Do-it-yourself woodchip cutter: tips, recommendations, drawings and videos

Almost every private house or cottage has a vegetable garden or personal plot. Owners of private houses often or rarely devote some part of their time to cultivating their garden.

To carry out work on landscaping personal plots, various tools and means can be used, which are used regularly, since the processing of the site must be carried out regularly. Otherwise, you may encounter unpleasant consequences in the form of weeds, weeds and an unattractive appearance of the site.

One interesting device that will make processing easier will be very useful in processing your plot. We are talking about a wood chipper, which is also called a garden shredder - this is a more popular name.

The wood chipper can be purchased at the store. This is a fairly common device that is popular among owners of dachas and private houses. Purchasing a wood chipper is the easiest option, although at the same time there is good news for those craftsmen who are not looking for easy ways. The fact is that you can make a wood chip crusher with your own hands, following instructions and drawings, as well as a video. This will be discussed later in this article.

What it is?

Wood processing waste is a valuable building material. After crushing to a certain size, they become a filler for concrete mixtures. Wood chips are used for wood concrete or, as it is called, wood chips. Arbolite blocks have a lot of advantages. Affordable cost plays a significant role. In addition, a house built from wood concrete practically does not require additional insulation.

Wood chips also have other advantages. The material is suitable for use as:

• fuel for stoves - in pure form or in the form of granules;
• decor - designers offer it in a painted and natural form for decorating summer cottages and even parks;
• component for the manufacture and decoration of furniture;
• an ingredient used in smoking various foods.

In production, fine fractions are used to make other building materials: cardboard, plasterboard, chipboard and fiberboard.

Chip cutter for wood concrete: principle of operation

The main components of the machine are a chipping disk with knives and a rotor with hammers and blades. The disk is mounted on a working shaft, which is driven by a pulley connected by a belt to the engine. The shaft rotates in two roller bearings, and the motor is mounted on a frame.

The supply of raw materials is carried out manually, that is, everything that is to be processed is thrown one at a time into the receiving hopper, and then the wood waste itself is pulled under the working knives and hammers. At the final stage, the chips fall onto the sieve using the blades and fly out of the chip cutter through the unloading hole.

At the entrance, the receiving hopper is made in the form of a funnel in order to simplify the supply of raw materials for processing and make this process safe for hands.

The machine for making wood chips has the following characteristics:

• engine power – 7.5 kW;
• rotation speed on the engine working shaft – 3000 rpm;
• rotation speed of the shaft on which the disk with cutting knives is fixed is 1500 rpm.

The device and principle of operation of the wood chipper

To obtain a product that is stable in size, the wood chipper must carry out the following operations:

1. Pre-cut the source material into smaller pieces.
2. Deliver these fragments to the final crushing compartment.
3. Process prepared wood waste into chips of approximately the same size.
4. Remove the final product from the working area of ​​the machine.

Let's consider the design of such a wood chip cutter using the example of a chopping unit that would be able to work with long pieces of boards, branches and substandard slats. The initial moisture content of such raw materials should not be more than 80%, since otherwise, instead of crushing and grinding, mechanical peeling of wood fibers will be performed, and the output in most cases will be long and thin fragments that are unsuitable for further use.

The initial data for the manufacture of such a device are the maximum dimensions of the chips, safety and ease of maintenance, as well as the desired productivity (if the chip cutter will be used for the purpose of continuous production of chips). The crusher, as a mechanism for obtaining raw materials for heating residential premises, operates periodically, so the performance requirement for it is not significant.

Industrial types of woodchip cutters (priced from 75,000 rubles) are manufactured in various capacities and designs, but in many cases the unit can be made with your own hands.

The main components of a chip cutter with an electric drive and a non-movable frame are presented in the drawing of its general view (see Fig. 1). If you make your own chip cutter, you can make a frame on wheels, thereby increasing the mobility of the unit.

Figure 1: 1- Frame; 2 – Bumper; 3 – Housing with working knives and chopper; 4 – Loading hopper; 5 – Belt drive; 6 – Electric motor.

Wooden blanks are placed in the receiving hopper channel. It is a welded funnel with a cone-shaped reduction in cross-section as it approaches the preliminary felling unit. The angle of inclination of the hopper to the axis of the chip cutter can be in the range of 45...600 (at a smaller angle, the conditions for capturing raw materials worsen, and at a larger angle, it will be necessary to increase the length of the hopper).

Basic parts for installing a homemade crusher

DIY branch chopper. This is a great way to acquire useful equipment for your garden plot, without extra costs. To install the unit, you must have professional skills and experience in plumbing.

The operating principle of a homemade wood chipper is similar to a regular household meat grinder: it is chopping wood into chips. The machine crushes the wood, and the output is chips. For the design, it is necessary to select a suitable motor and blades, housing elements and connecting parts.

Engine selection

A do-it-yourself chip crusher is mounted taking into account the type of operation of the device and its power. The grinding process can be carried out by either a gasoline or electric motor. Each of them has its own advantages.

The electric motor limits the operation of the crushing device to the access area to the power source. It does not produce exhaust, which allows the mechanism to be used in enclosed spaces. A gasoline engine does not depend on the electrical network and has higher efficiency and, more often, power.

When choosing an engine, it is necessary to take into account the power parameters:

• Motors with a power of 3 - 4 kW. will cope with chopping branches with an average diameter of up to 4 centimeters.
• Units with a power of 6 kW. Suitable for chopping large branches up to 15 centimeters in diameter.

Industrial wood chippers, depending on the model, are equipped with a milling system, a disk or disk-milling knife.

When a wood waste crusher is assembled with your own hands, simpler cutting elements are used:

• Set of circular saws.
• Knife - disk design or two-roll system equipped with 8 knives.

