Not The Typical Chipper Acident

[frashdog]

What are you talking about! You should never open the disc chute with the disc still turning. You should never start the chipper when the cover is open! You should never be able to start the chipper with the disc cover open because there is a safety switch to prevent that. The person that bypassed that safety switch to allow the injury that prompted this post is directly responsible for the injuries his employees suffered. To put a chipper into the field with that safety bypassed is inexcusable. There have been to many deaths from disc covers flying open.

So then how do you guys sharpen your blades?
We just idle her and hold the dressing stone ever so lightly, yea the new guys let go some times, but they figure it out eventually. Lol jk

Yea we had a bandit 90, years ago, that I would open the cover on as soon as it clogged, that would clean it right out. I did not even know there was supposed to be a prevent switch then, did not come with one. Yes, I know, scary and wrong...Instead of taking 30+minutes hand cleaning it. Some one also dropped a tree on it one day and bent the chute, we just took it off the rest of the day cause we were in the woods. Looked like a wood chip guiser! Now our 1890 rarely clogs and has a chute that opens, so feel better, I don't do it anymore. I also never allowed an employee to do it, I was/am owner operator.

 

[Daniel]

even with the safety switch this seems liek a design flaw on part of the manufacturer. Even with the engine turned off the lid can still be opened and closed with the disk in motion.

 

[RyanCafferky]

even with the safety switch this seems liek a design flaw on part of the manufacturer. Even with the engine turned off the lid can still be opened and closed with the disk in motion.

How low must the lowest common denominator be catered to before we acknowledge that there has to be common sense? What is the point of having humans do this work if we can't even expect them to know not to do something so obviously dangerous?

The manufacturers and work comp companies will eventually replace most of us with machines.

 

[treehumper]

Manufacturers and WC companies are not the purchasers of automation. Owners of the tree care co's drive automation. The biggest issue driving it is the availability of skilled, reliable labor, not wages. If the labor cost was the driving factor behind automation then we'd be looking to replace the highest wage earners, i.e., executives long before we replaced minimum wage workers. But I digress. Look at the trouble finding and keeping good grounds people or climbers. If automation could resolve that then we'd be flocking to buy the equipment.

Humans are risk takers and even more so in this industry. So, yeah, companies have to build it to the LCD.

 

[brushbandit]

even with the safety switch this seems liek a design flaw on part of the manufacturer. Even with the engine turned off the lid can still be opened and closed with the disk in motion.

On bandit chippers you can't open the disc cover with the disc turning. There is a strip of metal welded to the disc shaft that hits the bottom of rod that you need to pull down that allows you to pull out the disc cover pin. The strip of metal repeatedly hitting the bottom of the rod with the disc turning prevents you from pulling the rod down.