Chipper Review: Part 1, Assembly

This spring I’m beginning chapter 3 in my novelette, “Chipper Shredders I Have Known”.

Chapter 1, yet to be fully written, is about my first chipper shredder, a gas powered beast that was loud and heavy.

Chapter 2, which has appeared on my blog in the past is, about a lovely electric chipper shredder that I bought a few years ago. It was very liberating and very fun to use, and still is.

Now I’m beginning Chapter 3 with another electric wood chipper sent to me to review by the people who also sent me a compost tumbler to review last year. I love that compost tumbler, and as good as it works, even it would take a long time to compost sticks and large chunks of plant debris.

As gardeners, we all know this, and so presumably, at some time or other we covet, want, need, must have, some kind of chipper shredder.

So far, it’s gone pretty well with this new chipper. It arrived a few weeks ago, and I drug it in to the front hallway where it sat for a week or so in its box. No rush, it was still cold and wintry outside. (Yes, gardening tools and equipment, as long as they are clean and present no danger to anyone, are allowed inside my house.)

Last Sunday I sensed the weather was changing, since I’d seen the first crocus bloom the day before. It was time to put the chipper together.

I cut open the box, right there in the front hallway, and found another box, which I also cut away from the chipper. Doing that was easier than trying to lift the chipper out of the box.

Assembly was fairly straight forward. I removed the plastic hubcaps from the wheels and attached the wheels to the frame, along with two little plastic feet. The nice part was they provided two wrenches that were the right size for the bolts.

Next, I set the business part of the chipper, the motor part, upside down on the floor, set the frame on top of it and attached it with four screens. Then I turned the chipper right side up, put the collection bin back in place, raised the handled, and easily rolled it out to the front porch for a nice picture.

Done! It took me 31 minutes to put it together, and that included opening up the boxes, putting it together, and cutting up the boxes to put in the recycle bin

Now it’s a warm spring day, the Crocus and Iris are blooming, the buds are swelling, and the birds are chirping from every tree, hopefully finding good places for nest building.

Soon I’ll be going out to prune the grapevines, cut back some perennials, and gather up whatever I can find to chip and then… chapter 3b… I’ll start chipping. I’m kind of excited, as I usually am, when I have a new gardening tool to try out.

I’ll let you know how it goes in a few days.