Have been needing a leaf shredder/small branch chipper for a couple of years now
The downside of traditional wood chippers is the inability to easily clean out the insides after each use.
I needed something that will pulverise a tonne of leaves, chip small branches (up to 1cm) for garden mulch use.
Thicker branches can be done by an ozito chipper shredder electric (rapid shred) which occasionally gets used or council skip.
Even earlier (Nov 2019), I picked up a basic Victa Vantage 148cc. After a thorough clean, carby diaphragm, primer, filter, plug, oil change and blades, I had a good running mower which I really had no use for.
These basic Bunnings Victa mowers really do not instill much joy in using them – I often find 148cc to be just powerful enough. They are good mowers for people who just want to cut lawn without any ‘passion’ in it – much like a Toyota Camry.
Back when we started getting wind of a possible lockdown in late june early july (can’t remember), I grabbed some 1.6mm steel sheet. When we went into that lockdown a few days later I started work. Took me just on a ‘day’ (10-6pm with lunch break and general buggerising around) to make the chute and weld it on, then a few hours the next day refining.
A deflector plate was mounted under the deck to allow for the leaves not to be directly blown into the catcher, to act as a partial mulch plug and to direct sticks onto the blades. It ended up needing a bit cut off one corner as it was too restrictive.
The chute was sized to allow for a square crate full of leaves to be leant on one side and slowly tipped in.
After finding large pieces of stick were being thrown out from the front mower lip (I worked this out after having a cube of wood clout me in the forehead – yes I was wearing PPE) I lifted the motor up about 8mm. This was achieved with 2x masport blade washers and 1x honda D washer per mount bolt (lockdown, so couldn’t get a box of new washers). Any further would have caused the blade plate to hit the deck on the left side.
Next modification was one of the bigger mufflers to reduce noise. It basically just sits on 3200rpm for 30-50 minutes (aside from emptying catcher) so wanted as quiet as possible. Haven’t stalled it yet (though came close). Produces very fine mulch
Have put a few tanks through it to date. Works very well and I would guess its about a 8:1 ratio mulcher – 240l bin liner full of leaves to 2 wheelbarrows of useful mulch.
Next job is to cut 10mm off the catcher lip as it causes a little clog (juts out under deflector plate)
Excuse the welding (if you can see it) could not for the life of me get the arc welder to work properly for the first hour. Kept blowing holes through the deck (must be thinner than 1.6mm haha) and generally poor weld penetration. Eventually remembered to throw the rods in the over for half an hour and went a bit better from there.
