Troybuilt wood chipper or PTO. .?

cartod · Aug 2, 2012

Are the gas wood chippers as good as a pto chipper or are they toys? Just didn't want to run tractor to chip sticks. Same with a splitter?

It's a 10hp Tecumseh motor.

bcp · Aug 2, 2012

I have a Troybuilt 5.5hp chipper. It is not powerful enough. With a sharp blade it will chip about 8 inches of 1in+ vine maple, then you have to stop for 20-30 seconds to let the RPM's get back up, then chip another 8 inches, ect. On smaller and softer stuff it is more tolerable. It needs at least 8HP.

Bruce

s219 · Aug 2, 2012

Not even in the same ballpark.

dave1949 · Aug 2, 2012

When you say "sticks" what diameter do you mean?

I'm real happy with my pto-driven Wallenstein bx62, but it would be overkill for small stuff like yard clean-up. I use it for limbs and saplings. I can put a 20 foot long sapling in it that's 4" in diameter at the butt end and it chews right thru that sort of thing. Are you looking to just chip or chip and shred (leaves, vines, etc.)? There are some combo machines. My chipper would be worthless for shredding.

Don't have splitter, but people don't seem to have issues with the 5-8 hp gas engine driven ones. It is silly to wear out an expensive tractor if you don't have to.

cartod · Aug 2, 2012

dave1949 said:
When you say "sticks" what diameter do you mean?

I'm real happy with my pto-driven Wallenstein bx62, but it would be overkill for small stuff like yard clean-up. I use it for limbs and saplings. I can put a 20 foot long sapling in it that's 4" in diameter at the butt end and it chews right thru that sort of thing. Are you looking to just chip or chip and shred (leaves, vines, etc.)? There are some combo machines. My chipper would be worthless for shredding.

Don't have splitter, but people don't seem to have issues with the 5-8 hp gas engine driven ones. It is silly to wear out an expensive tractor if you don't have to.

Just sticks, leaves and general yard cleanup/ shredding. I just hate to put hours on a tractor for it. Wood splitters seem fine with there own little motor. I don't need to put huge limbs in.

dave1949 · Aug 3, 2012

cartod said:
Just sticks, leaves and general yard cleanup/ shredding. I just hate to put hours on a tractor for it. Wood splitters seem fine with there own little motor. I don't need to put huge limbs in.

In that case I would search for the best value in a combination chipper/shredder with it's own gas engine. There are lots of choices and probably opinions here on TBN about which are better and why. If you rarely need to chip any branch over say for example, a 2" diameter, it makes cost sense to set that as a capacity limit and deal with the occasional larger pieces some other way. You don't want to spend a lot extra to do a very small percentage of your overall requirements.

Comparing flywheel weights for disc-type chippers with the same size rating is one way to judge how sturdily they are built, and more flywheel/disc weight means more energy is stored to apply to the chipping. I would also look at how easy the unit is to open up and unclog and to adjust/replace/sharpen cutting blades.

bcjmmac · Aug 3, 2012

When you are researching what you want to buy check to see what kind of safety mechanism is built in for the motor (shear bolt, belt system, etc). I had a MTD chipper/shredder that stalled on a knot on a 1.5-2" stick (probably birch). Anyhow, the sudden stop broke the crankshaft & split the engine block. On the bright side, gave me a reason to move up to a PTO machine! Got a good condition used Bearcat Echo for a decent price.

cheers

millrat · Aug 8, 2012

I have a Troy Bilt chipper/shredder Chippewa style with the 10 hp. Bought it used. Put in a new chipper blade and flipped the flails to a new side. Took down 9 mature (avg 12" dia.) Poplar trees and chipped and shredded anything 3" and under. I only had one jamb due to operator overfeed and the belt took the hit.