Opinion on 6" chippers?

Rob Chace

Anyone own one or used one much?

opinion on them?

Thanks

Willard Holmen

I own a Morbark 2060D with a 6"x13" infeed, with 35hp air cooled engine. Does everything I need it for and still weighs under 3,000 lbs. It has auto feed with a very strong feed roller motor and pulls in and breaks up all kinds of tree forks and crotches.
I tried out a Vermeer 6" once and it was useless always plugging up. Its infeed is square 6"x 6".
Bandit makes a 6" with a 6"x12". But I like my 6"x13" better.

Willard.

Apocalypsse

Theres a few 8" chippers starting to float around as well with 8"x13" openings for a little bit more weight.

Drouin Tree Service

Any pics of your morbark willard?

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Drouin Tree Services | Excavator Hire - Drouin and SE Gippsland | Landclearing Melbourne

Willard Holmen

Here are a few old photos ,sorry not alot of detail on the chipper. I can take some better ones tomorrow.

Willard.

Attached Thumbnails

         

Eric Frei

I hired a Vermeer 6" once, POS! Struggled with every fork and the dicing stuff up to get it through was bad, about the only thing it loved was umbrella tree, but if it was say fiddlewood or tulip tree forget it.

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Apocalypsse

The 7" Austchips are good. 50HP Diesel, lift and crush, decent opening, 1.1t I think.

Chris75

I've got a Morbark 6" which has a 6 x 11 infeed. The motor could do with a bit more power to help it get through the bigger bits of wood a bit quicker. Other than that it works very well, the auto feed is strong and pulls large branches in easily. It only weighs about 750kg too so need need for a truck to tow it. It's perfect for the work we do, but if we were a full time business I'd go for a bigger machine. I'm pretty sure with the aussie dollar where it is that you should be able to get one to Australia for about $15k
http://www.morbark.com/Equipment/SpecSheets/M6R.pdf

Eric Frei

When did Austchip go broke ?

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Apocalypsse

And? They are still a solid machine with plenty floating around as 2nd hand machines.

Eric Frei

Talking about new ... where and how much if available.

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Apocalypsse

For the price of a new 6" I'd rather get something 2nd hand. Whats the price tag on those 8" Rayco's and Morbarks?

Rob Chace

well i ask because i used a 6" rayco all weekend and was very impressed. Obviously it has its limitations but that aside a very good machine, even if i did refer to it as "the toy" when i first saw it

Apocalypsse

The 6" Rayco is almost a carbon copy of the 6" Vermeer.

TrevMcRev

I started out with a 6" bandit and ran it for 5 years.

It served me real well. The 12" wide feed makes all the difference in taking forky material with less prep cutting. 6x6" is useless.

The Vermeer & i think Rayco are smaller.

If you do a lot of pruning & small to medium removals, with a crew of 2-3 that you're a part of working as an owner/operator it's great.

Very economical to run & maintain.

If you employ a crew of 3-4 blokes it will slow them down too much.
You're labour costs will be too high for the return on production they can put out.

If it's all you have you learn too make it work efficiently.
If you've been spoiled working with 18" it takes an adjustment of technique & mindset to get the best out of it.

Joshua Rugg

save for a vermeer BC1000xl. it is way worth it. thats what we run and we throw all kinda stuff at it like coco palms, palms trunks, hard mesquite wood, eucs, vines you name it. just keep those knifes sharp!

Drouin Tree Service

I agree i hire out a 9" bandit and alot of the people who hire it have used the chipper kennards hire and all say the difference is very noticeable.

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Drouin Tree Services | Excavator Hire - Drouin and SE Gippsland | Landclearing Melbourne

derwoodii

The 6 inch Bandit is best of the bunch. Chipstar make a good 6 & 7 inch, I would prefer to support a OZ product, but sadly have seen some operational issues with these.

Apocalypsse

Chipstar has another name . The 7" Austchip I'll vouch for, they are basic machines but if you get one in good condition is just munches down everything you throw at it. Good for towing on the back of your Landcruiser through some scrub. Even though the company went broke the Austchip is a solid machine then any mechanic should be able to figure out.

What about some of these EU 6" machines? Like the Greenmech (sp?).

