Start Chipper about a year later.

- Put "Dry Gas" in tank with a touch of octane booster. Realize chipper battery is dead as a stone. Clean Chipper Intake and filter. Vaccum mouse ... Ah ... Seeds.
- Get Garden Tractor to Jumpstart Chipper.
- Find Tractor battery weak. Naturally.
- Find Jumper Cables
- Get Chipper Key
- Hook tractor battery to chipper battery.
- Give chipper intake a shot of Starter Fluid
- Tractor immediately dies
- Restart .... Barely
- Depress Chipper clutch and turn key.
- Tractor dies.
- Terminal
- Begin tearing off plastic shrouding on tractor
- Take apart Air Breather / clean
- Get more tools
- Take Gas Filter off and flush
- Freshen Fuel, Dry Gas Booster
- Reassemble gas and fuel filters and hoses with clamps
- Feeling Lucky .... Punk??? Hit tractor intake with shot of starter fluid
- Turn key .... uuunhh...duh.... BLAM!!!! VAROOM!!!!mmmmm...ahh..sputter...
- Hit it with another small shot of Starter Fluid
- VarOOMMMM!!! mmmm..ahhnn....
- Hit it .... VaROOM!!!
- Repeat, repeat, repeat ... Til it fills the gas filter and picks up the gas
- Yay. Now we can begin.
- Let tractor run
- Hook jumper cables between tractor and chipper
- Depress Chipper Clutch
- Give chipper intake a shot of starter fluid
- Scan area - move Kelly back. Ok
- Hit chipper key
- rrrrrRrrrRRRRR.
- Choke. Increase throttle
- rrrRRRRRR..BANG!VaROOOMM!!!!
- Assemble intake and filter cover
- Assemble battery cover
- Put tractor away
- Move tools
- Get bigger tractor, hook to chipper
- Move to job site



Often, these things just work themselves out ...,

Gary

Oh .... Love those tools you have there. Nothing more rewarding than hearing that Vrooom. Funny that i get that much enjoyment from the routine of yard clean up. No tractor for me but i do have a leaf bag that attaches to the mower buckets coming soon. Leaves are turning quick. Time to get the snowblower ready. Wish i was closer.... i'd gladly lend a hand.

Hi Steve,

Thanks for the willingness to help. Hey .... Wouldn't we be a pr. Sounds like the start to a classic joke!!!!.......

"A WATCHMAKER and an ENGRAVER walk into a STUDIO ...... .

I think we have "ATTENTION TO DETAIL" covered!!!! Hahaaaaaahhah..... Gasp.

Ok. Careful Steve .... "It's a Jungle out there...!"

Gary

Well at least I'm not the only one who has to fiddle around for hours before starting the task at hand . Thank goodness for the internal combustion engine . I actually went out last year and bought a really good battery charger. It's not the wheeled version but has to weigh about #60 . Once I get the cords stretched out .... Look out !
Glad yours all got fired up and running . I thought you had a 3 point hitch mounted chipper that ran off PTO . I remember you had issues with it . It looked like a pretty good set up if memory serves me correctly.
Well any ways mulch is a great thing . Should help with the outta control growth .

Thanks
Kurt

Hi Kurt,

Thks. Yeah, I also have a Mongo Battery charger. It's a Wheel version I bought at Walmart years ago. It's been a good unit. I use it in the Anodizing shop too.

I had just used it on the Garden tractor a couple of days before. Then used the tractor some. Let the tractor charge it's battery. It must be getting weak, although it shouldn't be. It's only a couple of years old.

Guess I just secretly wanted to tear into the tractor too. Haha.

All great fun!!! Says one "Wrench to Another".



Gary

Hi Kurt,

I forgot to address: yes, I do still own a 3 point hitch chipper. Not by choice. I consigned it to the place I bought my tractor ... Couple of years ago I guess.

The spunk in a chipper, is in the weight of the flywheel and the number of knives on it. That 3 point unit had too light a flywheel and o my one knife. That and the brushy tops got torn up into woody stringy clogging stuff. The shear bar wasn't close enough to the knife.

This stand alone unit has a 24 horse V Twin Honda engine. The flywheel is 2 to 3 times heavier and it has 4 knives. BUT WAIT!!! It also has a cage flail of about 120 swinging serrated knives that just EAT brush, vines, and sticks. It will take 5 inch solid oak in the side chopper chute. It's a beast.

I thought of altering the 3 point after learning my way around chippers, but I have a few projects. It would be perfect for someone who could make a new heavy plate flywheel and add at least another knife. Person needs a nice Boli..... a tractor!

Gary

Hey Gary, nice set of equipment. That's part of the routine. Good for you that you have the knowledge and skills to repair it. Most of us would have to call a service center and wait for a week for the technician to arrive and fix the equipment. Everything is back to normal once you have those rigs working.

Thanks Julio!

Yeah. All normal here: Once I get everything working, I've burned up my alotted time to use them! . Haha. The only tools that are pretty dependable are the hammer and the shovel! Haha.

