Wen 41121 15-Amp Rolling Electric Wood Chipper and Shredder

First of all, I am very happy with this product and how it performs... I bought the WEN 41130 Chipper and Shredder four months ago to replace a 5-HP beast of a chipper that got to be too much for me. The WEN works really well for what I now need to maintain our property. It works entirely differently than the gas unit. The gas powered chipper didn't need to be sharp it just used brute force to knock everything to pieces. The WEN is much lower torque but high speed and requires sharp blades and is more of a finesse machine. I managed to get some small gravel in with my branches when I first got it and that was the end of my work period. The gravel immediately dulled the blades and presto, no more chipping until it got new blades. But its easy to change blades. It takes me about 20 minutes and they're reasonably priced. They last pretty long, but you don need to have them in stock as they will get dull even with clean use. So now I'm very careful about what gets in. Of course it's slower than my old beast but is so light and needs no oil or gas, and doesn't weigh a ton. It does what it says it will in terms of what it can chip. It doesn't however like really twisty or wood with big turns. They won't feed well. for me it works just right and the price is amazing given the really smart design. I have several WEN tools and I'm happy with them all.

This chipper is awesome. It was a breeze to set up, and it is a lot of fun to operate. I have a large buckthorn thicket on my property, and this machine has been chewing it up effortlessly. It's perfect for all the brambly branches. It turns everything into a nice mulch perfect for spreading on gardens.

Works extremely well when used for what it's designed for. Put in sticks that are dry and between half inch and an inch and a half and makes great wood chips for mulching. Freshly cut green wood doesn't work well and not designed for leaves and etc. Overall performance is good. Only reason I'm giving four stars instead of five is because the plastic seems flimsy.

I've had this thing for six months now. I got it to chip windfall branches and creeper stems with which to make compost. It will chip seasoned sticks up to 3/4", but it jams up with anything green. When it jams up, shreds of wood wrap around the blade disk, and you have to remove the hopper and wrestle with the stuck debris to release it. Speaking of which, the release knob needs dozens of half-turns to open or close it, why couldn't the release not have a quarter turn catch that doesn't take several minutes to activate? So it takes hours to make about two gallons of chips, and it's mostly not chips. More than half the material you input ends up as long, split twigs that are not good for compost. Also, it does not take 1 1/2" sticks as advertised, unless the sticks are rotten to the consistency of cheese (domestic cheddar, not Parmesan) and straight as a ruler. This product is a joke. I am not using mine any more and it will probably soon go to the landfill. I discovered that tree contractors will deliver a load of chips (maybe 10 cubic yards or more) for free, that would be all the chips I'll ever need. For composting purposes, I discovered that you can make biochar using all sizes of waste wood. You can use timbers as wide as three inches, just chop them to 2-foot lengths with a chainsaw, and split them with an ax if they are too big to char totally. The resultant biochar is perfect size chips, and they have micropores which shelter the sort of bacteria you need in your compost, they also absorb any harmful gases like methane or ammonia produced in the compost, and they sequester the carbon for hundreds of years, while also doing the job wood chips do, i.e. creating spaces in the compost for air to circulate and be available for benevolent bugs. In other words, you don't need this stupid machine, and you can save yourself large gobs of time and frustration by not buying one. I'd give this zero stars if possible. Also, the plastic plunger that is supposed to push items down is fragile. Mine is repaired with duck tape. UPDATE: After reading some of the reviews, I decided to try removing and reversing the blades. A standard 6MM allen key did not work. It was impossible to exert enough force under the blade guard. I tried a t-handle driver, which usually works for recalcitrant screws, also didn't work. I was contemplating drilling out the screw heads and using a counter-screw extractor. This would probably require replacement screws for over $20. Eventually I used an allen key with a handle attachment providing leverage on the short side while allowing use of the long side of the L-shaped key, rising above the blade guard. Those screws are torqued in extremely tight at the factory. One assumes this is to avoid liability if a blade detaches at 4000 rpm and causes injury. Which begs the question: why doesn't the manufacturer provide the proper torque setting so I can keep the same level of safety as per the original manufacturer. Let alone how to get a torque wrench with an Allen adapter into the small space available. I ended up tightening it up as hard as I could. When I fired it up with the blade reversed, it did better, but there were still plenty of long split twigs needing to be sorted out. Incidentally, the screw heads had a lot of debris in them, which prevented the Allen key making a good fit. I had to clean out the heads with a small brush and some alcohol. And I also put some WD40 on the screws the day before. They say that the blades can be sharpened, but the damage to the used cutting edge looks quite deep and there might not be enough case-hardened meat left on the core steel to properly sharpen the blade. [Update] I got that free delivery of wood chips from a local tree surgeon, so the 12 cubic yards is a lifetime supply, and I can always get another truckload if I run out. My windfall wood now gets made into biochar, so this wood chipper is retired and taking up room in my shed until I figure out how to recycle it or reuse the parts. Imho the thing is built down to a price with the cheapest possible components, so there's probably not much in there with any reuse value. I will say that this wood chip delivery is about 50 wheelbarrow loads so it will take a while to move it from my front lawn to a corner to store it in the back, but it's excellent exercise.

