Wood Chipper Hack

Hello reader friend, I hope all is well with you.

I clear a lot of brush every year and I like to chip some of it for mulch, paths, etc. The little bag that came with the chipper is not fun to work with as it fills up quick. I tried chipping without a bag but this will damage the ground and spread chips everywhere. I came up with a hack that saves me lots of time and I wanted to share it with you.  I tend to name the tools that I make or modify so the little chipper is now known as "Super Champion".

First the output chute is turned upside down.



Next I attached a 8" stove pipe section to the chute. I didn't know how to do this and a friend told me I was overthinking things. "Just bang it on" he said, it worked.



At first I was concerned the chips would stay stuck in the pipe, ha!  I tried it without the top elbow, just for kicks. That canon shot chips all over the shop roof! It moves a lot of air and the screen is necessary to catch the chips or else they end up everywhere. I would not stand behind the chute, the stuff that goes through the screen fly quite far from the machine.



Happy chickens, early June right at the start of black fly season. One trailer full of fresh chips, with lots of greenery mixed in. Worms like it too.



Happy me, around mid-October. Not sure what this is, it's brown, doesn't smell like shit and weeds love it. Compost?



One hand chipper operation demonstration, try at your own risk:



The blades are getting worn after 5 years. I'm thinking about feeding it damp charcoal chunks, anyone tried this?

Have a good day!

ps: Thank you Pearl

NEAT hack! I'm wondering, you said with it straight it threw over the shop roof, if you were needing the chips over there, and your wood is over here, can you accurately and deliberately throw them where you want them?

Lovely work!
And taking video by yourself is always tricky.  :D

This is great! I have a chipper like this. My husband calls it useless, but if I could chip into a trailer or the back of the dump truck...

THAT is an excellent hack
What model of chipper is that?
I have a small electric one (bought last year not used yet) and you have me thinking that I may need to  be looking for  a better container for the chips.

can you accurately and deliberately throw them where you want them?

With the straight pipe, no. It's a bit like those confetti things that explode. A big mess, hence the screen. It's unfortunate I don't have a video with the screen on, the chips all behave and stack themselves in this neat little pile. Magnifique!  But for control, charcoal has been on my mind and this fantasy about chipping charcoal right into feed bags. My plan is to use one of those flexible dust collection hoses for wood planners. Maybe that could achieve what you have in mind?

Why would anyone call it useless? It does what it's supposed to do. Not like round head screwdrivers, now those are useless. Give it a spin Tammy you'll see it's not that difficult to make. The screen is 1/2" hardware cloth.

Champion chippers
Model #91050, or an older version of that model? Not sure.

I should call it Mighty Champion instead, yeah I'll do that.

Francis, that is a kick-ass system. Well done!

It's amazing how much more helpful these improvements make your machine. All of the chips now drop into your trailer instead of some percentage of them flying away out of control to be wasted AND to make a mess somewhere that's not your trailer.

I often overcomplicate things and this is a great reinforcement of the need for simplicity.

Francis Mallet wrote:...

Why would anyone call it useless? It does what it's supposed to do. Not like round head screwdrivers, now those are useless. Give it a spin Tammy you'll see it's not that difficult to make. The screen is 1/2" hardware cloth.

...

I should call it Mighty Champion instead, yeah I'll do that.

I bought my chipper when I had a half acre lot in the city. It could definitely handle all the yard trimmings and leaves there.

Now that we have 90 acres in the country, he'd rather have something that can chew up a downed tree and produce a mountain of chips. He also doesn't like having to be careful when you're feeding material in so you don't jam it.

I accept its limitations; he wants a better tool.

Mighty champion sounds good to me!

Tammy Farraway wrote:Now that we have 90 acres in the country, he'd rather have something that can chew up a downed tree and produce a mountain of chips.

To me, "big enough to chew up a downed tree" is missing better options, like using the tree for higher purposes than wood chips, unless it's already 1/2 rotten, in which using it for other purposes - a hugel base - amphibian and arthropod home - dug in uphill from young trees to help hold water in a drought - etc.

And wrote:

He also doesn't like having to be careful when you're feeding material in so you don't jam it. I accept its limitations; he wants a better tool.

Hubby bought one that works off the tractor PTO and can handle up to 4" diameter material, but we generally use anything over 3" as firewood. To me, this is plenty big enough. I can and have helped using it, but I will admit that Hubby gets stuck with most of it.

Why? At 5'4" tall and a narrow build, I can't comfortably and safely reach the shredder intake. It's lip is essentially at eye level, which even with safety glasses on, is a *really bad idea*. So to use it, we have to have a pair of solid packing pallets at the side which raises me up 8", but also means I have to keep stepping up and down for each handful.

Don't get me wrong - ours is a wonderful tool and being in a wildfire zone, being able to chip and compost all the branches that come down in storms is useful. Most of the chips get run through duck/goose shelters to be inoculated with microbes and Nitrogen before becoming tree mulch or being added to a compost. It's better than just open burning that sort of material which far too many people in my area do. It's generally too wet to be biochar inputs, but that would also be a good use for branches if you can make a biochar reactor. (can be as simple as a trench - https://permies.com/f/190/biochar )

We mostly chip right onto the ground, but there have been times when being able to chip into our trailer would have been helpful, so I sent this link to Hubby. Thanks Francis!

Sorry, I was exaggerating a little. We use anything over 3 inches as firewood too, although we have a pretty big pile of firewood logs now and a couple of large hugels along with smaller logs in the bottom of all our new raised beds. Most of our land is wooded, so we have a LOT of trees & branches coming down pretty much all the time.

We'd like to create compost to fill the new beds (and build more).

If you were to band clamp a strip of canvas around the end of the stove pipe elbow the chips would lose much momentum and fall more than shoot away.

Any possibility that a flexible metallic dryer vent hose would work and allow more control over chip placement or would it rapidly disintegrate from the chips?

A dryer vent hose is one step above tinfoil, so it would shred fairly quickly. But, all you need to do is mount a solid baffle/deflector about a foot or two in front of the discharge and the chips will hit that and fall down into the trailer/wheelbarrow/tarp below. Picture the shape of a birdhouse, only larger, with no front or floor.

Edd Anderson, can you explain more about the canvas flap?

As an arborist with tons of experience repairing multiple wood chippers...
Buy new blades for it, running anything through it charcoal or not will not sharpen the blades.
Chipper blades are made from Tool steel - designed to be exceptionally tough. traditional means of sharpening things can barely touch them.

I have ran charcoal through my little Harbor Freight special 1.5 hp electric chipper.  Kiss your blades good bye if you do it, charcoal doesn't really chip, it more shatters.  Kind like running glass through your chipper.  When I chip some charcoal I follow up with going to tune up my blades.  Yes they are tough tool steel, and I know there is a huge difference between your big chipper and my baby chipper, but my bench top belt sander puts an edge on my chipper blades, no problem.

I don't know if charcoal is worse than dried hardwood but I don't have any problems sharpening the blades on my wheel grinder. I use a soft white aluminum oxide wheel, forgot the grit size.

I decided to try it myself, the charcoal was wet and it made a mess. I won't be doing this again. I think I'll let the freeze/thaw cycle break the charcoal for me.

Tammy Farraway wrote:This is great! I have a chipper like this. My husband calls it useless, but if I could chip into a trailer or the back of the dump truck...

I'd put the chipper in the back of my truck and shoot into a dump trailer. I like that! I own both, but most people at least have a truck, and you could prolly pay the rental fee on a dump trailer by finding a local brush removal job that pays = fun free wood chips!