Anyone know any thing about a MITTS & MERRILL chipper?

On Mon, 28 Jun 2004 18:17:26 -0400, "Wayne" vaguely proposed a theory ......and in reply I say!:

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How big is "your yard"? Why do you want to chip?

Can't comment on the machine, but as a "private" chipper (not income earning from it) I will say "It ain't worth it, except for feelgood".

Owning three chippers, electric toy up to V8 driven 9" trailer mount, I have to say that the machine and cost of running it are _never_ worth the chip you get out of it. The machine you think is worth it is never big enough.

Of all the machines I own, these are the "daydreamingest".

Does the machine have hydraulic feed? Is it disc or drum style?

I have a drum chipper, no hydro feed. It simply takes the stuff from you. Very fast, when sharp.

Having said that, in many ways it's _less_ dangerous (although illegal to use in public here) than the hydro-driven disc style. If you hang on, the blades simply cut the wood, and there is nothing left to grab. The hydro ones keep pulling. We have had at least two guys go throuigh those things in a town of 1 million people in the last 2-3 years.

But the hydro feeds make feeding a lot easier, especially if the blades are getting dull.

I am dealing, I admit, with hardwoods. I have run softer stuff through my 9" machine, and it's easier. It can be fun for a while, but you have to get the wood to the machine as green as possible.

I am always sharpening. You use a lot of fuel for a little bit of chip. There will probably be other maintenance. The actual _chipping_ takes about 15 minutes for a car-carrying trailer full of stuff up to say 4". But it produces a pitiful amount of chip. But then there's sharpening, refueling, maintenance...probably as much time as chipping! A pro sharpen will cost a fortune. Taking the blades out is a PITA. I was working on a magnetically mounted sharpener for in-machine work using a slow grinder, but real work got in the way.

I took the thing down the road to chip for a neighbour, and he had machine-piled the wood, about 2 weeks before. _Any_ grit in there will dull your blades like _that_. Dry wood also.

If the branches are at all gnarled, then it's a bitch to feed the machine, and you end up having to feed it 1' bits at a time, and all this time the thing is chewing up fuel.

The drum style ones howl like aeroplanes; literally. My nearest neighbour is over 1/2 mile away, and they asked me one day what on earth was happening, when the throat of the thing was pointing their way. Even the disc style ones are noisy. Most of the councils around here take the stuff away rather than chip in the street as they tried for a couple of years, when they have those "leave out your clippings" days.

How good are you at selling? I am hopeless, so I buy with the idea of selling, and then end up with another lump of steel wating for that next "project".

On Mon, 28 Jun 2004 18:17:26 -0400, "Wayne" vaguely proposed a theory ......and in reply I say!:

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Oh yeah! none of my tirade included the condition of the machine, trying it first with stuff _you_ want to work with, and seeing how long these machines stay on the market in your area.

This is the "current" version of the chipper

I called the manufacturer and they said is basically the same machine. I looked at it and it ran ok it just looks like a real widow maker. Sharpening the blades is easy on this unit, all in all the machine is very basic but it is a "chuck and duck" machine. I don't love chips just tired of hauling it away. And yes I do have a bad habit of not selling these things but this would be big enough that I wouldn't want to keep it laying around. The seller wants $2000.

On Mon, 28 Jun 2004 22:27:41 -0400, "Wayne" vaguely proposed a theory ......and in reply I say!:

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Ok. You read what I said. Believe me I know of what I speak.

I _want_ to chip wood. I have a lot and I otherwise burn it. It makes me mad to burn it. But in the end I have a goal to achieve, and that is to remove crap and clean up afterward. Chipping is not the way to go. It's OK if you are making viable money from it (chipping), and it solves a real landfill problem (council dump). The chip is worth nerts around here. Thay can't _give_ it away!

Chipping also looks good to the public. I actually question its viability from an ecological view, though.

You will get tired of chipping it. You will have to lug the wood to the chip pile area if you want to pile the chip. You will still have to cut the wood up into smaller pieces; probably even more than now, as lots of bits just will _not_ go into that throat. Notice I said throat, not mouth. The only trees I have here that reall work are a bush called "parrot bush" and the copsed regrowth. Both are nice and straight, and feed right through. Immediately you get brancehes and stuff you are fedeing the thing twigs.

You will get disappointingly small amounts of chip.

Ask the guy how long he has been trying to sell it. Suss out ther market. I have no idea of whether the price is right or not.

Get somebody else to haul it away? Every now and again, get a guy out to chip it? As I say, it will take about 1/2 hour to do a heck of a lot of wood. A mate of mine had a large "fiddlewood" tree, about 30' tall or so. He removed it all, chopped it up into manageable pieces, and had a guy out to chip it. I think the guy charged Aud$45/hour, and it cost so little that my mate topped him up the hour because he felt sorry for him driving out and all. That was the whole tree.

Look. I actually employed a mate of mine to help me clear the shitty scrub from an area about 1 acre or so in size, and we also chopped up some trees that were pushed for us. We worked our arses off 10 hours a day for weeks; pulling, cutting, making sure it was clean, green wood, sharpening, refuelling. The actual chipping would have accounted for

1/20Th...1/10th (?) of that time. We would take a hour or two to collect a pile of trees that went through the machine in 10 minutes. It eats stuff faster than 3 guys can feed it. The novelty soon wears off. I only ever used two guys because of the safety aspects.

Sharpening blades _properly_ is not as easy as it looks. I had the blades pro-sharpened on my unit (it looks almost identical) and they lasted for a while. As _soon_ as they blunten, feeding the beast is really tough and frustrating, with anything but brush. I have never been able to get the blades to last sharp as long as that pro sharpen, and that was not that long.

Have you listened to the machine in action? You have what I have. They make a _horrendous_ row.

I still have my machine. I am a hopeless and very unlucky seller. I have ripped out a heap more brush, but because the machine needs to be right up to scratch, and the wood dead green, you are under a lot of pressure when using it. If the machine sits for too long, of course you get mechanical problems as well. You need to trickle charge the battery. Make sure you have a manual primer for the fuel. So I have not used it.

I am letting the stuff rot down in a big pile (I have the room) in the hope that I will discover another way. I have a large tractor-driven hammer mill, but again it needs feeding in small bits, although it's a lot less critical of blade condition. You will find that the really _serious_ stuff is all hammer mill style. But to get the work done they spend hundreds of thousands and have 500HP and upward engines. As I said, the machine and cost are always over the top for what you get out of them.

The latest alternative has real "teeth" on a rotating drum. IT just thrashes like a hammermill with fixed hammers. very impressive, relatively low mtce as far as sharpening goes, and again US$200,000, and that's a coma, not a decimal point.......just for the UNIT that then goes onto your excavator.

I am actually looking at running a tiller on the back of my tractor over the brushy bits, by way of creating a pile of feedable stuff. etc etc.

I do wonder whether the "toothed" idea is not the best, but in a machine, not at the dn of an excavator arm.

What did the guy use it for? Why is he selling? How long has it been for sale? How long have others been for sale?

I seriously have no more to say. I am Ignoring this thread. That's not just being rude (although it is unusually rude for me, as you have not in any way provoked me). I have said all I can say. You probably will not listen. I don't want to know about it .

replying to Wayne, Bob Clark wrote: yes i would like to see your chipper if you buy it,,,what is the year,,may be i can buy it off you after you use it,