Doublegrinding wood chips for good mulch

[Ax-Man]

Does anyone know of a cheap way to double grind wood chips on a small scale to turn them into a more desireable mulch that people seem to prefer these days. I don't have a problem at the moment getting rid of the chips but that might change someday and I might get forced into the mulch business. I have tried to sell our best chips but no luck on that one because they are still too course. It used to be I could sell our chip and have a waiting list but those days are gone , everyone seems to want fine ground fancy dyed mulch that costs an arm and and leg and decomposes within a year.

We just recently got clobbered HARD with a nasty wind storm , I almost lost all three places we dump at for free. I have no desire nor the room for stockpiling chips at our place as it would not be long and we would be floating in a virtual ocean of chips with no outlet. I have tried composting them but that hasn't worked out to good, because you need a way to pulverize the composted chips and then screen them.

I don't want to get involved with tub grinders because of the intial expense (money I don't have ,)plus the added maintenance I would have to do. I was thinking that maybe a PTO driven hammermill feed grinder might work or a PTO driven wood chipper might work.. I have a 40 horse loader tractor and thought maybe of spreading out a pile of chips and drive over them with a rotary mower ( bush- hog) attachment. I have tried this with our finishing mower with mixed results. the mower basically levels out the chips but doesn't do much to reduce chip size. I don't know if thicker heavy blades would work or not.

Any thoughts or input on this would be helpful

 

[MasterBlaster]

You need a tub grinder.

 

[rangerdanger]

Yea, can't really do it without a tub grinder. There's no cheap way to regrind chips


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[mek]

rotochopper. Or get an older TMR mixer and spray the dye in the chips as it mixes.

 

[Ax-Man]

Gentlemen, based on the replies I knew a tub grinder was what I needed to get all along. I pretty much dismissed my ideas as another hair brain waste of money scheme. Until today.

My neighbor who is a small engine nut who decided to finally trim his ash tree that has had a large limb that has been crawling on top of his roof for the last five years. He had a fair amount of debris to get rid of and he was shoving it down this 5 hp chipper shredder which naturally was very slow going not mention how fine he had to cut the stuff. He came over and offered $50 bucks to fire up our chipper to help him out, which I did. His wife seen the partial load of chips in the truck and wanted me to dump them , I did that also.

After dumping the chips I asked my neighbor to see if that little chipper shredder would regrind my chips as an experiment to see if what I was talking about in the first post to see if smaller equipment would work for small scale mulch. I was surprised to see that little chipper shredder actual to in those course wood chips of mine.. It chipped my chips faster than shoving small branches into it. The chips it made weren't too bad, kind of what I have been looking for . My neighbors wife also liked the reprocessed chips and promptly got her wheelbarrow and started making mulch to decorate her flower beds. They even ran it through a third time to produce even finer chips. I didn't get a picture of those chips.

After seeing and doing this I can't help but wonder if something bigger and faster but along the same lines might work for a small scale mulch biz instead of getting a tub grinder.

Here are a few pics. My chipper knives are getting dull from all the storm work , normally my chips aren't so course and stringy but with all this storm damage there hasn't been much time for maintenance unless it rains which it hasn't. The first time we did this the chips from shredder were a little more uniform than the ones in the pic. I was feeding them in at a slower rate. I went to get the camera and naturally my neighbor was pushing that little chipper to the max and the chips were't quite as nice as the first time we tried this.

 

[MasterBlaster]

The don't look that fine to me.

 

[rangerdanger]

They're a lot finer than the larger chipper chips. Those small little chippers always made great chips.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[MasterBlaster]

The best chips I've ever seen were from a 6" brush bandit. They were beautiful!

 

[Ax-Man]

Hmm, you may be right Butch. Knowing my neighbor that thing probaly had some very dull blades in it. It was really struggling when he feeding in those small branches. Like I said this was just something to try and see what resulted from it. I think with some fine tuning it might work. This was also the first time I ever seen on of those small chippers work . I have seen them in stores and some vids but this is the first I ever seen one actually work.

 

[RiverRat]

What Butch said. Vermeer 10" machine throws great chips also. So did the 12-14" Gravely chippers I have used. But I never thought much of the Gravely chippers for high production.

 

[flushcut]

Larry where are you? I know of a guy with a tub grinder and he might head south of the boarder if you are close by and have a good sized pile to process. I am 14miles from Harvard.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Push comes to shove, any chipper with sharp blades and a properly adjusted cutter bar will produce nice chips.

 

[flushcut]

Indeed, and chipping big wood makes for nice chips.

 

[Ax-Man]

Larry where are you? I know of a guy with a tub grinder and he might head south of the boarder if you are close by and have a good sized pile to process. I am 14miles from Harvard.

I am about 75 miles southwest of downtown Chicago. At the moment I don't have many chips to interest a tub grinder operator. I only got on the mulch kick is because I lost my dump spots temporarily. I now have them back for the time being. The day may come when I will lose them for good and may have to have a tub grinder to come in to do some custom grinding or do it myself. Thanks for the offer though.

 

[SouthSoundTree]

Interesting. Some homeowners would regrind their own, if they knew.

http://seattle.en.craigslist.org/oly/grd/4585592499.html

This is just up the road from me. I would be interested for poor access jobs where chips can stay on site, or to load into a small trailer which could be wheeled into a back yard for little pruning jobs. We have a lot of waterfront homes in Olympia, and they're sandwiched in long, narrow lots, freqently, and they're steep.

I wonder what kind of production I could get with a funnel made for feeding chips with the mini. Maybe enough over time to pay for the machine, at least.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

I have a few HOs with one of those little chipper mulchers.... You just shovel the sticks and chips into the mulcher until you get the desired product you want. Basically a set of swing blade hammers sometimes with edges in the hopper on a squirrel cage. Or little chipper has a mulcher chute that comes in handy for all the rakings. Little sticks and what not.
Bottom line though, if you are mulching garden beds, the plants don't care how fine or pretty they are.
If you are using chips for walk ways, chip straight wood and no brush with sharp blades for a nice product.
I bet Brendon's chips were beautiful after he split those logs and chipped them.
If I had a bigger chipper that would take large pieces of pine, I could chip a lot of worthless grey pine logs and sell the chips.
BTW.. add red worms to the chip beds around the plants, watch the magic.