The most popular shredding system is circular saws.

Crushing system

When choosing circular saws, you should give preference to products with carbide tips; in this case, you can avoid frequent sharpening of the blades.

Chopper body

A do-it-yourself wood chipper is mounted on the basis of a welded frame structure made of steel pipes, inside of which the engine will be installed. In order to ensure the mobility of the unit, it is recommended to equip it with wheels. Sheet metal or galvanized steel can be used to make the casing.

A homemade branch chopper made by yourself may not have a presentable appearance, like an industrial unit, but the list of its advantages includes such important advantages as:

• Low cost.
• Ease of operation.
• Efficiency at work.

Recommended reading:

Recycling of construction waste

Industrial waste management system

Where can I get parts and materials?

Since one of the reasons for making your own shredder is the desire to save money, it is very important to reduce costs on parts and materials.

Ferrous and non-ferrous scrap collection points, as well as various enterprises that have old equipment on their balance sheets, can help with this. Woodworking businesses and workshops can also help, especially those that have recently upgraded their equipment.

To make the frame of a rotary hammer machine, you can use a steel angle or channel , and not necessarily a new one, the main thing is that the metal is not damaged by rust.
The machine body, also known as the protective casing around the rotary hammer mechanism, as well as the protective casing around the belt or chain drive, can be made from sheet metal with a thickness of 0.8–2.5 mm.

The same metal is suitable for making the receiving casing. This metal can be cut from the body of some cars, as well as from various fences and decks.

The electric motor can be removed from an old machine or various electrical equipment . He may need to replace the bearings, but this will cost less than buying a new electric motor of the required power.

There you can also select pulleys of the required size, as well as the electrical equipment necessary to start and operate the engine.

To make the rotor, you can use either sheet steel or a flywheel from a car engine . However, in this case it will be necessary to insert and weld the hammer chopper shaft into it.

A spring from a passenger car is well suited for making knives. An experienced blacksmith will be able to give it the desired shape and properly harden it, so that the knife will not only be sharp, but also durable.

If you have an unnecessary or temporarily idle walk-behind tractor, you can remove the motor from it. This will make the wood chipper more mobile, especially if you put it on a trailer for a car.

If the motor is equipped with a power take-off shaft (PTO), then you can connect the wood chipper to it without disassembling the walk-behind tractor.

It is undesirable to use a chainsaw engine due to insufficient power, the only exception being gasoline engines with a volume of 60 cm3 or more.

The disadvantage of a chainsaw motor is that it can only be connected to the chopper shaft through a chain drive, so it is quite difficult to find a suitable chain and sprocket for the shaft.

Electric motors from an angle grinder, an electric planer, a circular saw and other hand tools are not suitable for creating a normal chopper, but from them, based on the same drawings, you can make a small-sized wood chopper with your own hands, that is, a wood chipper designed for chopping thin branches.

It differs from a normal chip cutter in size and operating principle. In such a homemade branch chopper, the wood is crushed by a gear with knives, which chops the branches into pieces 0.5–3 cm long, that is, you cannot get normal wood chips with it, but it is suitable for recycling branches.

How to assemble a cutting element yourself

To make a milling knife you will need:

• circular saws (10-12 pcs.). Their quantity may differ from the indicated amount, both smaller and larger. The more disks are installed, the smaller the chips will be at the output;
• threaded rod M20;
• bearings (internal Ø 20 mm);
• dense soft plastic for making spacer washers;
• washers and nuts for fastening.

Assemble the knife as follows:

1. Place the disk on the pin (its diameter of 20 mm coincides with the hole of the saws).
2. A washer cut out of plastic should be installed between adjacent disks. It is necessary so that the cutting edges of adjacent saws (they are wider than the blade of the blade) do not cling to one another.
3. The outer disks are secured with washers and nuts. As a result, you will get a shaft with circular saw blades located on it. All that remains is to install the bar with saws on the frame using bearings, bushings and clamps.

What should the wood chips be like?

Wood filler for wood concrete has its own GOST.
At the level of the state standard for wood chips, strict requirements are established. Three main parameters are identified:

• length no more than 30 mm;
• width no more than 10 mm;
• thickness no more than 5 mm.

The optimal dimensions for width and length are also indicated:

• length – 20 mm;
• width – 5 mm.

New requirements appeared with the adoption of GOST 54854-2011. Before this, there was another GOST with lesser requirements. Then it was allowed to use longer chips - up to 40 mm. In 2022, “liberties” in the size of the filler are not allowed.

The standard also regulates the presence of impurities: bark, leaves, pine needles. The material should be cleared of soil, sand, clay, and in winter - from snow. The presence of mold and rot is unacceptable.

Materials and tools

Most of the components of the shredder can be selected from supplies available in the household. For example, the frame is perfectly assembled from metal corners, channels and pipes. An electric motor is usually purchased or taken from a mini-tractor. The cutter used must necessarily have large teeth, and the circular saws must have a diameter of 100 to 200 millimeters. If the work is done on a shaft, then gears are purchased in quantities of a couple of pieces, the same applies to the pulley, as well as to the shaft itself - there should be two of them. Knives can be made from car springs if you have a milling machine.

Step-by-step instructions and nuances of work

1. The saws are mounted on an axis, the diameter of which is determined by the mounting diameter of the disks (20mm). A stud with an M20 thread is suitable for this. Accordingly, washers and nuts of the same diameter will be required.

Saws mounted on the axis of the future chopper

If we install the discs on the pin close to each other, the knife will not work. And here's why: the width of the saw teeth is greater than the width of the blade itself, so when rotating, the teeth will cling to each other. To prevent this from happening, it is necessary to separate the disks a short distance. This can be done as easily as possible using homemade washers that you can cut from thin plastic. Their number should be 1 piece less than the number of circular saws.

