Thread: Homebrewed garden chipper

Hi guys, I made this a few years back now and it`s been very handy chopping up stuff, so here is how I did it. Using the K I S S design system I had a 3.5hp motor mower engine, removed the blade boss from the shaft and fitted a small V belt pulley. My idea was to have the motor drive a fly wheel inside a housing with two cutting blades to chop the stuff up and two bits of turnup mower blades to blow all the stuff out the outlet Shute. The flywheel was 19kgs so once it got going nasty things happened to whatever was dropped down the shute, it was mounted on a shaft with a large sealed bearing at the bottom and small one at the top, the top of the shaft was threaded for a nut to holed it all together. A larger V pulley was mounted on the bottom of the shaft in a housing and a v belt was used to drive the flywheel vie a jockey wheel clutch system. few pic`s.
, this is with the top lid off showing flywheel, cutting blades, and fan blades.
, A sketch of the housing and flywheel.
, The jockey wheel clutch system, lever is locked to tighten the V belt.

Ooooooooooooooh. That looks lethal.
Presumably you have a rather long "shaft" to drop things down, as I would not want to have to hold things in place whilst the beast munched it's way through them.

Yes, if O S H got hold of it they would dump it in a big hole at the back of Great Barrier Island !!, definitely not for the faint hearted and looking down the Shute you can see the blades whizzing past with fingers not being a problem, . So how it works, the base and round side are tack welded together, the top plate is bolted on to welded lugs on the inside of the housing. Top plate has a .150mm x.080mm slot cut in it on the side, this is the infeed hole , the blades pass one side of the slot and the other edge has a steel plate bolted to the inside that the blades just clear going past but anything in front of the blades gets chopped. Pic`s.

, With the Shute removed slot showing cutting blade, five bolts holed inside steel lip plate that blade just clears.
, Mower blade tips used as a fan to blast all the cuttings out the exit shute.
, Sketch of flywheel side showing blade setup.

this idea crossed my mind with an old motor mower for turning my mullet bycatch of stingray and Parore into burley
we had used a chipper in the past and it works great on fish

I went a different way and mounted a skillsaw motor on a hand mincer that worked out
its amazing what burley does in big amounts when it costs nothing and you use lots

Anything soft and gooey will just clog up a garden chipper, so your mincer is the best idea. How I get this beast going is to take off the V belt and start the engine and run it to get it warm. Then refit V belt and start motor, with the belt slake it will still start spinning the flywheel , the jockey wheel lever is locked in place. Pic`s.

, Clutch lever off.
, Locked in place, flywheel is in full drive, probably about 1400rpms.
, Looking down the Shute with safety flap.
, This is the outlet Shute and centre bearing with cover off.

Last bit, made up a frame to put it on with handles and two legs at the back, pair of wheels from hardware shop so you can move it around. So there you go rusi and hope this gives you guys some idea of how to make one.
, Frame and wheels.
, Nice new motor, thanks Rambo6mmrem.

Should put a mini one on boat for making burley trails ������

Yer, easey peasey, put a v belt pulley in front of the prop and mount mincer over back of the boat with pulley for drive. Then when at spot X hook up belt to mincer and get motor idling as you feed in pillies, way to go!!!, .

I found this chipper was only good for fresh green cut down stuff and I had to push it down the shute onto the blades. WITH a long green stick , but the stick gets shorter as it can be chewed up like being in a demented pencil sharpener.

, Old pic, can see my pokey stick on the handles, just after this the motor thru the conrod.

Serious machine there, when you put it up a while ago I thought you had just welded a plate to the bottom of a mower, but there is some serious engineering gone into that machine.

Well I made it when I was living in Whangarei, had a engineering shop knock up the housing bits for me and got the jockey wheel, the 202 Holden flywheel from a car wreckers yard. My mark2 model was going to be two heavy fly wheels in housing running off the P T O of my fegerson 135 tractor, now that would have been interesting.

Kinda reminds me of the hedge cutters they used to use in Taranaki .... "Butler Bros " anyone from a farming background in that area will know what I mean.
Two Flat head V8 motors, one to drive the "prop" the other to drive the rebuilt bren carrier. Driver sat in a wire mesh cage, gripping the wheel and praying.
The "sweeper" driver had a rough time of it as they had to dodge the debri hurtling off into space and sweep it all up.
OSH .... what do they know

Right, trimming the box thorn hedge was very interesting at times, like when a concrete post was leaning the wrong way.

So putting it back to work for the first time with new motor and it takes no prisoners, all that goes down the Shute ends up as confetti. So yep, the new motor works a treat. .

, Defiantly not for the faint hearted.