Hi everyone, this is my first post so here goes.

I'm based in northern Thailand, currently we are setting up a bamboo project in association with local villagers. The bamboo is harvested in a sustainable manor and then brought to the treatment facility where it will be cured. For this we are proposing to use a modified Vertical Soak Diffusion (VSD) and horizontal treatment method under one roof. From here the bamboo will go off to its various markets.

We want to purchase a chipper/ mulcher to use on the unwanted/broken bamboo and leaf material. The chipper needs to be mobile and petrol driven, it also has to be durable as it will be operated in remote conditions on often difficult terrain. We may also which to Chipper large bamboo of up to 8" diameter. I visited a couple of shops in Chiang Mai with chippers that looked ideal for the job but when I said it was for bamboo they said it wouldn't work. My question is this. What makes a chipper good for chipping bamboo waste what are the essential design features? are the chipping blades different? why will some chippers not work on bamboo?

Any advice from your experiences would be greatly appreciated. I've read most of the other threads on the topic but felt they didn't really answer my question. I'm sure I'll be on here again throughout the course of the project. I look forward to your replies

Cheers
DEHC

You missed my earlier post in the horror stories thread.

To summarize, you may be able to chip the thick bamboo but the thin tough flexible branches will defy rotating parts when they sneak through any cutting margin.
If you must consider a machine not purposefully designed for mulching bamboo, I assert that a machine designed to cut bundles of wire into little bits will operate more favorably.

I have chipped bamboo, fully mature yellow groove. Have a 4 cyl diesel disc chipper with hydraulic feed. There some smaller units that would work as well, but they are not those 5-12 hp (homeowner) flail chippers. They make more noise than chips. Some of the newer low hp disc and drum chippers would work, I would keep it above 20 hp, Diesel usually best choice, but there are petrol engines available for some of the same models. hydraulic feed keeps it safe, (not like the old ones that rip the branches out of your hands.) Bamboo has a lot of silica and will dull the chipper blades pretty quickly. When they do get dull, chipper performance drops fast.

The chip are like splinters, not good for garden mulch. Good addition to mixed bulk compost. Or blow chips on to grove.

Besides sharp blades, to avoid problem mentioned by jd, it is important the anvil(a bock of metal the blades go past in the feeder shoot) be adjusted to correct clearance, on mine the clearance is 1/16th inch max. This will be set when chipper is new, but should be checked every few times you change the blades. Buy extra blades. I get spare blades sharpened by a machinist, when I can, the blades last longer, get sharper.

edit

Sage dependable advice!

In brief bullet points,

* Clearance: tight
* Blades: sharp
* Disc or drum
* Flails? Fail
* Safety: hydraulic feed
* More power! (ar ar ar ar! )

only slightly off topic, have ya'll seen this?

http://rmirror.net/r/videos/comments/qwct7/one_of_the_most_powerful_shredders_on_earth/

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God Bless,

Matthew

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Genesis 2:8 And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there He put the man whom He had formed.

Look up bamboo valley in Oregon USA. Shoot daine an email from there about his experience with chippers. He tried several, and found one that worked well, I remember seeing it, it was a big tow behind unit, but I don't remember what make or why he settled on that one on particular.

My current chipper is a Brush Bandit model 90 disc chipper. It has a 50 hp Perkins. Works fine with bamboo. With wood, I change the blades about every 20 hours. With bamboo, we used it recently for 5 hrs and it was getting dull. All of the commercial ones I have seen are mounted on trailers.

Thanks for all the useful advice guys, certainly helped. I'll have a look around and see what might be available here in Northern Thailand that would be suitable for the job, I'm sure I'll be able to find something. Cheers

Dependable, that chipper looks great not sure if its slightly overkill for what we need, but it can be mounted. I'll see if there are any suppliers in the region and cost one up.

I'm sure it would be overkill, both in power and cost. I mainly have to chip trees, and for that mine is a medium sized unit. For bamboo, even thick culmed stuff, you should be able to get by with a smaller commercial model. There are some that run off a tractor pto, if you have a tractor around for other parts of operation.