2. A pulley is put on the stud axle (from a VAZ generator or from a pump). To rotate the axle, two VAZ intermediate shaft bearings with an internal diameter of 20 mm are also used.

3. A frame is welded from profiled metal pipes onto which the walk-behind tractor rod is attached. The engine is mounted on the frame so that it can be moved relative to the circular saws. This is necessary to change the tension of the drive belt if necessary.

An axle with circular saws is attached to the frame

4. For ease of use, a thrust block made of metal profile is attached to the frame, against which branches and stems will rest when crushing.

5. A metal casing must be put on the cutting unit, which is welded from sheet metal or cut from galvanized steel. To be safe, it is better to use the first option.

It is better to make the casing from sheet iron - it is more reliable!

6. Another hopper with a socket is attached to the top for loading the material to be crushed. There are no special requirements for this part, so most often it is made of flexible galvanized steel.

The receiving hopper is easy to make from galvanized steel

Independent material procurement

When you have decided what to make wood chips from for smoking, it is time to move on to the next stage. Preparing wood chips is considered a painstaking task and requires a certain skill from the master. Errors will not lead to irreversible or fatal consequences if corrected in time.

Selecting wood is not that difficult. You just need to evaluate its appearance and make sure there is no mold or wormholes.

It is more convenient to prepare material for smoking with the help of special equipment, represented by machines for removing bark, grinders and crushers. But this method cannot be called accessible. The high cost of all devices makes it practically impossible to use them. Naturally, this approach is practiced on an industrial scale, but the volumes of raw materials are different there. If there had not been a more accessible solution to this problem, then this article would not have existed, so making wood chips at home is within the power of anyone.

First you need to prepare all the tools and materials so as not to be distracted during the process. When chopping wood chips, you need to maintain concentration, and the search for the next tool will be very distracting, so immediately place a small sharp hatchet, a log of wood from which you decided to make wood chips, and a container of water near your workplace.

• Using a hatchet, remove the bark from the log. It contains a lot of resin and tar, so when choosing wood, you need to start with the bark.
• Further actions depend on skill and convenience. If you have a board in front of you, then it would be more expedient to make strips of it 2 cm thick. The strips are made by cutting the board or part of it along the grain. The resulting blanks should be chopped in a perpendicular direction at intervals of 2-3 cm.

There is another more convenient way. The logs are cut into rings using a circular saw or chainsaw. The width of the ring should be 2-3 cm and still leave a margin for cutting (tolerance). The resulting rings are easy to chop into chips, since the cut was made across the fibers, and you will have to chop along the fibers.

To proceed to smoking, chopped wood chips must first be soaked. The issue of humidity is of key importance when processing foods with smoke. Practice shows that its average value should be in the range of 60-65%. Low humidity tends to dry out the fibers of the product, resulting in a dry and harsh-tasting product. Exceeding the established standards makes the smoke dense, and this is fraught with the appearance of a bitter aftertaste. Since it is sometimes impossible to measure the humidity of smoke, a fairly wide range is set for wood chips, it is 50-70%.

There is one algorithm that allows you to obtain the desired humidity without a special tool. The technology for its implementation is to measure the mass of wet and dried wood chips. First, the wood chips are soaked in water for 4 hours. It is believed that after this procedure its humidity will be 100%. Let's say we need to get a humidity of 75%. To do this, we sequentially perform the following:

• measure the mass of wet wood chips;
• multiply the resulting value by 0.75;
• exposing the chips until its mass becomes equal to the calculated value.

Despite the fact that this method allows only a rough estimate of moisture content, it is considered the most affordable, allowing the production and preparation of material for smoking.

The preparation of shavings or wood chips does not always occur before actual smoking. In this case, the issue of storing the material arises. First, select a room with low humidity. Then we pour the wood chips into a cotton bag so that air can easily penetrate through its walls.

However, no storage method guarantees moisture retention. After long-term storage, a test ignition is required. If the wood chips catch fire, you will have to soak them again. At high humidity it will not even begin to smolder.

Buy or make wood chips yourself

As soon as a private developer has decided to independently produce wood concrete blocks, the question arises whether it is more profitable to buy or make wood chips for construction blanks. If you plan to build a small country house, then purchasing ready-made raw materials will reduce working time and financial costs.

Specialized equipment for making wood chips is not cheap. Processing with chemicals takes time.

If you decide to produce wood-concrete blocks in large quantities, or to engage in construction activities, then it is more profitable to produce wood chips yourself.

The process of making wood chips for wood concrete with your own hands consists of the following sequence of actions:

• selection of suitable wood;
• obtaining wood chips using special equipment;
• processing wood chips with chemical reagents to remove sugars.

Requirements for wood chips for arbolite blocks:

1. No foreign matter: stones, ice, clay, sand.
2. No rot, mold or other damage.
3. The content of tree bark is within 10%, pine needles - 5% of the total mass.
4. Standard size 40105 mm.

When making wood concrete with your own hands, the presence of sawdust up to 30% is allowed. In this case, cement consumption increases, and the strength indicators of the finished material decrease. Arbolite blocks with an admixture of sawdust have increased heat-saving properties. Used as an insulating building material.

What sawdust is needed for wood concrete? Sawdust of coniferous and deciduous wood is used, as in the preparation of wood chips. For the purpose of purchasing, it is possible to contact woodworking enterprises.

Advantages and disadvantages of grinding

Stump grinding equipment is used only in cases where the goal is not to completely destroy large roots. Most often, the need to grind stumps arises during preparatory work before changing the design of a site or during the construction/repair of roads or pedestrian paths.

