Chipper Chinese Chipper Jinma shredding leaves

[AlanB]

Considering buying one of the Jinma chippers to do brush and stuff around the house and with the landscape business, and wondered if those of you that owned one had ever run leaves by themselves through one? Would they feed? Would they shred? Would the volume reduction be worthwhile and make them compost faster?

Thanks

 

[quicksandfarmer]

The Jinma will shred leaves, but it's not the best tool for the job. The problem is feeding any quantity at a reasonable speed. The feed chute is nearly horizontal and the feed roller is designed for large branches.

I'll throw almost anything in my chipper, and it turns it all into nothing but chaff, but it's really only time-effective on branches that are more than an inch and less than five inches in diameter.

 

[RalphVa]

One problem with shredding leaves with a device having only blades is dirt. Leaves are loaded with dirt, which will dull the blades. On my MacKissic, the chipper blade is actually in a separate chamber from the shredder hammers. The shredder hammers are made of VERY hard metal and seem totally unaffected by the dirt in the leaves.

The Mac also has a big hopper to dribble the leaves into, and it's vertical.

Probably the best leaf shredder would be the DR chipper/shredder than has a discharge chute. I generally have to shovel shredded leaves out from under the Mac about every 5 minutes or less.

The cheapest leaf shredder is one with an electric motor with grass whips attached to the shaft and mounted in the bottom of a plastic chute. Main problem with doing a lot of leaves with it is you'll be lifting it up and scooping the shredded leaves away. You can find these on the internet for around $125.

Ralph

 

[JerryK]

Most contractors that deal with leaves end up with some type of vacume/chipper combination that blows directly into a enclosed truck or trailer. They use blowers to congregate the leaves, then suck them up and shread them. Like the above post states, a 'chipper' is not effective at cutting up leaves, and you need some type of shreader, with a big funnel mouth and swinging hammers, or hardened tearing teath.
I just block the exit on my mowing tractor in the fall, and shread them in place. But that doesn't help you much if you are trying to do it for a client.

 

[ronjhall]

My Bearcat has a shredder as part of it's setup. Using it for leaf shredding is a very long drawn out process. Does not work very well. Last year I got a Trac Vac hooked to the lawn mower. Shredding with this tool after running threw the mower completely composted the piles before beginning of summer. As already said, look at a vacuum for leaves.

 

[AlanB]

Most contractors that deal with leaves end up with some type of vacume/chipper combination that blows directly into a enclosed truck or trailer. They use blowers to congregate the leaves, then suck them up and shread them. Like the above post states, a 'chipper' is not effective at cutting up leaves, and you need some type of shreader, with a big funnel mouth and swinging hammers, or hardened tearing teath.
I just block the exit on my mowing tractor in the fall, and shread them in place. But that doesn't help you much if you are trying to do it for a client.

Your last line is what we have done the past 12 years or so, and it has been fine.

BUT,, I now own some more land, there has always been a "call" for vacuum them up and haul away, but to haul to the dump was always impractical. My thoughts were to get the Jinma, then shred everything through it, to speed decay along, then landfarm it into the soil to kind of help along the production of Top soil, which we then in turn sell back to the customers.

Probably just need to set up a billy goat or similar (bring money) but so far, the outlay $ have outweighed my projected income $'s in the short term, so we have always said, maybe next year.

I realize it would probably be better to have multiple machines though, and will probably end up there, just kind of curious though how the Jinma would handle them if anyone was doing it.

I was kind of thinking it would just create a big clog in the infeed chute and be jammed.

 

[JerryK]

The 'Jinma's' don't like being fed much less that 1/2", and that is a strech. You could probably modify the feed roller closing distance, or take it entirely out and come up with some wooden ram thing. But you would be better served trying to find a machine that has both a chipper chute and a big throated shreader chute. I used to have a small 5hp Kemp chipper/shreader, and it was set up like that. But if you are talking a lot of leaves, you need to look at some of the bigger PTO chipper/shreaders. The Jinma wouldn't work very well on leaves. Good luck, Jerry.

 

[gordon21]

Jinma's don't like leaves.

If you feed too many too fast you could possible jam up the big round chamber. I can tell you from experience that is not fun to unclog. Always let it run for 10-20 seconds after you THINK the last chip is out. You will be surprised at how much will still come out. If you don't let the machine self clean, all those remnants will fall to the bottom and may cause the flywheel to jam. You won't know that until the next time you try to start it and the squealing of five belts will let you know.

 

[Todd_C]

I just bought a Jinma chipper and I agree with everyone else. My chipper does great with anything over 1/2", but it takes forever to feed branches with leaves.

 

[charlz]

Your last line is what we have done the past 12 years or so, and it has been fine.

BUT,, I now own some more land, there has always been a "call" for vacuum them up and haul away, but to haul to the dump was always impractical.

I tried a new trick this year, go over them with the riding mower, deck all the way up. This chops them up and leaves the pieces on the ground, I then went back with the deck down like normal and sucked/chopped up the pieces some more. Cut down on clogged chute problems and the number of trips I made to the compost pile.