Whisper Chipper Blade Removal

I don't know if I am posting this in the right spot if not please move this to the right area thanks.. I have been working on a Whisper Chipper by Asplundh and I need to replace the blades on it. I have all the allen head screws out and just cant get the dam wedge that holds the blade to budge. Any body have any ideas?? Were going to try some heat but don't know if there is anything behind the drum tht could be damaged. I'm stuck any help would be much appreciated. Thanks. Bob

Anyone???

I know nothing about your chipper, but I would imagine the blade would be stuck from tree sap. Unless you chip dry wood? A big smack with a big hammer. Repeat as required. muzy :beatsme

I have owned the same chipper it had a 300ci ford straight six petrol engine.

There is an extra hole in the wedge holding the knives you need to put one of the bolts in that and do it up till it pops the wedge out.

Put the long bolt in the short bolt hole and screw it in until it pops the the Blade locking wedge up.

Thanks Guys. Case I never would of got that. I beat the crap out of the wedge with no luck but i will deffinatly do that. I bet the impact would make lite work of that. Also those blade adjuster screws dont need to be backed off or anything right?? Yes it does have the ford L6 its a powerfull little motor. I have new blades comming in any advice on setting them I have read all these different ways to adjust and I am totally lost. Any little tricks you picked up?? Thanks.

The blade adjusters are there to set the distance between knife edge and the anvil,Best to find out the correct clearance.

proper knife sharpening is critical with these machines.

Ok Thanks I appreciate all the help. Hopefully I get the blades soon we are comming up on summer here so we need everything up and running. Thanks Again Bob.

chuck

case, I also just bought a whisper chipper.....I need to sharpen/replace my blades......Q: Where did you get your blades?
Thanks

ok i dont have a gas or diesel powered chipper , but we do have a precision 6 blade 150 hp electric chipper ... ill get chpruitt a addy to see prices from guys we get knifes from.... also bigbobt the pockets that hold the knifes make sure you scraped them out clean .. and you need to call whisper chipper and ask for anvil,, blade clearance and ours is .016 but its not whisper sorry ...we resharpen our own knifes . ill get some pics

chpruitt said:

case, I also just bought a whisper chipper.....I need to sharpen/replace my blades......Q: Where did you get your blades?
Thanks

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This looks like page 5 out of the Asplundh JEX series chipper manual. In 1992 Their address was Asplundh Manufacturing Division
1550 Asplundh Avenue
Creedmoor, NC. 27522

Since then they might have sold the chipper end of their business.

Orville - case9030b and truecountry,

Thanks a lot..... I think I can make it now...... What a good site!

http://www.sawandknife.com/.... i hope this helps

I have a 12"drum Asplundh chipper. The blades, I get them from Bandit Industries, 4 for 125.00 free shipping but I need some help! I put them in but it's not chipping right. I have to push in the branch for it to chip.Looking at the chips, they look thin. Can anybody help me ? Adjustment should be 1/32 from bed bar. I think its too close or maybe need new bar. I did turn the bar to a better edge. Maybe its the floor plate? Any help?

mark609 said:

I have a 12"drum Asplundh chipper. The blades, I get them from Bandit Industries, 4 for 125.00 free shipping but I need some help! I put them in but it's not chipping right. I have to push in the branch for it to chip.Looking at the chips, they look thin. Can anybody help me ? Adjustment should be 1/32 from bed bar. I think its too close or maybe need new bar. I did turn the bar to a better edge. Maybe its the floor plate? Any help?

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This is exactly what my altec whisper chipper is doing. We are now in the process of adjusting the knives to the correct gap of .030 because they had huge gaps of 1/4 to 3/8" so I believe that's whats causing my problem. However so far we have only been able to loosen out 3 out of 8 knife adjustment screws, they're all frozen/corroded in. Any tricks for these? We've tried heat/ air hammer etc.. Did you ever get yours running right?

Hey guys mine was doing the same....I removed bladed, got them sharpened and reinstalled them. I used a hack saw blade to gap them (I read that on here somewhere). I fired it up and said "Do or Die" and fed a 6-7" log in it and it gobbled it up like nothing. When I removed my blades, they had a large gap of over an eighth of an inch and I had to push to get anything through it. Now it actually pulls it in. I don't understand how it does it because there is no feeder on it. All I know is it works fine now..........

Good to hear it works after that. That has to be what my feed problem is also, gaps too big. Now if I can just figure out how to get the rest of the adjustment screws to move. I don't think these have been adjusted in quite some time and usually the heat gets things moving but in this case it hasn't so far. The drum is such a big piece of steel it just sucks up all the heat. We've gone thru a few 3/8" allen heads now trying to turn them out..