In addition, stumps are crushed in cases where their uprooting could lead to too much disruption of the soil structure.

For example, you cannot uproot a stump that stands next to the house, because there is a high probability that one or more roots pass under the foundation.

During uprooting, such roots can damage the foundation or loosen the soil underneath, which will increase the fracture stress inside the foundation.

Additionally, removing roots under the foundation creates cavities that then fill with water. If the foundation is installed above the freezing level of the soil, then during frosts the water in the cavities will freeze and severely damage the walls of the house due to frost heaving.

Grinding is also preferable when preparing a trench for the foundation, because extracting the roots loosens the soil, so you will have to repeatedly compact the bottom, adding earth and sand as the voids are filled.

In addition, uprooting is preferable where it is planned to grow cereals or fruit plants, because when plowing or harrowing the soil, thick surface roots can damage equipment or the tractor.

Popular models

We have prepared tables with a brief description of the most popular stump crusher models.
We included in the tables:

• model name and link to the manufacturer’s or seller’s website;
• cutter size and type;
• chassis type (for self-propelled devices only);
• engine type and power in hp. With. or the method of connecting the unit to the vehicle engine;
• weight of the device (only for manual and self-propelled models).

Manual

Self-propelled

Mounted

We make a wood concrete chip cutter with our own hands

Some parts, the drawings of which are presented below, must be turned on a lathe, the rest can be made with your own hands at home.

Main dimensions of wood chip cutter

Disc with knives

The diameter of the disc is about 300-350 millimeters, and the thickness is about 20 millimeters. To prevent large, hard pieces of wood from jamming, the disc should act like a flywheel. Therefore it must be made heavy. For the disk, we take a metal blank or cut it out of sheet steel; then we saw through one central hole for mounting on the shaft (taking into account the keyed fastening), several mounting holes and 3 grooves through which the cut pieces of wood fall under the rotating hammers.

We use car springs to make knives. In each knife we ​​make two holes, then countersink them (so that the screw heads are recessed as much as possible) and fasten them to the disk using countersunk hex head bolts, which ensure a tight and reliable connection, and also do not allow the bolts to rotate while compressing the nuts with the opposite side.

Hammers

Shaft and mount for hammers

Hammers and welded bumper Hammers are flat plates (about 5 millimeters thick) that are located on the rotor. They carry out additional grinding of wood chips. It is better to buy ready-made hammers. The distance between the hammers in the wood concrete crusher is 24 mm.

Distance between hammers in wood concrete crusher

Sieve for wood chips

To make a sieve, inside which the grinding chamber will be located, you need a metal cylinder Ø 300–350 mm made from a metal sheet with a length L of 942–1100 mm. Cells with a diameter of 8–12 mm are punched in this cylinder. It is not advisable to drill them - the edges of the cells should be sharp or torn, so it is recommended to make holes with a punch or core of the required diameter.

Protective cover, funnel, hopper and frame

For the protective casing and the funnel for the receiving hopper, sheet iron with a thickness of 8–12 mm is suitable. The sheets are cut to size and welded into a structure as indicated in the drawings. We cut all the parts according to pre-prepared “patterns” (we make them from thick cardboard). The stiffeners are made from corners, channels or pipes.

Protective cover

Equipment of the crushing unit: shaft journals on which support bearings must be mounted, plus beaters (hammers) and a cutting disc. The next step in making a chip cutter is to cut holes for the working shaft, as well as inlet and outlet sockets for supplying raw materials and exiting chips.

Working shaft

The receiving hopper is welded to the body at an angle. The mechanical and electric drives are mounted last: an electric motor is mounted on the frame, then pulleys of the required diameter, and all components are connected by a belt drive. To do this, you can use regular car belts of a suitable diameter.

Frame

Engine

The performance of the wood chipper and the amount of operating costs depend on the type of engine. The environmentally friendly electric motor is not very noisy, much lighter than an internal combustion engine, but less powerful than its “brother”. In addition, the operation of an electric wood chip cutter depends on power surges.

The unit with a gasoline engine, a more powerful one, works longer, longer, and does not depend on a power outlet. But the internal combustion engine is very noisy, pollutes the air, requires maintenance and constantly needs to be refueled.

If the assembled wood concrete wood chip cutter meets the accuracy requirements and there is no run-up in alignment, then you can use a coaxial circuit rather than a belt connection - you can connect the shafts through a coupling.

The main units of the wood chipper

The necessary drawings according to which a homemade rotary hammer crusher can be made for the production of wood concrete are presented below. Since the equipment is homemade, the dimensions of the parts will have to be selected based on your own material.

A self-made wood concrete crusher can optionally have a power supply of 220–380 V and consists of the following components:

1. Metal housing with a removable (or folding) casing (11,12).
2. Freely rotating bits with hammers for the production of chips directly, sectorally separated by chippers (6).
3. Disc with knives attached to it (4).
4. Calibrating sieve with holes Ø 15–20 mm (7).
5. Hopper for feeding wood waste (9).

Working drawings of different wood chippers may differ in size and the presence of certain components, but the operating principle remains the same. After supplying the equipment with a voltage of 220 V, the electric motor transmits its rotation using a V-belt transmission to a drum with blades (4) through a pulley (14) and a shaft. You only need to put wood waste into the feed hopper, which is immediately processed into chips of the optimal length (up to 25 mm).

By assembling a wood concrete wood chip cutter with your own hands and maintaining the distance between the hammers in a wood concrete crusher, you can produce wood chips up to 25 millimeters long and about 5 millimeters wide. Such wood chips are ideal for making wood concrete blocks or preparing monolithic wood concrete.

