Drum verse Disk

ROYCE

ROYCE

Carpal tunnel level member
Location
Vermont
What are the major pros and con's when comparing a drum verse a disk chipper? I have used both, and am just wondering what is the major difference as it relates to chipping?
I know a drum seams to chip wood a lot better than a disk.
I am looking at a 12" chipper. One has a drum and one has a disk. I do chip wood. A lot more than I ever thought I would. I rented a 1000xl vermeer to chip up three large trees. I had to rip a few butt logs, but I chipped up the whole trees. One was a 36" pine tree. Had no access and had to rip the pieces just to be able to carry them through two gates and out to the street.
Everyone says that a vermeer is junk. I was extremely empresses with the vermeer rental. Its a 2007 with 900 hours on it. The rental place said it would sell it to me for 18K.
I am just wondering if a 12" disk could have chipped the wood the way the vermeer did? Any thoughts??
 
That little vermeer chips wood nice. My friend has one, would never own one. Bearing mounts are cracked, chute is cracked. Proprietary parts. Naaa.

From what i understand disk chips wood better, drum chips brush better. Ive owned two drums and cant complain. Have ran multiple discs and the discs launched chipsfarther than you can see. Brush would have to be cut more.
 
My Bandit 200XP(disc) will eat anything up to 12". My buddy's Morbark whichever it is(drum) will eat logs faster but struggles with brush, especially the little stuff.
 
200XP here. Disc. Love it! Chips brush great, but there are times we have to nick a limb or two to get wide spreaders to fold up well into the rollers. Chips logs great! Launches chips to the front of the chipbox.

Have never had a clogged chute.
 
TreeLogic said:
200XP here. Disc. Love it! Chips brush great, but there are times we have to nick a limb or two to get wide spreaders to fold up well into the rollers. Chips logs great! Launches chips to the front of the chipbox.

Have never had a clogged chute.
Click to expand...
x2

But, I hardly ever put anything over 6" in it. If it's hardwood, I sell it; if it's pine, it goes for pulp wood. Yea, I'm pretty easy on my chipper--and it's never given me a single problem. :)
 
Thanks guys! Yeah I am just looking for something bigger than the 10" bandit I currently run. Its good, but I am doing a ton more removals and the sites I dump at only want chips, no wood. So a bigger chipper would work for me. I am looking now at a bandit 200. Looks real good. Only thing is it has no winch. I would love to find one with a winch in my price range.
 
BRT said:
x2

But, I hardly ever put anything over 6" in it. If it's hardwood, I sell it; if it's pine, it goes for pulp wood. Yea, I'm pretty easy on my chipper--and it's never given me a single problem. :)
Click to expand...
I've had mine for 14 years now, and have chipped in the 12" range many a times. Had some get stuck. Had rookies bog the engine down. Had belts get burned up. Not the norm of course but you know, growing pains. Anyway, as long as it's maintained well it just wont quit. We call it Chipper Jones :D
 
When running the Morbarks with drums they did tend to clog more often than the Bandits 200 and 250 xp. Have you looked into anyone local to you that will buy the wood or pick it up?
 
So in order to fair compare, make sure chippers are properly adjusted.
When adjusted right, square anvil and sharp blades kissing, our disk scissors the wood into small chips and gets quiet when slicing brush. First time adjusted right i thought something was wrong it was so quiet, I could here the engine working. Again when adjusted right, the disk has no forgiveness for metal or rock. Blades do not last anywhere as long on our disk as they do with our drum. With a drum the attack angle of the blades versus the anvil is scooped, versus the scissor attack of the drum.

That said, many people I have come in contact with, clearly do not know how to properly adjust maintain blade and anvils. When I was seeking advice on servicing blades and anvils, half of the folks I spoke with, even some one from bandit, told me to adjust them for chip size...like 1/2" away!! A dirty, redneck, cross dressing, hermit, turned out to be hermaphrodite and prostitute...schooled me on the finer points of maintaining my chipper years ago. Kiss the blades to the anvil and back it off till they do not "foul". Man I thought I had new chipper after that. soo much more efficient. You will quickly see that on smaller low powered chippers. The bigger high powered chippers can hide a poor adjustment and literally hammer through the jobs. I can hear it now. Years ago I got to be on a fema storm crew, used a 200hp+ morbark for six months during the cleanup, had inmates and derelicts feeding every thing into it. Faster the crew filled the chip truck sooner was a break. Did not take long and there were 15 guys picking up whole trees and battering ram style feeding this chipper! The guy who came to service it one day freaked when he saw the condition of the blades. She still ate trees all day that way.

Sure, our current bandit 90 drum clogs way less...our bandit 1890 unclogs sooo much easier. In the 1890 there is a kind of "bypass" that allows the chips stuck in the drum area to clear, then the chute opens right up and clears with the removal of one pin.

Our 90 has a winch..stopped using it when we got the mini, never wish we had one on the 1890...so long as the mini is there!

Lots of raves about the bandit 200-250's. Buddy has a sweet 250xp he bought new and I love it, nothing bad to say about it. Tell ya what though...Its no 1890! First day we used the 1890 we joked we needed another mini to keep it fed. We put so few hours on our 1890, due to its productivity. My advice for the growing residential tree service that does everything from small prunes to big wood removals my vote is for a previously municipal owned 1890. Around here, tree services tend to buy the 12" class chippers and beat them, shoving the max regularly. Municipalities tend to buy the bigger chippers and baby them. They never send big wood through them around here, there is always have a front end loader filling dump trucks with the larger wood. Ours weighs 9000lbs and has a fully mechanical cummins 4bt 120hp, at ten years old it only had 1200hrs. We paid $16k. Took me 6 months to find it. Enjoy!
 
Thanks Frashdog. All good info. I would love to buy an 1890. I used one for eight months and it was great. We feed it with a log truck to keep it running non stop. It would eat anything you put in the feed trays. The weight is just too heavy for my truck at this current time.
 
I have a mitsubishi fuso with a e cylinder diesel that is geared real low. It works great, however I live in VT and we have hills everywhere, steep ones. It would work the truck too much with a chipper that heavy and a full load of chips.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

New threads New posts

Back
Top Bottom