Lee Harps

DISCLAIMER: Unless you are in the market for an electric shredder, you may want to skip this article. This is a consumer’s review that I wish I had been able for me to review PRIOR to having purchased the item above.

As I gazed upon the very haphazard, unsightly bits of cornstalks still partially standing in my garden, their numbers having been reduced by our neighbor’s annual “decorate the porch for Halloween” harvesting, I began looking for ways an older person might deal with the brown, bedraggled cornstalks that remained. Gasoline powered chippers and shredders are quite expensive and also unpleasantly noisey! As with so many things, my quest led me to an Internet search and I came upon the McCulloch Electric Chipper/Shredder shown above. There are a few reviews out there from which I learned: 1) the assembly instructions are “marginal at best”, 2) when attempting to shred wet material it tends to become stopped up and needs to be disassembled for cleaning, and 3) removal of the hopper for cleaning out the unit can be a bit tedious.
Perhaps I am not as mechanically challenged as some, but I found the assembly to be fairly straightforward with one minor exception. If you look at the way the tubular “legs” meet the body of the unit, you will see that they come in at an angle.

The bolts and bolt holes, on the other hand, must be inserted thru straight holes.

Getting the only-long-enough bolts and lock washers started on the first side were really easy. Doing so on the other side with the legs angled was another story. After some determination, the legs were finally firmly attached. (Advice: Only START the nuts on the first side, then START the nuts on the other side, THEN tighten them up.)
I think the greatest surprise for me was the feeding chute at the top. On all the photos, it appears to be a rather large funnel into which one simply dumps the leaves and debris, leaving the work to the machine. Look again:

What it has is a VERY small, VERTICAL opening, probably 1.5 x 5 inches in size above which is an oval opening with a self-closing flap. NOTHING is going to enter the chopping chamber on its own; one must PUSH any material into the chopper! This is made somewhat easier by an item that is included with the unit: a plastic PUSHER.

Using both hands, one can work (emphasis on “work”) the material into the chamber. Once in the chamber, the revolving blades do their thing (shown here with the hopper chamber removed).

Let me tell you about those blades: Those babies are SHARP!! On one of my first times having had to remove the hopper to clear away the jammed up debris, I casually cleared the material laying on the blade by sweeping it off with my bare hand. Bad decision! I am currently typing with a band aid on my 4th finger right hand because of it. I bleed well! It was THEN that I went for my gloves. I suppose a little blood letting isn’t all bad….

Here’s the story with hopper removal: There are three black, plastic knobs which hold the hopper in place. The one is located on the rear of the unit, just above the power switch.

This is probably the most important one, because under the threaded black metal gizmo projecting into the yellow hole is a safety switch. This switch is activated ONLY when the knob is screwed all the way in. The unit will not power up unless it is screwed all the way in.

There are two UNSWITCHED knobs, one on either side of the hopper, which stabilize the hopper, especially when one tilts the unit forward to roll it about on the wheels. Once assembly was completed, I could not, for the life of me, get these side knobs to screw into the holes provided for them. They are spring loaded and I discovered that a split lock-washer had been installed ABOVE the silver washer, thus preventing the bolts from extending far enough to reach the holes. I unscrewed knobs from their housing, removed the split washer (shown), reassembled them, and all was fine.

There is a discharge chute on the side of the shredder opposite the power switch. On it is a label stating clearly: NEVER PLACE HANDS INTO DISCHARGE CHUTE AS SERIOUS INJURY WILL OCCUR.

I’m sure I have voided any chances I have of getting the McCulloch folks to support me for the rest of my life, having admitted this, but I was soon to discover that, if instead of loosening THREE screws, cutting my finger on the sharp blades, and losing time reassembling the unit, if I simply turned off the power switch, reached up into the “DO NOT ENTER” chute (with GLOVED hand) and removed stuck debris, spinning the cutter wheel till it was clear, I could be back in operation in a fraction of the time required for disassembly.

One must remember, however, that even stopped, one is reaching into the sharp blades, so it is imperative that one proceeds with extreme caution. It made use of the unit SO much easier, however!

Just to give you a couple of more photos of the shredder, here is the big label attached to the hopper.

As you can see on the label, it has a 14 amp., 1600 watt motor that spins the blades. It should not be operated with a wimpy power cord.

Here is what the underside of the chute looks like when removed (sorry it was dirty from use when I took the photo):

It has nice wheels and wheel “hubcaps” which carry the McColloch name.

Here is the side chute for inserting branches. I only tried this on a few branches, but while not as aggressive nor as fast as would be a larger unit, I think it does okay.

Price? This unit lists at $320, a bit more than I was willing to pay. I found it now being offered on Amazon for a mere $199.99 — actually with Amazon being the agent for Target – it arrived from a Target warehouse near here. It’s a pretty substantial unit, weighing in at 87 pounds!
Is it worth $200? Probably not. It is a pretty McCulloch yellow, though, and I would really like to try it in the spring when I trim my fruit trees, just as an alternative to making bundles of my branches for the garbage folks. It really isn’t a workhorse and is more of a “toy for townies”, if you don’t mind my saying so. Being so vertical, it stores rather easily in my garden shed without taking up much space. Will I keep it? Probably so, but I was careful to keep the shipping box just in case….

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 12th, 2006 at 7:02 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.