How to make a disc crusher?

If you like this type of chopper, then you need to understand that its assembly will require good welding skills. In addition, you need to prepare the following materials:

• steel sheet with a thickness of 10 to 16 mm;
• the same, 5 mm thick - on the casing and loading hopper;
• high-carbon steel for knives, a car spring is suitable;
• round or profile pipes to weld the frame;
• steel shaft with a diameter of 20 mm;
• 2 rolling bearings No. 307 or others;
• fasteners (bolts and nuts)
• pulleys, belt.

A regular circle with a diameter of 400 mm is cut out of thick metal, and a hole for the shaft is made in its center. The pulleys and shaft must be turned on a lathe, and threads must be cut at the ends of the shaft to attach the flywheel and pulley. Knives can be made at home, following the drawing; in extreme cases, entrust this task to a milling machine operator. Next, a protective casing with a hopper must be welded from a steel sheet, and cages for bearings with holes must be made from it.

In essence, a homemade wood chipper is a cutting mechanism mounted on a frame of any design. The drive motor can be placed in a convenient location depending on the length of the belt. Do not forget to make the engine mount sliding so that the belt can be tensioned. The mechanism shaft is also installed on the frame, and a pulley and flywheel are attached to it.

A regular circle with a diameter of 400 mm is cut out of thick metal, and a hole for the shaft is made in its center. The pulleys and shaft must be turned on a lathe, and threads must be cut at the ends of the shaft to attach the flywheel and pulley. Knives can be made at home, following the drawing; in extreme cases, entrust this task to a milling machine operator. Next, a protective casing with a hopper must be welded from a steel sheet, and cages for bearings with holes must be made from it.

The grain crusher consists of the following units:

1. Gate valve for regulating the flow of grain into the working chamber.
2. Grain bunker.
3. Electric motor on/off button.
4. Electric motor.
5. Sleeve.
6. Axis.
7. Washer.
8. Screw.
9. Screw.
10. Base.
11. Working chamber housing.
12. Container for crushed grain.
13. Bolt.
14. Screw.
15. Metal mesh (sieve).

1. Base.
2. Working chamber housing.
3. Screw.
4. Sieve.

The material for the manufacture of a walk-behind shredder will be a 250 channel. Additionally, a pulley with a cross-section of 87 millimeters and knives 100 millimeters long from an electric planer will be required. It is necessary to build a receiving hopper into which various branches will be loaded. The hopper is equipped with a fixed, sharp disk knife, which will chop the branches.

The main thing is to choose the right angle when installing the knife. Then the branches will be crushed literally in an instant.

You can make a garden shredder with an electric motor, then there will be less fuss with chopping, but there must be a place for connection, which is problematic in different places on the site. In principle, it is no different from what was described above. For such a chopper, you will need a disk with a diameter of 20 millimeters with three oval holes for subsequent attachment of the legs.

You should consider installing a pair of bearings, the top one will be a support bearing, and the bottom one will be a regular one.

In principle, such a garden shredder has a small drawback - it is quite noisy, this can all be corrected by checking the balancing of the disk. You can also slightly tilt the sleeve that feeds the branches, it will cut better.

Preparing the base

First, you should start preparing the base for the future wood chip crusher:

1. You need to grind a massive round disk , which will serve both as a platform for installing knives and as a flywheel. In principle, you can find a ready-made version that would be suitable, but such a disk can also be made with your own hands.
2. If you make such a disk homemade, then you should take a metal header, the thickness of which will be 16-20 mm. In the center of the disk you need to make a hole intended for the key. Also, do not forget about the edges - symmetrical slots should be made to remove chips.
3. In the places intended for knives, you need to drill holes that will be needed to fasten the knives.
4. Now you can move on to attaching the knives. It is recommended to secure the knives with countersunk bolts and preferably with a hex key. This recommendation is easily explained: unlike bolts for Phillips and flat-head screwdrivers, bolts for a hex key provide sufficient pressing of the knives being attached to the metal disk without “licking” the head grooves. Moreover, it should be mentioned that, using a hex wrench, it is much easier to keep the bolt from turning when the nut is tightened on the other side.
5. To push the chips out, transverse strips should be welded onto the side of the flywheel of a homemade wood chipper opposite the knives, which will push the chips out while rotating with the disk.

Garden wood shredders

Branches, bushes, and dried grass are collected at the dacha and garden plot. They need to be disposed of. A wood chipper can make your work easier. The advantages of the equipment are:

• Small dimensions.
• The finished raw materials can be used as fertilizer.
• Efficiency.
• Low energy or fuel consumption.

The choice of unit depends on the size of the site and the volume of work. Equipment for recycling wood waste is produced by manufacturers from different countries. One of the disadvantages is the high cost.

Russian industry produces shredders at affordable prices. If the installation is needed for seasonal use at a summer cottage, it can be rented.

Technical capabilities

The garden unit can be equipped with an electric or gasoline engine. Equipment that consumes electrical energy is silent in operation, light in weight, and small in size. But the need to have a power source on hand makes it not always convenient to use.

A gasoline shredder is more bulky and noisy during operation, but it can be used in any corner of the garden. It is more powerful than electrical equipment and processes a larger volume of wood.

Why are homemade shredders made?

The main reason for making homemade wood chippers is that the machines available in stores are too expensive

In addition, in addition to the cost of the shredder itself, the buyer often has to spend money on its delivery , which also increases the final price.

Therefore, making a homemade machine is justified only if the total costs turn out to be noticeably lower than when purchasing in a store or directly from the manufacturer.

