Chipper Another MacKissic chipper question

[BrianW]

I have a 30 HP Kubota B3030. Would the TPH-122 be too small for it? How well does the 122 chip up dry wood? How much trimming do you have to do when cutting a tree? I have a 5 HP MTD and have to cut all the branches until I have nice straight pieces. Would like to get away from that. How about shredding vines? I have tons of vines on my property. I have found a place that sells them for $1,700 with free shipping. Is this a good price? I know it better than Northern's price. The same place sells the tow behind 10 HP for $1,800 for manual start and $1,852 for electric start. Only $100 bucks more for an engine. I called MacKissic and confirmed the 10 HP version is the same chipper/shredder at the TPH-122. Like most of the posts, I am unsure of what to buy. I know I want a chipper/shredder an not just a chipper. I would like to buy american also - no Jinma! The site I am looking at is:

Wood Chippers / Shredders

 

[RalphVa]

The TPH-122 is basically a Class 0 3ph machine. If your 3ph will go down that small, it isn't too small. On my 4010 Class 1 3ph system, I tighten the turnbuckles fully tight to keep it from flopping, and it stays tight back there. You'll need the Class 1/0 bushings, of course.

It's very light, only about 160# but will do fresh limbs and trees up to about 3", as much as 3 1/2" if completely straight. Yes, they have to be somewhat straight to go into the chipper.

Because of the light weight metal housing, you have to respect what they say about the size of limbs/bushes to put into the shredder. Bigger than about 1/2", you risk them making a dent in the housing. Mine has a couple dents in it. You can cram some pretty bushy stuff into the shredder top, and it's great for dribbling leaves into.

The hammers in the shredder part go on seemingly forever. I haven't had to turn them at all. The leading front corner now has a very slight round to it vs. starting out square. The spacers aren't getting smashed up like they did on my TroyBilt, and those hammers are certainly lasting A LOT longer.

The chipper blade will need sharpening approximately every 10 hours. Depends on how much wood you poke into it that's been lying on the ground vs. freshly cut stuff. Freshly cut will hardly wear the blade. New blades are $57. Resharpening at a local machine shop (via a local hardware store) is $5.

Vines go into the shredder chute fine. Best to cut them to about 3 or 4' lengths though. Otherwise, they can whip and get you in the eye or other critical part (I do it nude most of the time) or even catch a hand or arm. I routinely do them in 3 to 8' lengths though, but cutting to no more than about 4' is safer. Some will wrap around the rotating assembly and may take a while to wear and shred, if they're fresh and green.

Any more capable machine like the DR chipper/shredder or the commercial Mac will run you $1,000-1,200 more.

Gotta slow the machine down to near idle before shutting down the PTO. Otherwise, you get a fair bit of belt slip between the stopped PTO shaft and flywheel shaft.

 

[OlyRick]

I also have a Mackassic tph-122 chipper and am completely happy with it. I have it attached to a bx-1500 with a pto hp of a little over 11hp and it takes everything I put into it.

I agree with with everything Ralph says. 3" branches do need to be pretty straight, but I smaller stuff bends into the cutter blade with a little pushing. I usually don't need to cut things into pieces to get them into the chipper. I have regularly put 10 ft limbs branches through it with no problems. It's a great chipper!

As far as dry wood, not much of what I chip is very dry, but I have not had any problems with it getting chipped.

I have put some vines through the shredder and you definitely want to be clear of the end when it grabs it, because it pulls them in real fast. I have no problems shredding vines (wild grape).

The people who build this chipper/shredder really stand behind it and are very helpful. When you call up a real person answers the phone. A rare occurrence these days for sure.

The chipper is set up for Cat 0 and Cat 1. It comes with bushings to set it up for Cat 1. I ended up tackwelding them on. Hard to imagine a Cat 0 tractor big enough to run this chipper, but I certainly am no expert on that.

I got my chipper from West Industries (also a very good company to deal with) for a little over $1600 with shipping.

Hope this helps.

Rick

 

[jand38]

My question will the c/s do leaves, pine needles and dead grass as well as 2 to 3 in limbs? One of the machine that is so popular is only for limbs no leaves. I can not justafy two machines MD

 

[RalphVa]

The Mac does everything: limbs, pretty bushy stuff, leaves. It's WAY better for leaves than my TroyBilt was. I often push some fairly bushy stuff into the chipper hopper, as long as the limbs will collapse. Any big stuff that won't collapse has to be clipped and fed into the shredder hopper or fed individually into the chipper hopper. Really bush stuff can be pushed into the shredder hopper, as long as nothing in it is bigger than about 1/2".

