I have a petrol chipper/shredder. Very expensive but one of my best buys. A job which would have taken 3 hours with my old electric B&D now takes less than an hour. It is noisy but it can cope with branches up to 2 inches or more in diameter. My borders all have a layer of chippings around 3 inches deep at this time of year. By next summer most will have disappeared!

Lawrence

[Christina Websell]

I have a JCB shredder. It will cut branches the size of broom handles all day but hates fresh leaves, they choke it up. I just wait until everything I want to shred is dry. I use the results for my chicken runs.

T