Chip cutter for wood concrete: principle of operation

The main components of the machine are a chipping disk with knives and a rotor with hammers and blades. The disk is mounted on a working shaft, which is driven by a pulley connected by a belt to the engine. The shaft rotates in two roller bearings, and the motor is mounted on a frame.

The supply of raw materials is carried out manually, that is, everything that is to be processed is thrown one at a time into the receiving hopper, and then the wood waste itself is pulled under the working knives and hammers. At the final stage, the chips fall onto the sieve using the blades and fly out of the chip cutter through the unloading hole.

At the entrance, the receiving hopper is made in the form of a funnel in order to simplify the supply of raw materials for processing and make this process safe for hands.

The machine for making wood chips has the following characteristics:

• engine power – 7.5 kW;
• rotation speed on the engine working shaft – 3000 rpm;
• rotation speed of the shaft on which the disk with cutting knives is fixed is 1500 rpm.

Assembling the chip cutter units

We carry out assembly in the following sequence:

1. We assemble the chipping unit: we place bearings, a disk with knives and hammers on the shaft;
2. We prepare the housing for installation: we cut out holes for the working shaft, receiving hopper and chip unloading;
3. We drill the necessary holes for the assembly bolts and weld the receiving hopper funnel at an angle;
4. We assemble the drive: we fix the engine on the frame, mount the pulleys and put on a belt (can be a car belt);
5. We attach the chipping block to the frame and cover it with a protective casing (to avoid accidents);
6. We perform an idle test run.

Chip cutter for wood concrete assembled

During the first week, it is recommended to use the wood chipping machine at minimum load and for a short time to avoid jamming of the bearings, which can occur as a result of their overheating.

If you need the machine exclusively for your own purposes, then it makes sense to make a tenon cutter for wood concrete with your own hands, since if you purchase it in a factory-made version, it will not be very cheap. The finished wood chipper can be placed under a canopy on a personal plot or in a garage.

Based on materials from: https://zamesbetona.ru/oborudovanie/shheporez-dlja-arbolita.html https://kamedom.ru/arbolit/chertezhi-stanka-scheporeza.html

Requirements for crushing machines

Having prepared the drawings and diagrams of a wood concrete chip cutter, you can proceed directly to its manufacture. Individual elements of the machine are turned using turning equipment, and everything else can be done from improvised means at home.

First you need to find a suitable power plant that has a power of 4-5 kW. As for the parameters of the belt drive, they are determined taking into account the number of pulleys. In any case, the maximum permissible speed should be at least 1700-1800 rpm. To increase the operational safety of the device, all cutting elements must be protected with a continuous steel casing.

The presence of a clutch in the drive system is not provided. This is explained by the fact that when the machine is turned off immediately, there may be particles of wood chips left inside, which will remain in the gaps and significantly increase the starting torque of the engine. This phenomenon can lead to overheating and complete damage to the power plant.

Models made of thick sheet steel with a diameter of 10-12 mm are used as a cutting disc. In addition to its main purpose, this element functions as a flywheel, absorbing uneven rotation of the shaft when chips get stuck. The inside of the disc is carefully polished.

When creating cutting elements at home, tool steel under the grades U7A or U8A is used. The hardness of knives after sharpening should be 58-60 HRC. The sharpening should be one-sided, and the height of the working edge should not exceed the height of the mounting grooves of the disk. To make it easier to set up and adjust the tool, the mounting holes in the knives are made oval.

The sieve is created from high-carbon steel with grades starting from 40. Holes are made in the finished steel sheet through which the raw materials will be passed. When making chipping hammers, it is recommended to use spring steel. But excessive elasticity can lead to inertial tossing of the cutting elements during operation. Due to the high speed of rotation of the working shaft, this phenomenon can deteriorate the final quality of the product, so tool steel is the best solution for chipper hammers.

Selection of equipment for manufacturing

The most suitable equipment for obtaining wood chips of the required shape and size is a special woodworking shredder. However, the cost of the machine is so high that outside of production it is necessary to look for other options.

It is quite possible to make wood concrete at home. To do this, you need to make wood chips yourself. A wood chipper becomes a wood chipper in a farm setting. There are three types of wood chippers.

Disc chippers process wood of various shapes. By adjusting the inclination of the cutting tool, you can obtain workpieces of the required size.

All of the devices listed provide only manual loading of material.

Why do you need a wood chipper?

Before moving directly to the technical part of this article, you should consider all the advantages of using equipment such as a wood chipper. What is it and why is it needed at all?

A chip cutter is equipment that can save the owner of his processed area from the need to make fires or collect bulky piles of garbage, which then have to be removed.

In the process of processing a plot or garden, the owner has to face problems such as the inability to process the waste that remains after pruning trees and autumn cleaning of the garden. We are talking about various tops, branch trimmings, and so on. Most often, it has to be burned or simply dumped into a huge pile, which then has to be removed.

A shredder will help the property owner avoid the headache of garbage problems by ensuring that the waste is recycled for reuse. At the output, the owner of the wood chipper can obtain suitable material for compost or wood chips for solid fuel boilers.

Of course, all the benefits of a wood chipper are obvious, but, unfortunately, not everyone can afford to buy such a wood chipper due to its rather high cost. There is a way out: do it yourself. This can be done using available tools and materials.

Purchasing a device

If you want to purchase a wood chipping machine in a store, you need to understand that it can be very expensive. The average cost of a factory model is about 3 million rubles. Naturally, such equipment demonstrates high performance, but it is not advisable to buy it for domestic purposes. Instead, it is better to find separate units for drying, crushing and coloring wood chips, which will cost several times less.

Depending on the method of crushing the feedstock, crushers are disc and rotary. Representatives of the first group are equipped with sharp disk knives, while rotary models operate on the basis of a rotating working chamber or drums where the knives are located.