It's interesting to hear that a BX-1500 will not bog with it. I've NEVER bogged the Mac down with my 4010; whereas, a similar (shredder-only) Mac on my 12 hp Gravely used to bog down. I'd bog the Troy Bilt a lot; it was only 8 hp. I'm talking about bogs that STOP the machine. The Mac on the 4010 has NEVER been stopped.

Attached is a pic of it on my 4010. That pile behind it is often 6 to 8' tall. However, I often take it to stuff, chip/shred it up and then scoop the chips and dump on top of the pile.

Ralph

 

[RalphVa]

Oh, pine needles and pine cones and magnolia seed pods make marvelous additions to the compost pile. They really grind up nicely. Just dump them into the shredder hopper. They don't need to be dribbled in like leaves do, to keep them from bridging.

Ralph

 

[Cliff_Johns]

I have one and use it on my JD4110. I was going to give you the low down, but it appears others already have. I am very happy with it -- in all respects. If you do a serch, you will find a couple reviews (including mine) back in the archives of TBN.

Cliff

 

[BrianW]

First, thanks guys for all your help.

I have spent hours studying the reviews and other posts here. It looks like I am not alone when it comes to obsessing before buying on these things. I am looking at the two MacKissic models and the Bearcat 70554. Unfortunately, as of yet, I have not seen the Bearcat. I have only found a dealer that has the MacKissic engine powered unit that is similar to the TPH-122 and he will not demo it. The TPH-122 is all 12 gauge steel. The MacKissic Brute is 7 gauge. Both MacKissics use only one knife. The chipper chute I saw on the engine powered unit had a slit plastic entry shield. Does the PTO version have the same? It looked like it would be a pain to try to remove a branch if you got one stuck. The Bearcat is made from 7 gauge steel, has 4 chipper knives, and a 125# rotor as opposed to a 33# rotor on the Brute. The Brute and the Bearcat are priced similarly. It looks like the knives are the highest maintence item. Having only one could be a plus if it lasts as long as the four before sharpening. I also want to find out how hard it is to replace the knive(s) in these machines.

I am also toying with the idea of not getting a shredder as I already have a small (5 HP) chipper shredder. If I did this, I would probably buy the Wallenstein. One concern with the Wallenstein is the chip size. The pictures I see here on TBN have rather large chips. I believe if you get the power feed you can shrink the chip size by feeding it slower, but I am not sure on that one. The power feed puts the bill up to $4,000.00. Ouch!

 

[RalphVa]

The PTO one has that split tire type thing over the chipper chute. I've never found it to hinder anything. I often run my hand past it (I know not to reach too far). Only time I've had trouble with any pieces giving trouble is green stuff leaving a sliver off to the side that somehow gets stuck in there. Always been able to pull them back out. Think I've only had one piece that I felt I needed to shut down to retrieve it. It didn't jam, just couldn't seem to push it through with another piece (usual fix), and it was too short to reach in there while running to pull it out.

Sounds as though the Brute is the what the Mac people call the commercial one. That's probably about the gauge metal that was in the TroyBilt. Heavy beast for its size.

I'd never be happy with a chipper only rig, I don't think, but never had one to give it a try. Had a shredder-only Mac on the Gravely that I didn't care for. Mainly used it for leaves because it was just like the TPH except for lacking a chipper blade (and that flywheel) and was much better than the TroyBilt for leaves.

Changing the chipper blade is easy, as long as you have a proper allen wrench that fits onto a socket wrench, not one of those cheapo L-shapped ones, and as long as you're not so butterfingered as to drop either an allen screw or the blade. There's a little door on the back held on by a couple small screws. Open the door, rotate until blade comes into the window and then use allen wrench to remove. Clean out the allen screws well with an ice pick or tiny screwdriver, give the allen wrench a whack to seat it and then unscrew it, holding securely to the screw when it gets loose enough to come out. Put a tiny drop of blue Loctite onto the screw threads and bevel before putting them back in and let sit overnight.

If you drop a screw like I did, you'll need to drill a 5/8" hole in the bottom of the flywheel housing to retrieve it. If you drop the blade, you can probably remove the bolts holding in the outer bearing to let it drop out. Haven't done that yet.

Cliff can tell you all about how to rotate the hammers. Got a friend who has an engine-powered one who I passed Cliff's directions to for that. He said it was "a piece of cake". Said it didn't affect the performance of the machine. You really only need to rotate them when they get really rounded off. For mine, it's gonna be a long time.

Oh, Cliff, you need some good green paint for yours. Red. Ugh!

Ralph

 

[OlyRick]

Just a couple of thoughts I would like to pass on to you. I used to have a small bearcat that worked OK, although I probably pushed it over its capacity. With a PTO powered unit, it sure is nice to have one less engine to maintain. Another thing, I didn't like with the bearcat was the chipper discharge was on the bottom of the machine and it seemed I was raking chips out of the way every couple of minutes.