Hi Ken
Anyone have any suggestions for a homemade shredder for yard waste. I have
used my lawn mower but, the blade gets really beat up. Using the mower can
also be quite a struggle if I don't get to it before the rain does. I have a
ton of oak leaves and they, alone, take a really long time to break down.
They have a wax coating that protects them, it helps a lot if you shred them.
The
compost that I'm getting seems very healthy but, I can't out-pace the trees.
:-)
Thanks in advance...
Take care,
Ken
This is what we use, restored from a seized and rusty bit of junk
with bits missing, powered by our Yanmar diesel (on B100 biodiesel).
It works a treat.
Maybe these will help...
http://www.motherearthnews.com/library/1984_March_April/Build_a_Common
sense_Compost_Shredder
Build a Commonsense Compost Shredder : Mother Earth News
http://solstice.crest.org/discussiongroups/resources/stoves/Deutsch/sh
redders.html
LOW COST SHREDDERS IN CAMBODIA
Follows an old post from one of the Wise Old Men at the Homestead list.
HTH
Best
Keith
Subj: Re: Homemade chipper shredder
Date: Thursday, April 8, 1999 6:58:44 PM
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Bevanron wrote:
> Does anyone have any plans for a homemade shredder and/or chipper? I
> have a working 5hp engine that is just sitting around on a busted go
> kart.
> --
> Everyone thinks I am crazy,
> except for my friends deep down in the earth.
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Bevanron of Rock Creek
>>>tvoivozhd---
You can make a vertical-shaft engine into an acceptable shredder for
leaves, cornstalks, newspapers, tomato vines and other light, dry garden
debris. The only feasible use for a five hp horizontal shaft engine
would be to look around for
an old Kemp, McKissic, WW-Grinder, TroyBuilt, MTD (about in that order)
grinder with a blown engine, which the owner or repair shop didn't figure
was worth repairing. In most places there are quite a few at a cost
varying from nothing to twenty five dollars.
You can convert an old push-mower into a similar device by making a
four-inch hole in the mower deck, and fastening to it a sheet metal or
wooden feed-chute. In (very) old Organic Gardening mags, there are
articles and plans for converting a vertical-shaft lawnmower engine into
a stationary shredder by mounting it on a piece of 3/4" plywood with
inner-cleats to fit over a 55 gallon drum---again with a four-inch hole
cut and a fitted feed-chute. Two large holes are cut in
opposite sides of the drum near the bottom, from which shredded debris is
raked out with a hoe. Neither of these devices are suitable for
chipping, since there is no shear-plate, though it would be possible to
make one---it would have to be VERY well attached, and bolts could
quickly work loose under vibration and impace. Aluminum mower decks
could not be welded to steel shear-plates, and probably the typical
light-gauge steel mower deck would flex too much and quickly develop
cracks.
A one-time business partner used to make small tub-grinders in his
welding shop---looked somewhat like a cement-mixer. A heavy steel-plate
with staggered carbide-teeth rotated in the bottom and variable size
holes around three sides of the tub (away from where the operator stands)
allowed the ground material to fly out inside a ring-shield which
diverted the debris downward. It would grind up a house if you could fit
it in the drum. The replaceable carbide teeth were bolts whose head was
an angled piece of carbide.
Chippers are another thing entirely, whether single-purpose or
dual-purpose chipper/shredders. Low horsepower (five to ten)
direct-drives are hard to start and stall with overloads, requiring
shut-down and long, tedious manual cleaning of debris from the rotor.
Belt-drives frequently destroy belts within hours or minutes---mostly
because the manufacturer stupidly sacrificed reliability for three or
four dollars in better pulleys, drive-belts and clutches.
Large commercial chippers solve the stalling problem by using enough
horsepower so it simply doesn't happen, and electric starters for the
bigger engine takes care of starting problems.
Another problem common in chippers stems from the use of light-gage sheet
metal bodies instead of heavy steel plate (or even better) heavy
cast-iron---so the body containing bearings flexes and the bearings fail.
I once had a banana grove---nothing is worse to grind than banana stalks
except possible sugar cane. I bought a heavy cast-iron WW-Grinder with
an eight horse engine---threw it away within days as vastly underpowered
and installed a fourteen horse engine which would cope with the wet,
ropy, fibrous material fairly well---an eighteen or twenty would have
been better and allowed much faster feeding. The heavy frame however,
was great, as was the option of using replaceable steel rods and a
variety of screens to control particle size.