You guys have better luck than I do with the machine eating a piece of wood. I have mine adjusted like the picture posted, don't see how you can adjust the floor plate, pressure bar or cutter bar to make the machine eat six inch diameter wood. My 12" asplundh is powered by a four cylinder ford industrial and it eats two inch green wood, maybe two and a half. It doesn't like dry wood but will eat it with some persuasion. The dry wood is hard on knives. I am not sure what the engine RPM's are 2200? Even a long bushy two inch piece will lug the engine down, so I cut them shorter. The branches are gone in seconds. I know what the machine will take and cut the branches accordingly. I heat with wood so I use anything larger than two inches, sometimes smaller for food for the boiler. So I have no desire to chip anything larger than two inches. Asplundh made a good chipper and will treat you well if you take care of it. Set the engine RPM's to manufactures speck's. Keep your knives sharp and make sure they are all the same size. The drum has to be balanced. If the bearings in the chipper head get worn out they get hot, the heat goes into the shaft and crystallizes it, and then one day the shaft will break on you.

When Mobark came out with the Eager beaver back in the early eighty's it was powered with roughly the same four cylinder ford industrial engine that I have. The Eager beaver would eat larger wood maybe six, eight inch diameter ???? but it took awhile. The eager Beaver was a smaller version of Mobarks whole tree chipper that would eat around eighteen inches or so, maybe larger. if they were straight. It took awhile though. Some of the big Mobark's of the early years sixty,s and seventy,s were powered by a large Detroit.

I have a saw that I will post a picture of when I get a current picture. That is what I use to make long pieces shorter so they fit in the boiler. I posted a picture of it on another site a couple of years ago and got beat up by the safety police. Still have scars from the beating.

Good luck with your chipper.

Guys I am not in any way an expert on these things, as a matter of fact I am pretty dumb. I just read stuff on here and followed their advice and it worked. By the way my engine is a 300 cu. in. Ford and I run it around 3000 or 3500 rpm.
Good luck with removing those allen screws out.

I borrowed what i'm pretty sure is an Altec/Asplund ... it's an older unit and has a Ford 302 running it. The guy that owns it has no idea what it is. It sounds like one of the drum bearings is on its way out. Does anybody know what's involved in replacing them or have a parts picture/break down?

They are not that hard to replace. If the bearing got hot and the heat went into the shaft you might have a problem down the road. My machine is a 1960 or so version. I would bet the drum has not changed,much if any. Part is common sense remove your knives, take off belt guard and sheve. Other side take off flywheel guard and flywheel. Flywheel is a bear to get off. The taper lock that holds the flywheel to the shaft does not like to release the flywheel. And yes there are three threaded holes in the taper lock to put the bolts in you removed that were threaded into the flywheel. You thread them into the taper lock and put pressure against the flywheel. You can tighten them so tight that you will break the taper lock (ruin it) and still not release the flywheel. I was told by an Asplundh service dealer to take a sledge hammer and hit the flywheel in the opposite direction that it comes off the taper lock. That did not make sense to me so I ran in the bolts and put pressure on the flywheel. I used two oxygen/acetylene torches with a #15 tip and heated up the flywheel. I would use a couple of propane rose buds today with the high cost of acetylene. As the flywheel got hot I would increase the pressure on the three bolts until it came loose. Now you have the bearing caps on the side of the head. Remove bolts and thread bolts into the threaded holes to remove caps from chipper head. Now comes the fun part. You are not going to get those bearings out without a cutting torch. Next you will need a sky hook. If you don't have one of those a strong overhead beam that will support a thousand pounds or so will work. Do not know what that drum weighs but it is heavy. A cubic foot of steel weights 520 pounds.

Put a strap or chain on the ends of the shaft and hook the chain in the center to a hoist that is connected to the overhead beam. Once the hoist is tightened up take the torch and cut the balls out of the bearings. Next be real careful and cut the inner races off the shaft, and the outer races out of the housing. The new bearings go on a lot better than they come off. I did mine back in 94 or so and the bearings then cost $125.00 or so each.

I may have left a few things out because it has been a long time since I changed the bearing in my machine.
To chip larger wood you need to have the knives extend out of the drum farther. I can not find any measurement for that distance. Chip bigger wood and it is harder on the machine. They made that new style chipper for a reason. My guess would be chipping large wood in this style machine was too hard on it.