When choosing the appropriate type of crushing equipment, it is important to pay attention to the thickness of the housing. It is desirable that it be at least two centimeters at the site of the cutting unit. Otherwise, when operating at high speeds, the mechanisms may become deformed or even fail.

Otherwise, when operating at high speeds, the mechanisms may become deformed or even fail.

How to use shredded wood?

The use of wood chips depends on its size and shape. The rotary hammer machine produces chips that can be used in any way .

If
you remove the sieve , that is, turn off the hammer grinding, then the wood chips will become unsuitable for the production of wood concrete , but they are suitable for any other application.
This is one of the reasons why rotary hammer chippers are so popular, because they combine :

• simplicity of design;
• high productivity;
• low manufacturing cost;
• The chips obtained with their help are universal and suitable for any application.

general information

Before you start creating a wood chipping machine with your own hands, you need to understand its features, operating principle and purpose. Wood chips are one of the key elements of wood concrete or wood chip concrete - a popular building material on the basis of which low-rise buildings are created. This is interesting: the technology of wood concrete production. On the market, wood concrete is sold in the form of rectangular blocks and contains cement mixtures of grades 400 or 500. Recycled wood waste with dimensions of 5x5x25 mm is used as additional components. Such waste includes:

1. Sawdust.
2. Large chips.
3. Woodchips.

In this video we will look at how to make a wood chip cutter with your own hands:

It is for the production of the latter raw materials that special chipping plants are being developed. The technology for creating wood chips based on wood chips is as follows:

1. The initially prepared wood waste is poured with water, mixed thoroughly and transferred to a tank for a couple of hours. After prolonged aging, the percentage of fiber content in the raw material is noticeably reduced, which makes it possible to create high-quality and stable blocks based on it.
2. After this, the resulting mass is placed in another tank and filled with a solution of calcium chloride and aluminum sulfate. These substances will finally clear the consistency of any remaining fiber.
3. Cement mixture and lime are added to wood waste in a ratio of 3:4:4. Then the material should be placed in a concrete mixer and mixed until semi-crumbly. The product must have a uniform consistency and not contain lumps or unwetted areas.
4. As a result, the resulting mass is laid out in special forms, which are pre-lubricated with machine oil, and kept at room temperature until it hardens.

As for the areas of application of wood concrete in construction, they are quite extensive. Based on this material, lintels, wall structures, individual floor elements and even full-fledged foundation blocks are created. In the latter case, cement of a higher grade must be added to the wood concrete.

This building material is characterized by high strength and good heat capacity. It is not afraid of temperature changes or increased humidity, and fire resistance and resistance to corrosion processes remain at the highest level.

Technology for the production of wood concrete blocks

Arbolite belongs to lightweight concrete, the technology is almost standard, with the exception of some nuances: the need for pressing and the use of a forced concrete mixer when mixing, not an ordinary gravity one. It mixes the wood chips better with the other ingredients.

Compound

The composition of wood concrete includes four components:

• high-quality cement (M 400 or M 500);
• wood chips;
• water;
• chemical additives.

Wood concrete composition

The cement must be dry and fresh. Chips are of a certain size. The less misgrading there is, the stronger the block will be. Chemical additives are calcium nitrate and chloride (food additive E509), liquid glass, aluminum sulfate and some other substances

Please note that they are first diluted in water and only then added to the wood chips and mixed. Any drinking water is allowed, but not industrial water, without contamination

After the wood chips are evenly wet, cement is added. Any other sequence is not allowed.

Types and sizes of blocks

Depending on the density, wood concrete blocks are divided into thermal insulation (up to 500 kg/m3) and structural (from 500 kg/m3 to 850 kg/m3). To build one-story houses, you can use the lightest structural ones with a density of 500 kg/m3. For mansions of 1.5 and 2 floors, the minimum density is 600 kg/m3 and above.

The sizes of arbolite blocks can be different. The most common is 500*200 mm and different thicknesses - from 100 mm to 400-500 mm. But different factories and workshops produce blocks of different sizes. The molds for them can be welded from ordinary sheet iron, so this is not a problem. The photo shows an example of the assortment of one of the workshops.

Dimensions and weight of wood concrete blocks

As you can see, blocks of 600*200 mm and 600*250 mm are also available and thicknesses range from 100 to 500 mm. You can choose suitable ones for load-bearing walls and interior partitions. You can also make a suitable shape for making wood concrete blocks yourself. That is if you decide to make them yourself.

Proportions

Like any building material, wood concrete is divided into strength classes. For the construction of load-bearing walls of houses, the required strength class is B 2.5.

The number and proportions of wood concrete components depending on the brand

The amount of necessary materials per cubic meter of wood concrete mortar is in the table (photo above).

Pressing technologies

All these components are mixed and blocks are formed from them. There are several technologies:

• simply by pressing: manually on the floor (great effort required);
• manual rammer on a vibrating table.

The easiest way to do this is by hand pressing. But it is difficult to control the density and strength of the resulting blocks in this way.

Manual molding of wood concrete blocks

Normal production conditions

For the normal process of cement hydration, a temperature of at least +12°C is required. There are no other conditions. The peculiarity of production is that after molding the block, at least 2-3 weeks must pass before it can be used. During this time, the cement will gain about 50-60% strength (depending on temperature) and you can already work with the blocks. That is, blocks must be made long before construction begins. If you consider that the wood chips must sit for at least 4 months before they are used, then you can start a year before construction.

This is how you can store wood concrete blocks made by yourself

Another practical point: if you are going to make wood concrete blocks with your own hands, in addition to a platform for mixing and storing components, you need a platform for settling the blocks. The place should be covered, protected from rain and sun. There should be no drafts either.