PeteB

As a Brit from one of the manufacturers in the UK then I find this an interesting thread.

In the UK we have some pretty daft transport laws and some rather different cost and views to you Aussies. For instance - timber as firewood has always been a valuable commodity, to some folk, anything bigger than 3" is a cash crop as firewood. Fuel costs around £1.45 per litre so we cannot afford to run big trucks to tow big chippers. Our roads are crowded by comparison to yours so we tend to use smaller vehicles. Driving restrictions include a max on trailer weights of 750kgs for new licences and further restrictions (drivers hours) on anything with a mass of more than 3500kgs all in. Therefore, the majority of chippers in the UK are 6" and on the whole Arborists love them.

One of our best selling machines is 6x9 with 34hp another is a push along drum chipper which will cope with 4" and has a 14hp petrol engine.

I know of one council that had a Bandit 150 which did 197 hours in 5 years and spent more time in the store because it was too big and heavy and too noisy for the urban environment. Yet they had a load of 6" machines out everyday. Different market and different needs.

TrevMcRev

Interesting input PeteB.

I had noticed that they run a lot of small chippers but didnt know why.

Still I would've thought productivity of bigger machinery & trucks outweigh the other factors...

PeteB

The productivity of a big machine only comes into play on big timber. If all you are doing is chipping timber up to say, 6", then why tow a chipper that weighs say2.5 tonnes, is about £30k to buy and has a 12x16gob. A six inch machine will chip at more or less the same rate but will be lighter, more manageable, cheaper to buy and run, easier to store, service and will not take away the capacity from you chip truck. Different markets lead to different needs.

Apocalypsse

But with the larger chipper though you can feed through handfuls of branches where as with the smaller chipper you are going 1 at a time. I do understand where you are coming from though.

GLOBOTREE

any chipper is better then no chipper! I been goin commando 16 years, time for any chipper me thinks!

Rob Chace

ur crazy man!!!!

TrevMcRev

Exactly! And big forky branches in one go without having to trim them down.

I have no doubt they are more productive on anything but a 2-3 man including owner crew doing mostly pruning.

I get the running costs might be higher over there. How is labour/wages?

A 4 man crew can climb/cut/move a lot of tree in a day, but i wouldn't want to be paying the wage bill if it all botlenecks at a 6 inch chipper.

Not saying it's not true for you over there, but it wouldnt stack up here, just different. US is is a different game again, even cheaper machinery, trucks, gear & fuel. There are plenty of tree services over there that own their own cranes, even multiple cranes. None i know in Oz do.

So would even the biggest of tree companys over there not use bigger chippers either?

esky79

There is always a point at which bigger no longer works.
Narrow doorways, long drags or technical pruning/removals slow everything down and it doesn't matter how big a chipper you have and how many men on the ground, it still takes time.
I have seen, quoted and done some jobs that would have taken the same amount of time with 3 men and a 6inch chipper as 6 men and an 18inch and kenworth towing take. The difference is that the fuel bill and wages cost for the bigger crew means you are no longer competitive.
IMHO a 12-15inch chipper in the domestic market in Melbourne is big enough for the range of pruning and removal work that most private companies do.
I must admit i have a laugh when i see the crews doing programmed pruning on street trees running around with an 18inch chipper. Like using a sledgehammer to hit in a tack
I definitely see the pros behind having a small truck and chipper. It is very dependant on the work you do though

Garry Brockley

im in that frame of mind right now!
do i buy the cheaper 6" with lower running costs that can handle 70% of the work i do or go 18" and sell myself differently if i have an 18" there are companies/ people that i could market towards but do i want that?
A 6" would be so handy for the streets of brisbane and narrow driveways and i can load the log at the end, or go bigger and sell the wood chip????????????

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Rob Chace

where di u get that avatar pic from?

...errr um off topic (sorry)

Apocalypsse

I work for a company who does this along with powerline clearance and park work. I couldn't imagine doing half the stuff we do without at the very least a 15". Melaleuca styphelioides doesn't go through a 9" chipper all that well, nor does an 18" log. Our BC1800 is far more productive than our BC1000, even when chipping up small piles after pruning. In my last job I thought the same thing, why use are they using an 18" for pruning, then when you actually do it, you see you will be lucky to get away with a 15" in a lot of places.