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Old Corn Chopper Make Great Brush Chipper
Paul Dietz couldn't justify the cost of a commercial brush chipper. So he built his own - with very little modification - out of an old 1-row, pull-type silage chopper.
"It lets me chop brush up to three inches in diameter with no problems," says Dietz, of Hicksville, Ohio.
He bought the pto-driven silage
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Old Corn Chopper Make Great Brush Chipper WOODLOT EQUIPMENT Miscellaneous 30-4-4 Paul Dietz couldn't justify the cost of a commercial brush chipper. So he built his own - with very little modification - out of an old 1-row, pull-type silage chopper.
"It lets me chop brush up to three inches in diameter with no problems," says Dietz, of Hicksville, Ohio.
He bought the pto-driven silage chopper at a local sale for $25. The 1970's Fox model was equipped with a corn head and a 5-ft. long, 2-ft. wide slatted conveyor leading into it. The conveyor fed the corn into a flywheel-type cutterhead with four 4-in. wide by 18-in. long blades. Dietz removed the corn head, leaving the conveyor in place, and used 2 by 4's to build a frame around the conveyor that keeps tree limbs from falling off it. "It eats brush like crazy and really works fast," says Dietz. "I use a small Deere 30 hp utility tractor to operate it. Sometimes I hook a wagon behind the chopper and use the blower spout to deliver the wood chips into it. The chopper spout can be turned to either side or straight back
"It's important to make sure you don't hang onto branches when you feed them because it works so fast. I feed the small ends of branches first, because generally they don't go in as fast as the larger ends. It chews them up into 1 1/2-in. wide chips and throws them as far as 40 ft.
"We have a lot of trees around our house, and also a wooded area where there are tree limbs dropping all the time. I use the wood chips as mulch around our buildings, and also in pole sheds with dirt floors. The mulch always stays dry and eliminates the problem of a muddy, wet floor."
Dietz says the chopper is built heavy, with a heavy duty driveshaft and U-joints. It came equipped with an extra grate that Dietz installed under the blades. After wood is chopped by the blades it goes through the grate and gets chopped up even finer. "The chopper has a reverser box on it, so if it plugs up I can reverse them to kick material back out," notes Dietz.
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Paul J. Dietz, 8538 Lake Rd., Hicksville, Ohio 43526 (ph 419 542-7250).
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