Homemade wood chipper

The high cost of industrial equipment has led to the fact that many began to make a crusher at home from scrap materials. The principle of operation of a homemade wood crusher is similar to a conventional electric meat grinder, and to create it you need to have:

• Several metal corners or pipe sections,
• About twenty circular saws,
• A couple of pulleys
• Stud made of durable metal,
• Several bearings
• Belt or chain
• A few nuts
• washers,
• Metal,
• Balloon of paint.

For a home wood chipper, a diesel or electric motor is equally suitable. Electric is safer and easier. The downside is low mobility and dependence on the availability of electricity. The diesel engine is more powerful and can be used both indoors and outdoors, but it is noisier. The disadvantage of diesel is the release of exhaust gases during operation. If you plan to process twigs up to four centimeters thick, then a motor with a power of up to four kilowatts is sufficient. To grind larger material, you need a motor with a power of at least six kilowatts.

Circular saws are most often used as the cutting unit, but they can also be replaced with a two-roll device with knives, or by combining discs and knives. Working with circular saws is the easiest. For high-quality cutting, the thickness of homemade knives should not be less than seven centimeters.

The frame of the crusher is welded from metal pipes or a corner, and a motor is mounted on it. The body is made from a sheet of durable metal. Cutting discs are threaded onto a long pin, alternating them with washers. When the cutting unit is assembled, a pulley is put on the axle. You can use a pulley from any passenger car generator. And to ensure rotation, a pair of bearings are installed on the axis. The frame and casing are painted with protective paint.

How to cut wood chips

When all the individual parts are prepared, we proceed to assembling the entire machine. Do this in the following order:

The parts of the chipping block are assembled. Bearings, a flywheel (disc with knives), and hammers are placed on the shaft.

Next, the frame is examined for the presence of all the necessary holes: for the shaft, for unloading chips, for the receiving hopper, for the bolts.

A funnel for the receiving hopper is welded to the frame. This is done at an angle.

The next step involves preparing the drive. The motor, pulleys, and belts are installed on the frame.

An assembled chipping block is installed to the frame.

The final step is to put a casing with a protective function on the chipping unit to guarantee safety.

After complete assembly of the wood chipper, a test run is performed. It is done in vain. For the first time after starting work (approximately 5-7 days), it is recommended to use the wood chipper in light mode, without overheating it. After this time, all the parts will “get used to” each other. As a result, the risk of them “jamming” will be reduced. After just a couple of days of operation, the handicraft machine is ready for frequent use under normal conditions.

Types of Garden Shredders

Machines for crushing wood waste are also called wood chippers, shredders, and wood chippers. Despite the different names, the units are designed almost identically. Any branch crusher consists of:

• Steel frame to which all parts of the mechanism are attached;
• The main drive is an electric motor or a gasoline (diesel) engine and a shaft with power take-off;
• Cutting mechanism;
• Main drive (mainly belt);
• Protective casing;
• Two bunkers - for loading branches and unloading wood chips.

In fact, homemade wood chippers have unequal cutting mechanisms; other parts can only have different sizes. If you study the drawings of crushing parts posted on the Internet, you can find several common options:

1. Circular saws are fixed in the middle of the shaft; their teeth should be made of hard alloys.
2. Designs reminiscent of jointer devices on circular machines. Several longitudinal grooves are made along the shafts (2-6, it all depends on the engine power) and chopping knives are secured (material: carbon steel). The branches are fed for crushing at an angle of 90 degrees to the knives.
3. Disc crushers, where knives are attached to the planes of a steel circle located on a shaft. The branches are fed here at an angle of no more than 45 degrees; this is ensured by the design features of the bunkers.
4. Chippers with two shafts with synchronous rotation. The cutting edges of the knives will converge at a single point during rotation. Thus, not only the branches are crushed, but also they are captured and self-pulled into the structure. The wood is fed perpendicularly to the knives, which rotate.

To increase torque and cutting force, homemade wood chippers use flywheels mounted on the free ends of the shafts. An exception is disc crushers, where a heavy metal circle acts as a flywheel, to which knives are attached.

Assembly of finished units

Manufacturing procedure:

1. You need to assemble all the saws on the shaft. Place a washer between each and secure the cutting elements on both sides with nuts.
2. Press in the bearings.
3. Attach the flywheel and pulley at the ends.
4. Attach the counter knife a few millimeters from the saw set.
5. Install the motor and transmission mechanism.
6. Pull the belt.

It is better to install the counter knife on the frame using bolts rather than welding, making oval holes. This is necessary to regulate the distance between the saws and the stove. This way you can change the size of the finished chips fraction.

Upon completion of the installation of all necessary elements, you need to make a protective casing. You can use thin sheet metal for it. The dimensions of the casing may vary. The main thing is that it is convenient and safe to work. The electric motor should be connected to the network via a 25 A circuit breaker.

In order for the design to be repairable, the body should not be welded.

It is better to make a bolted connection.

Then the chopper can be disassembled at any time for resharpening or replacing knives.

One of the common problems with rotating mechanisms is increased vibration.

Another reason for vibration is imbalance (imbalance) of the rotors. To eliminate it, you need to carry out balancing.

You can use ready-made bearing units of a self-aligning design.

They “forgive” errors in the alignment of the holes, in which conventional radial bearings would warp and overheat.

In addition, the dimensions of their housings often do not allow maintaining the required center-to-axle distance between the rotors.

To avoid misalignment, the sides of the crusher body are used as axle boxes. The mounting holes are bored in a machine with a four-jaw spindle, placing the parts together.

If it is not possible to make a housing with coaxial holes, you can select double-row spherical bearings suitable for load-carrying capacity.