I have been thinking on one for use around the place. Stacking and burning limbs/tops is not always convenient or safe. And, I could better utilize the chips.
Do you have a tractor? You could probably get a 3 point chipper for the same price as the DR.
I have a small chipper (not a DR) that sees little use. It takes a long time to feed the branches in and is hard on the hands and arms. Works great for leaves and twigs. Does not have a power feed, which I think is key.
They make a 3 point that'll work well with my tractor. Though, not certain (yet) if that's the way I want to go or not. Plan on having one of the other house hands ;D working that, as I might be needing the tractor for other processing tasks. Or, vice versa, depending on which one looks more like work at the moment. :D
Anything in the 3" and larger range gets cut up into firewood, but that yet leaves a lot of 'scrap'.
I could never understand why the 3 point hitch chipper cost as much as the one with its own power when the chippers were the same. I think I would want the chipper to have its own power too. Why burn up your tractor?
I'd like to have a 6 inch chipper because a lot of the larger sticks I would chip, don't make good firewood anyway. 6" might allow me to put some small slab material in there.
Must be nice, as I'm the only "house hand" that gets to do the outside work. I was blessed with daughters, who are now teenagers. :(
I have heard good things about the DR products, just haven't heard anything good or bad on their chippers.
A smaller chipper requires you to fully limb a limb if you follow me.
I larger chipper allows you to feed a full branch in at once, where on a smaller one you have to cut off side brances in order to feed the chipper.
Been there and done that, it's a REAL pain.
Don't think you can just compress them to fit either, you'll start to get the mass in and it'll wedge in place.
Also, manual feed can be hard on the hands.
Just some thoughts.
I looked at a nice tow behind unit today, wasn't super big, but looked big enough until I looked inside.
6" square feed opening. :-\
Went over to another booth and saw some real chippers. ;D
Now, my female teenager yet at the house is as likely to do slab stacking, llimb toting, etc. as is the male one. ;D
By far, I'll be dealing primarily with SYP, which will generally conform a little better. I've run 'real' chippers, but I haven't found one anywhere near the $$$ I'm willing to consider.
Part of the house hands' job would be rendering and feeding, which is probably going to be more conducive to my concentrating on other matters.
Besides, that boy's tapeworm needs keeping in shape. :D
Burlkraft and I used this one to chip up the redwood bark from the big redwood log. It is used on land to chip up tops and brush. Its owner has some good scars and gets some good scrapes from feeding it branches, as it grabs them and pulls them in. Has its own power and is a good machine.
If me, I'd rent one first to learn what size and type to buy. For me, I'll knock the brush down and let it decay before thinking very long about trying to make chips. But the guy that owns this one, either burns a lot of his brush piles or chips them in this machine. :)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10180/Bark_chippin_ff.JPG)
http://www.valbysales.com/
Hi,the DR chipper is just another toy.....
Quote from: york on January 08, 2008, 05:00:03 PM
http://www.valbysales.com/
Hi,the DR chipper is just another toy.....
You've used the DR chippers?
I know there are bigger, heavier, do bigger limbs, more of them, etc. I've run chippers back when I worked for Blume Systems long ago that would take you in with the trees you were feeding it, and never hiccup.
What I'm looking to do, is take care of the smallest (less than 3" diameter) limbs
from a tree or two every now and then. I don't have any real big cleared areas on the property, and don't want any. Not at the present, anyhow. I'm not comfortable with burning big piles of limbs. I take a few trees down every now and then as they need it.
One of my house hands spending the day running limbs through a chipper, carefully and methodically while I'm cutting and/or milling
is sorta what I'm looking for.
I was thinking that maybe someone here might have run the DR. I've got one of their mowers, and anything else I've looked at in the same basic set up, is not near the machine that the DR is.
Of course, all that being said, if I could get a little bigger/better for 2 grand, I would surely check into it. Not sure I'll even do it. I'm in that decision stage.
My wife would like it better (so I'm told) to not have piles of limbs for more than just a few days. So, I do have at least a little motivation.
She might even like to help in that regard, as well. ;D
NO,but you can see them in there TV ad...one little stick at a time,just another "timber toy"...we had a Bandit 90 and would chip 9 inch...i just sold it...It takes gobs of power to chip wood...
Quote from: york on January 08, 2008, 06:49:48 PM
NO,but you can see them in there TV ad...one little stick at a time,just another "timber toy"...we had a Bandit 90 and would chip 9 inch...i just sold it...It takes gobs of power to chip wood...
But...I don't have TV. :(
I've used the DR chipper vac and in my opinion, it's a toy.
I don't care for the DR name, but that is my 2 cents.
How much is the DR chipper?
We have the big old man eater units selling for $1500-3000 around here, will do more than you need.
I got the video on DR chippers a few years back.I'm not saying they don't have bigger ones now,but the ones I saw I was not impressed by.It fed real good,as long as it was shaped like a broom stick. :D :D :D Everything they fed into did not have hardly any branches to it. Never seen brush like that up in my neck of the woods.I have heard good and bad about small chippers.Just depends on the way they are designed.
The DR in my opinion is overpriced and nearly worthless to boot. Small chippers are not fun. Joe
Well, I need to look around more. I've only found a couple larger used units around here, and they were certainly nowhere near that price range, Furby. Maybe they weren't 'used' enough. ;D
At least I have relevant information I can relay to my significant other, now. I have never used anything smaller than the "maneaters".
How much did you get for the one you just sold, york?
OK,sold the Bandit 90 for 6,600.00 i think we paid 17,000.00 new....I would look at the three point hitch chippers.....Bert