Hey - speaking of that - have you noticed that most manufacturers have stopped paying any attention to the proper wood grain in tool handles? Since 99% of consumers haven't been told what's correct - why bother. They will just replace the tiny percent who actually take back the broken tool, keep their receipts, etc.

The grain in the handle of a shovel, axe, hammer, pick, post hole digger, etc. is 90% of the life of the tool. Think of the grain of a wooden handle as the pages in a book. Think of using the tool, and envision the "line of force" applied to the handle. Imagine the sweep that the axe takes on it's way to split a chunk of log. A piece of wood is strongest when the grain is arranged as if the "book" were to be swung in the same arc, and you'd hit the spine of the book on the chunk of log.

I know you may not quite recognize how the grain runs in any given axe handle. Think of the axe handle as if it were laminated. There are the "plies" and the "glue" that hold the plies together. Remember our book anology. Wood is "pretty" when looking at it as if the book were laying on a table. You look down on the stack of pages and see lines where the contour of an object cuts THROUGH those flat pages. As if you would round over the edges of a book laying flat on a table. To round the sharp corners off, you'd cut through many pages creating the new rounded edge. Every page you cut through, would show a line. That's your wood pattern.

Now, we like it more if we'd have a book that got all soaking wet and all the pages wrinkled. It dried that way. Now, when we round over the edge, we cut through those wrinkled pages. The lines left are all squiggly now. We like that! So; now we understand where "Grain Pattern" comes from. So; in any piece of wood the pattern is from looking down on top of the flat book laying on a table.

But we want strength. For that we have to turn the book 90 degrees. We want to recognize the edges of the pages. That's the boring part of wood grain. That's the thin, thin lines that are nearly straight - nearly like looking at the edge of the pages in a book. Find that part of the axe handle grain. It SHOULD BE on the FACE edge and the BACK edge of the handle. Imagine the swing of the axe. If you'd over strike a bit and hit the chunky of log with the handle right below the axe head, that SHOULD BE hitting the edges of the pages in our book. Should be hitting the boring thin lines part of our wood grain. And, your handle will most likely survive. If your axe is Ike about 75% of axe handles in stores, and you just hit the PRETTY part of the flat table view of our book ... then you just BUSTED your axe handle. Wood is weakest in that direction.

Now, most handles won't be purely right or purely wrong. There are 360 degrees where they can cut a handle from wood. Someone would have to pay attention to grain and lines of force. And YOU have to look at 49 axe handles and choose the best. ALSO (no we aren't done) recognize that wood isn't all straight. The lines of the pages skew off on an angle. The shorter this angle of skew cuts across and handle, the weaker it will be. The longer the angle lines, the stronger. The LONGEST ANGLE will be 180 degrees - or STRAIGHT GRAIN!!! That's also what all stock admirers call BORING!!!! So, remember - PRETTY/WEAK .... BORING/STRONG! Haha.

Well ... That got out of hand!! Haha.

Gary

I've often thought that all motorized yard tools would benefit from having a modular engine setup, where you could just take out a couple of bolts and drop the lawn mower engine into the snowblower into the chipper-shredder into the rototiller, etc. I can understand why they don't do that, but it sure would be nice if you only had to keep ONE engine running at a time.

Gary et al,
I agree with Rotorhead's concept and the fact that, as Gary said, once you get the internal combustion combusting you have used up the allotted time to use them. That's why I finally went out and 'Invested ' in electric equipment that all uses the same battery system. No carbs to clean, instant start, clean running, easy clean up, simple storage and utterly reliable opertation (at least until the batteries die). Now where in the heck did I put that battery and that charger... But really, for a small suburban lot (quarter of an acre), I couldn't be happier. Unless that is - they had the same power as their combustion engine equivalent! Well, whatever, they do get the job done.
Hang in there all,
Jeff

Somehow I don't think they're ever going to get around to making a batter-powered tree chipper.

I'd love to rent one like the tree companies haul around to shoot chips into the back of their box trucks, but for some reason nobody rents those out. Must have watched the movie "Fargo" too many times.

They rent them down here Sean. $275/day. Diesel Road Grade Chipper with a conveyor!!! I had one rented and some natural disaster came up ... Couple years ago.

Yeah ... Mine is in between. But mine is a 24 horsepower V/Twin. It's pretty stout. Sort of your farm/ranch version I guess. I found mine used, at the place I bought my tractor. The dealer knew the previous owner and history. It's been great.

Gary

You're probably going to get plenty of chances to use it down in that jungle/swamp you live in. Up here I only need one every few years to hog out the trees trying to grow into the ocean view of our Haines house. Stuff does grow fast in the summer here, but it's not a really long summer like down there.

Yep, Rotorhead, that's the one accessory I'm still waiting for. That and battery powered post hole diggers .

They have those Jeff,

Battery, wire, cap, that blasty stuff. Viola .... Post Hole!

hole...crater...matter of opinion

They sure do Gary!
I forgot about those there ones.
I used to have family in Kentucky that did all of their fishing that way. Thank goodness for THAT divorce...
Later,
Jeff

Oh, and Rotorhead, there weren't no hole nor no crater when they used them in the crick .

There's always a crater, it just fills itself in a lot slower on land.