RetroFedI got a free wood chipper. It's so bad.
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AS SEEN ON TV the DR chipper 375 can only handle perfectly straight manicured lumber.
Seriously the marketing video is offensive: https://youtu.be/8RXEFMmaeWA
He might as well be feeding 2x2s off the rack at home depot.
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Wait I’m confused, does it require perfectly straight lumber or will it take boards from Home Depot?
Thank you, I’ll be here all week. Tip your waitress.
Try the veal
At least you know it’s never been used to dispose of a body.
Unless they got they’re bodies off the rack at home depot.
Dead body? On the rack at home depot?!
They have it! THEY HAVE IT!
Are you sure? It just looks child sized. ~I’m very, very sorry.~
Postbirthabortinator
I had a similar that didn’t work for shit. I took it apart and took a grinder to the blades to sharpen them up again and it worked pretty good after that.
The (one) blade is pretty close to sharp. I did reset the clearance after trying it once.
I have the next model up (400 Pro) so mine will likely accept larger diameter branches. But with that said one needs to learn the machine’s limits in terms of both diameter and wetness.
Before I chip up a pile of branches I’ll go through with a swede saw and lop off any parts that are too big. That’ll let me breeze through the pile without fighting the machine too much. Also cut apart any wide crotches that won’t feed through on their own.
I would think the point of these machines is to save me the labor of trimming them before hand.
That’s not how wood chippers work. Not even the ones in the million+ € range.
Idk I was just watching the guy trim the tree down the block and was just throwing the whole branches into them. 🤷
You can throw whole branches in them, but not even whole-tree chippers chip every tree the way it came down. You’re going to have to buck the logs sometimes. It’s about using the right tool in the right way for the right job. Chipping brush by hand-feeding a tiny chipper like is always going to suck.
Yea, I was speaking of the branches. Not logs.
Uhhhhh…….does your wood chipper always get wet when you stick your wood in its hole?
Well you need to turn it on first
I gave up chipping brush. Had the same problem with the Harbor Freight special. Easier to just throw it in a pile and burn it if that’s an option.
Or, when local authorities don’t allow burning, just throw it in a pile in a back corner of the property … and let it sit. Over time, the pile grows and grows. But over even more time, it rots and shrinks. And in the meantime, it’s animal and insect habitat, lol.
If it’s small and you can spread it out (wooded area, on foot paths, etc), it will break down faster. The two inch rule is: if it’s not more than 2” thick and not more than 2” off the ground, it should break down in 2 years.
We have forest fires here. Part of the reason I trim is to maintain the fire break around the house. Throwing the tinder into the woods would just make it worse.
Not the solution for you then.
My parents had a compost pile. It was big enough that my friends and I would build forts with its components or even make paths through it.
Eventually my mother started noticing snapping turtles around it and we were no longer permitted to do so!
Now, or at least last time I was around that property, you wouldn’t know it for anything other than a somewhat odd hill.
1000%
If you got it for free then at least the value is still high
The engine is suitable for a go kart
So you’re saying you’re building a go-kart to put the engine into and will update us on your progress right?
How many go karts are in an HP?
~.2
If it’s as bad as you say you could probably just sit right on top.
Damn I still want one.
Found the kidnapper.
The call was coming from inside
the househome depot!!!Dirty bich like to get fed
The as-seen-on-tv products sometimes have good ideas but the execution is awful. Cheap materials or bad engineering/quality control, etc…
I modified a similar chipper by widening the feed opening, that helped. Also definitely worth sharpening blade(s)
Like the Powerglove?
Bad as in "The Nintendo Power Glove is so bad?" bad?
Yea. Not fit for purpose. No fun at all.
I had something similar and it was about $500, thing was a piece of junk. Could barely cut a stick with a diameter of around 3 inches despite being rated for 6 inches (no it wasn’t from a hardwood tree)
I ended up selling it for $250 and felt bad for the person buying it thinking that it will clean there yard up from the severe weather we had a year ago.
