Old Chipper Shredder MTD 243.650

Feeling a little crazy, I bought an old MTD shredder (Model 243.650) About 1975, I think. Tearing it down, while it has a chute for feeding branches, I found that it had no blades. It relies on "flails" to simply beat the wood into submission. A couple of these are broken. They are only 1/4" steel and I can make replacements. Question: Am I wasting my time? I suspect this is only good for leaves, pine needles etc.

https://www.manualslib.com/manual/107331/Mtd-243-650.html

I have an old unit and it has two chutes - one for leaves and the other for branches - on opposite sides of the flywheel. It has flays on the leaf side and large chunks of steel (blades) that are bolted to the flywheel on the branch side. If yours only has flays its likely just a "leaf shredder and I wouldn't be putting anything much larger than 1/4" in there.

While looking through YouTube, I saw a couple like yours. Mine has two chutes but both are on the same side of the flywheel. "Branches" would be fed in from the rear, your branch chute should be on the "front", by the engine. I think you are right, I have a leaf shredder. Well, I've got a barn, there is always room.

hi faust , why would you spend 15 hours trying to shred stuff , when you could put it in a 55 gallon drum and burn it in 15 minutes ? just thinking about your time ? ronnie

So you can't use it for people ala Fargo? If not, what good it is?

If this is the manual for the OP's machine, it looks like part #56 in the exploded view is the chipper blade. Maybe it didn't get put back in after some previous work.

I had this for a number of years. It worked great when I lived in the suburbs on a large lot. I could shred leaves and small branches and compost all my yard debris. But when I moved to a 3 acre place it was way too small. I'd have to stand there all day feeding branches one by one into it. So I put it up for sale on CL and a guy showed up in a few hours and gave me some cash for it. All depends what you're trying to do.

I can burn the other stuff.

I see you are also from the people's republic, I'm surprised you don't know. Plus with women having cell phones, as the police say, "every car is a cruiser" I have a 55 gallon drum, if I am not very cautious about smoke, the fire department shows up. The law says no "open burning", but after they show up with a couple of fire engines, they can't just say "sorry" and leave. Last year, I was clearing a 3/4 acre lot to sell. "Every car is a cruiser" and the police showed up 28 times. It kept being reported that I was stealing wood from the City. They wasted my time demanding a deed, etc and got pretty obnoxious. The "deed" reads 35 acres, and does not account for parcels "taken" for streets, power lines, and all. They couldn't read a map. It had a separate tax bill, so I ended up going to City Hall to get the "field card" to prove it was mine. That's where I learned it was women calling the City to report I was stealing city wood. The City Hall people didn't know what to do, so they called the police. 28 times!

Back to the point, I bought my machine at a yard sale for $25.00. Didn't realize it wasn't a real "chipper" with knives, until I pulled it down. Now wondering if it is worth keeping.

That is crazy. I burn dead branches several times a week during spring and fall. We have about 100 trees on our property and they are always dropping branches. Having the cops show up every time I tried to clean up my property would be very irritating.

We are allowed "open burning' for brush from January to April. It is a little hard to burn brush when it is covered with snow. I have to pile it up, cover it with a tarp and wait for the right month. I also have plenty of trees.

hi faust , yes I also burn in a barrell every week , all year long in taxachusetts . . a HUGE 275 gallon oil tank 5 feet tall , with 1 end cut open plus a few 4x4 air holes . fire dept won't even come to my place any more when they get a call . it's a CONTAINED fire , with everything inside and nothing anyone can do about it . if that mtd had blades like a troy-bilt it would be 1 thing . but a flail just lets stuff get wrapped inside and shread stuff . way too slow to process your yard waste. sell it . Time is Money ! Ronnie

You have a better FD than I do. The last time, they caught me burning large cardboard boxes. Gave me hell because if I had driven them across town to the city's cardboard dump, the city could have gotten money for them. Yeah, maybe a nickel. As you say, time is money. The City has contracted with Waste Management, now we have more trash laws than you can imagine. If you have time on your hands, Google Waste Management, Inc. "criminal activities".

iI have a chipper/shredder like that but the one with 2 chutes and from the 90s. I burn big branches but if there's a lot of small stuff it's easier to drag the chipper out to get rid of it that way and dump what comes out over the trails then collect it and move it to the burn pile. Some stuff it's easier to bag and dump it in the burn pile.

I live in Illinois, out here in the sticks. In our town, we can't really burn anything, the only fire you can have has to be in a container or fire pit and is supposed to be used to "prepare food." If you have a fire, you better be cooking hot dogs. In the county, outside of town, you can only burn things that are from your property, and they get pretty picky about that as well, especially with the people just outside of the city limits.

We are suppose to drag tree limbs and branches to the street, within a couple of days after a storm and the city sends a truck around to pick it up. You are also suppose to rake your leaves to he street and they come by and vacuum them up, hopefully before the wind blows them back into your yard. Burning leaves is an automatic fine, and burning a big pile you get to pay for the fire department call to extinguish it as well. A few years ago they tried to pass a law where they wanted to fine you if you didn't rake your leaves to the street. That pretty well ended when someone pushed back "Mother nature dumped them there, she can clean them up." and it held up in court. The new people in charge of town have eased up on enforcing some of the laws, but its pretty inconsistent, a lot of it depends on who you are.

And I thought I had it bad. I will say the vacuum is a better deal. We have to bag them and carry them out to the street. No fine if you do nothing. I'm old enough that I still think fall should smell like burning leaves.

I bought a cheap electric one from Harbor Freight for small branches, its ok but the branches have to be pretty small or it jams up. Most of the time I just throw the branches in my pickup and take them to the town " recycling center " about three miles away. I wish my town vacuumed up the leaves as bagging them is a pain in the behind. Word has it that years ago my town used to vacuum them up but a town employee sucked up a small dog years ago and that was the end of that, don't know if its true or not. My property is small only 80x100 with quite a few trees so I get many leaves, I found that blowing and raking them into a large pile then going over them with my lawnmower greatly reduces the size of the pile and amount of bags I need. Some of my neighbors have like 15-20 bags of leaves out for pickup , since I " mulch" mine up with the lawnmower I only have 5-6.