Need 3" BearCat chipper advice

[Zale]

"Gravity feed" means you pushing the material through. If you can burn it, a match and a can of lighter fluid will be a much cheaper alternative.

 

[Toddppm]

Here's to hoping the stumps were sprayedopcorn: If not they may grow back with a vengeance next year. And yeah, burning sounds like the easiest, cheapest and most efficient way to handle the brush.

 

[BC WetCoast]

I've been checking out some of the small Wallenstein and Salsco chippers.

Whaddaya think of this lil' guy? Remember, 90% of what I've cut so far, was with a 2" lopper.

http://www.salsco.com/products/comm...en-gravity-feed-chipper/models-608---616.html

That thing is 35" wide. If you can get it down your path, you can get a mini loader down there to drag that material up the hill to where it can be chipped with a real machine.

If you spent less time searching the internet and more time working, you'd have it done by now.

 

[Roger Dodger]

For your information BC WetCoast, I've got a guy with a 6" chipper coming to price the job tomorrow. This is only one of the solutions I've been looking at.

There's no point in discussing a smaller chipper here.

Skid steers??? 6+ inch chippers with hydraulic infeeds to get rid of trees that were cut with a 2" hand-lopper??? Really???

Thanks anyway.

 

[Roger Dodger]

Here's to hoping the stumps were sprayedopcorn: If not they may grow back with a vengeance next year. And yeah, burning sounds like the easiest, cheapest and most efficient way to handle the brush.

No they weren't, and I'm fully aware of that. Virtually all of the clusters of Sumacs I cut, originated from single stumps that had been previously cut, and in turn, those stump-roots re-generated clusters of 6-8 saplings each. The owner was 94, and dieing of cancer. Whaddaya want me to tell ya?

Unfortunately, I'm not the "guy in charge",,,nor the owner,,,, nor the guy who controls the purse strings.

 

[TheJollyLogger]

Roger, you asked for opinions on 3" 20 hp chippers, and you got a pretty universal response. Those chippers are designed for a homeowner who occasionally does a little pruning. From your description you have cleared the better part ofan acre and a half and stacjed it up.

 

[TheJollyLogger]

It's the quantity that will kill you, not thesize. With your bearcat you will have to feed them in one or two at a time, and push them down until theyare done. With a 6" infeed it will take an armfull and have it gone by the time you come back with another armfull. I know you don't like the advice you're being given, butnit's based on years of experience.

 

[Roger Dodger]

It's the quantity that will kill you, not thesize. With your bearcat you will have to feed them in one or two at a time, and push them down until theyare done. With a 6" infeed it will take an armfull and have it gone by the time you come back with another armfull. I know you don't like the advice you're being given, butnit's based on years of experience.

Jolly Logger, you're 100% right, and I don't dispute that for a moment. I've seen the videos, and I've read reviews 'til I'm blue in the face. I'm frustrated though, because people are responding, without reading the specific questions I'm asking.

Let's re-cap;

I'm looking at several options, including;
1. burning, (it'll probably take a few days to do that)
2, hiring a 6" chipper, and a bunch of guys to drag the wood to that stationary chipper, and
3. buying a chipper that I'll use 1 time, and probably never again. (May have to re-sell it after the job is done.)

I don't need advice on the first two options,,,, I'm simply trying to get some sensible advice on the 3rd option,,,so that I'll be in a better position to make the final decision after having considered all 3 options. So yes,,, I'm looking at smaller chippers,,,, not the Home Depot junk,,,, but something of semi-pro quality within that 3-4" capacity, that will get rid of the 2" trees over the course of a few days. Something that I can man-handle by myself, over rough uneven terrain, to the brush-piles. I merely threw out the 12HP BearCat as a starting point,,,, and I'm currently looking at machines like the Salsco and Wallensteins,,,, with larger/heavier rotors,,,7 gauge steel/continuous weld construction,,,, cantilevered blades,,, larger chute-openings, road-towable trailer, and top-side ejection-port, so I don't have to constantly move the machine as the chip-pile grows.

This is not a horse-race. If it takes me a few days, I'm OK with that. I just don't want a machine that you have to baby, and deal with clogs every few minutes. I want the home-owner to be happy that the job is done well, at an affordable price for her, and at the end of the day, I'd like a little something left over for my effort too. (one slightly used small capacity semi-pro- quality chipper that I could use on my own property, with very few branches to chip every year).

 

[TheJollyLogger]

I hear you Roger, and the answer is yes any of those 3" chippers will eventually turn those brush piles into mulch. Men have tunneled out of prison with a salad spoon too.

 

[Toddppm]

I don't think there is any such thing as a semi-pro chipper Buying a unit that will not be used again doesn't exactly sound like a fair option to the owner either

 

[Roger Dodger]

I don't think there is any such thing as a semi-pro chipper Buying a unit that will not be used again doesn't exactly sound like a fair option to the owner either

She wouldn't be paying for the chipper,,, I would. She'd be paying me for the job, and I'd in turn be putting that money toward the chipper. The Salsco would run me $3600. delivered (after taxes). Let's say the job pays $900. At the end of the day, that machine costs me $2700., and if I decide I'd like to do a few more small jobs like this, I'm ready to go.

