[Greenbuilding] Chippers and Splitters

[YankeePerm at aol.com]

Actually, I do use a gasoline powered chipper.   It is noisy, but no smoke.   
My wife bought it for me during the 500 year flood.   Our steer was deprived 
of forage and I was experimenting with green palm fronds, which are too tough 
to eat.   (If I had an Asian water buffalo, I would have been OK.   They eat 
under water, as well as normal foraging.) The steer would eat the fringes from 
the leaves, but nothing more.   I was chopping it up with a paper cutter, 
mainly as I was interested in whether palm would be taken as a suitable food by 
the steer.   (I ended up writing an article on this in a periodical devoted to 
alternative forages for African subsistence farmers.)   My wife apparently 
though I might make better use of my time and bought the shredder.   Fresh palm 
leaves were too tough for the shredder too!   However, I dried them like hay in 
the shade, first removing the petiole which I could run through the chipper 
part.   The palm 'hay' smelled sweet like grass hay after passing through the 
shredder and the steer ate all he could get.   I piled some fresh material up in 
a depression for him, and he didn't get to it. It heated up in a few days, 
indicating a good nitrogen content (protein), a pleasant surprise.   So that is 
the story about how I ended up with one of these contraptions.   I find it 
very useful here.

The people who make the DR mower distribute an electric splitter, made in 
China of course.   I forget the name of the company and my wife, who would know, 
just went out the door.   Maybe Country Home Products?   Anyway, I got one and 
it worked twice and developed a hydraulic fluid leak.   So we returned it and 
got another one and it did the same thing, though this time I babied it with 
material I could easily split with the maul.   (And I'm old.)   So we returned 
that one too.   Maybe it was bad luck, but I was finished wasting time and 
effort on these.   I'd love to have an upright gasoline model capable of 
splitting 2-foot diameter logs (we have much bigger windfalls), but the cost relative 
to the benefit for fuel here in Florida not favorable.   Maybe I'll rent one 
if I ever get organized to haul all our big stuff to one spot.   

If you find an electric model that really works, and doesn't just handle the 
stuff you could split with a six pound maul, I'd be most interested.   
Obviously electric units are easier to run if the work.   However, like the chain 
saws, I suspect that they are made cheaply.

Dan Hemenway
In a message dated 10/31/07 7:16:05 PM, speireag at gmail.com writes:


>    Dan, I'm going to guess that you don't use a two-stroke chipper.
> Do you have an electric?  If so, what is it, and do you like it?
> 
>      I'd also like to locate a good electric wood splitter, for a
> friend of mine who splits hardwood and rents a gas-powered splitter
> every year to do it.  Anyone know of a good one?
> 
> -Speireag.
> 
> 





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