First time chipper owner looking for tips

[02powerstroke]

Purchased my First chipper this week a Morbark M12R with winch. Looking for any tips for a first time chipper owner/operator. I've rented a few 12" chippers in the past so I have limit experience with them. We own and operate a 100 acre campground and normally do tree work with a skid steer with a grapple and 1 ton dumps, dumping the brush in our sand pit. Between a recent gypsie moth infestation, beatles and repeated nor Easter storms our dump site was over run so we made the choice to purchase the chipper. Thanks

 

[old CB]

It's like any other piece of large equipment--keep all the moving parts in proper adjustment, change the oil, and so on. Maintenance is your best friend. Keep your knives super sharp. Then respect the machine--it'll eat up human tissue as readily as tree parts.

 

[02powerstroke]

How long should I expect to get out of the knifes before sharpening or replacing ? Also what are the signs it getting dull ? Small dusty chips ?

 

[old CB]

I'm not good at remembering hours between changes. But the machine will tell you. When it's laboring hard to do the same work it breezed thru last week . . . Plus, look at the knives, or run your finger CAREFULLY over the edge. A sharp knife is sharp. Your chipper is just like your chainsaw--when it's super sharp it cuts well. When it begins to dull, you'll be forcing material through it, where it used to eat on thru without difficulty.

Small, clean chips are what you're looking for. If your chips are real big you may have too great clearance between the knives and the anvil.

 

[old CB]

If you're running the machine on any regular basis, do yourself a favor and own two sets of knives. You run one set while the other is at the shop getting sharpened.

 

[02powerstroke]

Gotcha I will look into spare knives

 

[02powerstroke]

This is how the knives look after 14 hrs

 

[2dogs]

Make sure to adjust the bed knife too. If it isn't ground flat and adjusted properly your machine will labor and not produce good clean chips. I don't know Morbark but most other chippers have a hydraulic filter and a tank strainer. If the strainer is clogged your hydraulics won't perform well. The main disc/drum bearings need a lot of grease. I prefer to grease at the end of the day AND at lunch. Those bearings are very expensive. I grease at the end of the day rather than the morning because everything is warm. I think the grease flows better that way. Carry a roll of absorbent pads in case of leaks and have a fire extinguisher mounted or in the truck. Oh, never run the climber's rope through the chipper. Makes him mad.

 

[02powerstroke]

So today chipping a probably 10" pine log it was talking it fine auto feed doing its thing, well it came to the last part of the log probably 10" long and somehow fed it in to fast? and jammed the drum and stalled the machine.... so next log up I slowed the feed wheels down and it again got to the last part of the log (probably 10" long) and it sucked the whole thing in and killed the machine again... any ideas ??

 

[gdavis24]

Knives at 14 hrs look pretty normal. Not bad enough to change, but not clean enough to expect peak performance. we run an older Morbark disk model, 75hp. I expect to get 20 clock hrs out of a set of blades...sometimes it's 12, sometimes 35. You gotta outlaw the crew feeding in dirty crap...like hidden clumps of dirt, roots, raked leaves, frozen on sand. You'll soon be tempted to feed with the grapple, which invites bigger, tangled material that didn't get looked over too carefully. Bad stuff hides in leaves, damp wood, everywhere.
I don't see your engine size, but every chipper has its limits. Where you get used to feeding entire 4" tops without looking, with moderately dull blades and moderately big wood you may have to watch engine RPM closely and advance feed wheels by hand. Also test and repair: smooth engine performance at a load, auto feed adj, slipping belts, or clutch. Chippers that do a great job on branches can get real small real quick feeding logs.

 

[Benjamin S Pendleton]

Turn the auto feed off for big wood and feed manually. That way you can let the rpms get back to max before the final little bit.