I’ve got a 15hp chipper and need to be wary of my cuts so I can feed it nice branches. I’ve still got a bunch of “elbows” that wouldn’t fit that I’ve turned into garden borders. It’s nice to make mulch where you actually know what’s in it and not ground industrial waste or whatever.
Maybe it needs new blades?
It has no feeder of any kind despite the claim of “self feeding”. I checked the blade and set the gap.
Not sure what kind of “feeder” you’re expecting, but I have a chipper that looks similar. For mine, the “feeder” is just gravity. If my blades are sharp, it feeds itself nicely. If they’re dull or get too much caught in them, it stops feeding itself and needs a shove.
One sideways twig utterly defeats the gravity “feeder”. Whats the point?
A proper wood chipper has an unstoppable hydraulic toothy roller that drags everything into the maw.
This gravity feed abomination should never exist. It was designed purely for profit.
So buy a big ass professional chipper, even rent one.
This one is a simple one for casual once in a while use. I’ve used these types. They work but you need patience.
This one doesnt solve a problem for me. It took more work to chip my twigs than it would take to bundle them up for the trash collection.
I’m mad that it exists at all. Plus the mfg outright lies about its capabilities.
Fair enough.
Burning is good too for small stuff
I had 11 big trees dropped in one day. We had bonfires of twigs. I was fortunate to have the space to burn it.
Did anyone else think the rivets were bullet holes at first?
I gotta get my eyes checked.
Better than it deserves. Waste of ammo.
Oh joy! I was given something similar, not quite the same brand/model. I have it on my agenda for this week or next week at the latest to deal with a pile of fallen limbs I’ve collected over the past year or so. Granted, mine is specifically described as a limb chipper. I was hoping it would make my life easier.
I love the wood chipper… it’s so bad.
I need to ask a stupid question. What is the purpose of chipping wood like this?
To avoid the work of making it ready for trash day.
To make it go away.
I really really apologize for my ignorance here. Why do sticks need to go in the trash?
Have you really never trimmed a tree or bush? They just keep growing!
Ok, so, not much, not for a long time, and never on my own property, which I did not own before a year ago. But I feel like I would just put the sticks in the woods, or burn them.
I am here to back up op, sticks build up quick and mulch/chips can actually be useful
Mulch! I didn’t think of mulch. Brilliant.
Also wanted to verify OP’s experience. The deal here is we just fill up a big green trash bin with sticks and yard trimmings (it takes a couple weeks to fill up a large 55 gallon (i think) tote unless we’ve just yanked out a bush or something, and we are on a small lot) and let the city mulch and compost them for us. If we want, we can go pick up a pickup bed full of mulch from the dump for free any time we want. If we want more than a pickup bed full in a day (they check your ID), we have to buy the mulch. it’s a pretty nice system.
And where I live, we frequently have burn bans due to dry/windy weather. The city will pick them up if piled properly and make mulch that can be bought.
It’s easy to end up with too much debris and not enough places to put it if you prune like you should. A little mulcher/chipper would save some space, be easier and quicker to compost…
We have forest fires here. Part of the reason I trim is to maintain the fire break around the house. Throwing the tinder into the woods would just make it worse.
But… trash? Hopefully they’re really going to a municipal compost facility.
Oh man. That design looks like shit. It seems the prioritized the size and price over anything else. It’s so narrow and the feeder seems so small.
For branches up to 3.75”, it also doesn’t seem to handle anything actually worthwhile. Things that small are going to be relatively easy to manipulate with work. I actually tend to cut them into mini log lengths and store when I’m trying to get my fire pit going. It’s nice to have medium/small size tinder at the ready when the fire isn’t going enough to catch a proper log.
Can you get a refund? /j
I’ve been “blessed” with some steep slopes that could use some erosion control and some holes that need filling. I cut my branches as short and flat as practical and then cover the ground evenly with alternating layers of branches and green yard waste.
I got a chipper for free from a previous employer that shut down and pretty much only use it for mulching garden waste at this point. That seems to be about all it can handle