On 11/08/2019 11:52, Chris Hogg wrote:
On Sun, 11 Aug 2019 11:19:11 +0100, Michael Chare
wrote:

Anyone got any experience of electric garden shredders that can cut wood
up to 40mm diameter. Are these devices much good? There are a number
of makes any recommendations?

I have a Bosch ATX-25 TC shredder, one of these
https://tinyurl.com/y5nfm6ms , which claims to be able to shred
branches up to 45mm, although IME that might be a touch optimistic,
but not a lot. I am reasonably pleased with it. If I have any
criticisms they are that you can't immediately see how full the
collector is getting, and it can be a little awkward to remove it for
emptying when it is full. The so-called 'turbine' cutter does
sometimes get bunged up with hard shreddings, necessitating a complete
halt in the proceedings while the cover is opened up and the turbine
cleared.

It replaced an earlier Bosch shredder with a corkscrew-type blade,
that couldn't handle such large branches, and anyway the blade had
become chipped over the years. But it had an open discharge that you
simply put a bucket under, much simpler and easier than the ATX-25.

Anything bigger than 40mm I either take directly to the dump for their
green waste recycling skip, of just pile it up in an unobtrusive
corner of the garden to house beetles or other bug life.


I have an earlier version which IIRC was rated to 35 mm although 30 is
more realistic. Mine is the "noisy" design which has a flymo-like blade.
They get through stuff at an amazing rate until the blade gets blunt, at
which point you reverse it. I have never had any success at
re-sharpening because they have an induction-hardened edge and once that
is gone, the blade is dead.

These are a lot cheaper than the "trade" type which have gear-like
cutters. I reckon they are fine for domestic use but if I was in the
trade I would not touch them because you could get through several sets
of blades in a day. (The price would not be the issue, rather the time
wasted changing them).