In recent years I used a Kemp five hp grinder (no chipping rotor/teeth
and chute). It was used to reqrind about fifteen truckloads of free
chips dumped in the front yard by a road-cleaning (Asplundh) crew. It
was tediously slow, clogged frequently but managed to gnaw through most
of the stuff at long last. I wasn't sufficiently impressed by it to pay
my neighbor $175 for it though, since my need for a chipper is greater
than my need for a shredder----and I didn't want to spend days on a task
that should take only hours. There is no substitute for horsepower in
chipping.
I must add, no one should ever stand with their head (and eyes) in the
line of fire of either a chipper or shredder---and extreme care should be
used in feeding stuff in---never, never poke a hand inside a feed hopper,
use a stick or branch for pushing stuff in if it doesn't have
feed-rolls. And if it has feed-rools, don't have any loose clothing, or
get a gloved hand caught in branches which will pull you into the rotor
teeth too. Wear protective goggles at all times, and remember chunks fly
out of both the hopper and discharge end. Always stop the engine, and
pull the spark plug ware away from the spark plug when you try to clear
stuff from a clogged rotor!!!
http://www.lawnandlandscape.com/llpub/9709/F0901973.htm (reality
strikes---don't believe the Sears and Troybuilt hype about their little
toy chipper/shredders. For quasi-serious work you need a larger, heavier
machine such as a pto-powered or sixteen to twenty horsepower McKissic at
the low-end and a Morbark at the high-end
Another element of rotor/knive design to look at is fixed vs hammer-type
grinders, and within the latter division, reversible bars vs. triangular
(reversible) hammers. I never liked a fixed type hammer because they
don't swing back when they hit a rock or a chunk they cannot immediately
break up. Swinging hammers keep gnawing away at chunks until they are
reduced to a size that will go through the screen. The theory of the
triangular hammers is that they pur the hammer-mass where it shoud
be---directly behind the point of impact. Also it is nice to be able to
rotate the hammer to two fresh faces before it has to be taken off and
sharpened. Reversible bar-type hammers are generally heavier, but the
mass is not concentrated at point of impact. If they were the same
thickness I'd go for the triangular hammer.
Sometimes you can run into a golden oldie at an auction or scrapyard.
One of these is a Fuqua Lickity Splitter from the defunct company of the
same name somewhere in Ohio. The twenty to forty horsepower engine or
pto-powered chipper worked extremely well---their sales department
didn't. If the seller was worried about parts you could buy it at scrap
price without suffering wallet-wound. The parts that wear (and those
that don't).would be easily and cheaply made in almost any metal shop.
Generally speaking, to avoid the "bear hunting with a flyswatter"
syndrome, you are better off spending time instead of money, in looking
for good, repairable old equipment of this type, than buying the cheap
cross-eyed-consumer toys.
You aren't going to buy one of these, but the Vermeers are first-class
chippers---this one is a really big tub-grinder.
http://www.vermeer.com/eq_tub_grinders.html#Anchor-TG400A
And other Vermeer stuff
http://www.vermeer.com/eq_brush_chippers.html
http://www.morbark.com/wtc.htm (Morbark, the Cadillac of mobile
chippers)
Just for curiosity sake---something on Finland (Valbi) chippers and
winches, plus horse care and logging, other small-scale forestry
equipment. http://www.wooddesign.bc.ca/wlpub.htm
Got a stump you want to grind? Really long toenails??, a tree to
transplant?
http://www.execpc.com/~allied/
Brush Bandit (small), Tree Bandit (big) chippers.
http://www.forestind.com/northlandchippers/chippers.html#hand_fed_chippers
Limey (Quick Chip) chippers, if you're heading toward the auld sod.
http://www.fletcherstewart.co.uk/chip.htm
Also a lot of good used equipment that is pretty cheap comes up from time
to time in the various agriculture magazine classifieds (High Plains,
Progressive Farmer, Farm Journal etc.) The timber industry classifieds
tend to be a lot higher-priced.
http://www.gardenweb.com/forums/load/tools/msg04122458301.html (User
comments, problems, complaints)
http://www.lawnandlandscape.com/llpub/9709/F0901973.htm (article on
realistic requirements, Morbark etc.)
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