We have just bought our new wood chipper. It’s a 14 hp Forrest Master wood chipper. The model is the FM14DD, which is a professional model chipper, and can take branch sizes up to about 100mm.
This purchase has been a long time coming really. I think it’s been every other day that I am told how we could use wood chips for paths, garden weed suppression, grass suppression around fruit trees and just as a mulch or fertiliser.
So this week i took the plunge and spent some cash. A reasonable bit of cash….
This 14 hp model is probably larger than we really need. However it’s nice to have the extra capacity if we need it. Also, I have a view that if a piece of equipment is over-sized for a task, then it will probably be less prone to premature wear and tear. We’ll see.
I’ve actually posted a video on our YouTube channel, which covers the unboxing and full assembly of the Forrest Master wood chipper, which saves me from typing it all in here.
First Impressions
My first impressions of the chipper are very good. The packaging was extremely good and solid. The assembly instructions were very clear (not that I think you really need them, it’s fairly easy to figure out), and the finished product looks solid and well built.
The cutting drum and blades are large and certainly look well enough built for anything we’re likely to throw at it.
I have read some comments on the net about how soft the cutter blade material is, but I can’t testify to that as yet. Give me a summer of use out of it, and I’ll try and update that. I might do a full page on our new Forrest Master wood chipper. Once we’ve got a good feel for it, I’ll note it’s strong and weak points in that.
In the next couple of days, we’ll drag out some branches and give it a good run. We also purchased the mulching kit with this. So we’ll change it over to that during the test to check the cutting size. It will be interesting to see how it compares with the regular chippings.