Hiring a crew with skid-steers and 6" chipper puts money in "their" pockets,,,, not mine,,, and I'd be willing to bet that it would cost a heckuva lot more than $900.

Again,,, this is just about options. I'm meeting a guy this afternoon, and he has a 6" chipper. We're going to see first of all, if he can get the chipper where I need it, via the neighbors' property. I'll need permission from that neighbor, but I think that's doable. If we choose that option, the owner would provide two of her friends' boys, to help drag the wood to the chipper. At the end of the day, that option is " fastest", but puts the least amount of cash in my pocket. The owner would be paying 4 "man-days" to get the job done in one day. (myself, the two "boys", and the chipper operator). I'd earn a fraction of the total job.

If I burn,,, it'll take a few days, and the money goes in my pocket.

If I buy the chipper, the money goes in my pocket, but I have a chipper that "could" get me more work. That's undecided at this stage. Frankly, I really enjoyed doing this job. I'm 66 and retired, with a bad back. This job got me out of the house, and active again.

 

[Roger Dodger]

For what it's worth, the Salsco 3 1/2" chipper has a 15 sq.in. chute opening (3.5"x 4 1/4" throat) vs the 9 sq.in. opening (3"x3") of most of the 3" chippers.
http://www.salsco.com/uploads/catal...es_Literature_and_Specifications_Rev12-09.pdf

 

[TheJollyLogger]

See? Generally speaking the truth comes out by the bottom of page two.

 

[BuckmasterStumpGrinding]

A few days of watching fires will be easier than the same few days or more of feeding brush into a tiny chipper and make you money.

 

[ncpete]

You need one of these....

View attachment 375265

I want one of those!

 

[ncpete]

Have you considered a DR chipper? Better power than ost big boxstore pieces and larger chutes. Staring at one kind ofhard onmy local craigslist for my use-clearing a smaller but no less messy yard.

 

[Roger Dodger]

OK, the guy with the 6" chipper dropped by this afternoon, and we had a good look at the job. Now I'm not going to get into every detail, but in general, he figured there's roughly $700. worth of chipper time there,,, plus the labour to get that material dragged to the chipper. He didn't even want to venture a guess as to how much it would cost to drag those piles of material to the chipper. He figured "a weeks' work", and that was just a wild guess.

We discussed burning as an option. Now just to clarify, those dozen or so piles of trees and branches are located in an area right next to a marina. There are yachts that are up on racks, and covered with plastic shrouds for the winter. Those yachts are probably 100 feet away from where I'd be burning. Those brush-piles are not on "solid" ground, but rather, on a thick "spongy" layer of dead vegetation that's accumulated over many years. The potential for a ground-fire exists, but, he came up with a brilliant idea. "Cover the piles with a tarp to keep them dry, then wait 'til the first snow comes. Uncover the pile and burn it". The snow would reduce the ground-fire risk. The snow is probably a month away, and here in Quebec, that first storm could easily drop a foot of snow, so that's a concern as well.

We discussed the smaller chipper option, and he too had concern about the chippers' "gravity feed". That said, a Popular Mechanics Magazine review of the 8HP 3" BearCat chipper said this;

Chipping: The Echo Bear Cat takes such an aggressive bite we had to hold large branches back to keep the machine from pulling them in faster than it could chew. You can stall it, or any of the other machines, if you're not paying attention. While we didn't like that aggressive pull, Echo Bear Cat says that for many homeowners, it's one of the machine's top selling points—but that reducing the gap between the chipper blade and the cutter bar produces smaller chips and less pulling force.

Bottom Line: This machine chips aggressively, making it a good fit for rural property owners who do more chipping than shredding. Its heavy construction should help it hold up well.

The Salsco 3.5" unit I'm looking at, is much more robust than that particular model of BearCat.(8 HP). The BearCat that I was looking at, and mentioned at the start of this thread, is the 12HP model.

 

[BC WetCoast]

For your information BC WetCoast, I've got a guy with a 6" chipper coming to price the job tomorrow. This is only one of the solutions I've been looking at.

There's no point in discussing a smaller chipper here.

Skid steers??? 6+ inch chippers with hydraulic infeeds to get rid of trees that were cut with a 2" hand-lopper??? Really???

Thanks anyway.

If it was my job, I'd be using a skid steer with a branch manager grapple and a 12" chipper. 6" chippers are just as big a pain to feed as a 3". Work smarter not harder. But it sounds like you want to make this job into a career.

 

[TheJollyLogger]

I love how the PM review and bearcat's response makes it sound like having to pull back on the limb to keep it from stalling is a selling point.

 

[Roger Dodger]

I love how the PM review and bearcat's response makes it sound like having to pull back on the limb to keep it from stalling is a selling point.

I guess those guys just can't win either way. One minute folks are complaining that you have to "push" material in by hand,,, and now some complain that it feeds "too aggressively". Is it any wonder why I'm scratching my head, and trying to get specific answers from guys who have actually used some of these machines,,,, rather than simply theorizing and stereotyping them as being "all the same"?