Wow! For the price this little electric chipper can do the work. I have a small backyard orchard and had LOTS of smaller branches that needed chipping and this handled it all. As long as the branches fit in the hole this will handle it easily. You can't stuff it full and expect results. So, patience is key to feeding it moderately. Also let the machine grab and pull the branches down into it. No need to push them down in there, if you do you will jam the machine. Easy and convenient to use, light weight. Can wheel it around my entire yard. Noisey, so ear protection is a good idea. Cut quality is excellent.

Something Finally Worth 5 Stars! It came the next day! It was very well packaged. It went together in about 5 minutes. It started immediately! I ran it for two hours nonstop (except for five minutes to clean out the hopper once) working on a huge pile of branch trimmings and it worked perfectly. I then mulched the entire garden with my chipper’s output. It’s strong and durable, as well as light to carry. The push stick works great but most of the time the branches were self fed. Excellent safety features. I’m impressed. I can highly recommend. UPDATE! So, I'll admit that the second time I went to start up this chipper, I half expected it not to work not because of anything that happened the first time I used it, but because so much stuff out there works once and that's it. Well, I'm happy to say that not only did it start right up on Day 2, this thing is a glutton for work. I ran it for 2 non-stop hours until I ran thought a pile of sticks from trimming all the bushes in my yard and picking up the sticks from the neighbor's tree. It works great! It takes pretty big sticks (no bigger than what the instructions say) and chomps through them like they weren't even there. In fact, it loves the big ones. It like they clean it out the inside! The drier the sticks, the better. Trim off the side sticks as close to the main branch as you can so you don't have to try to twist it through the system, but if something gets stuck, the push through wand works great and lets you keep all your digits if you are. partial to them. They do help for counting to 10 without having to remove one's shoes and socks first! If you have any side sticks from the main branch, you'll find bits of small sticks in with the wood chips, but I kind of like them as they're biodegradable. Mother nature rocks! It makes its own stuff recyclable . But, if it's a dry stick, you'll end up with some great wood-like chips of a variety of small sizes to fit nicely around the garden plants better than the "mulch" from Lowes and Home Depot where the wood chips either float away or are so large you can't see the plants. In other words, I love this thing! Oh, I don't use the bag that came with the chipper for live chipping. It's a nice bag, but sharp pointy stuff tears through most every type of bag. So, I use a small Amazon box for collecting the chips and then I put the bag on to help prevent any leftover debris leaving a trail as I walk through the house to the garage or walking on the sidewalk to the garage as when my wife is home she reminds me she prefers I don't bring electric or gas-powered tools through the house. I hook the bag to the side clips and run the cord through the handles to hold it on. OH, again, the clip to hold the push-through tool doesn't hold very securely (I think). So, I put the tool in the opening in the handle. It will fall out there, too, if you turn the chipper upside down, but it stays in place during normal use and it keeps you from having to put it in your front pocket and having people ask you all day, "Are you happy to see me or is that the push-through tool that goes with the chipper?" I don't mind the questions, really. I've met a lot of nice people although the amount of drive-through and walk-through traffic in the neighborhood seems to be increasing quite a bit. Everyone wants to see my chipper and if I have the push-through tool in my pocket or on the chipper handle, I guess. I don't blame them. I love my chipper and my tool both! They both work incredibly well and result in tremendously satisfying experiences of jobs well done.

I was honestly surprised how well this little guy worked to turn my bamboo into tiny chunks, but it kept getting clogged up. Every five minutes or so we'd need to open it up and pull out all the shavings and twigs. It might be the smaller shoots off the bamboo that are clogging it up, but a full-sized chipper certainly wouldn't have an issue with it. I'll likely be returning it as it doesn't work for my specific needs, but if you have normal branches it might actually work well for you.

I am cutting a line of trees in the back of my yard, I have about 5 piles like this so far and many more to go! (larger than they look in the picture) and each one makes about a 1/2 bag or so of chips like in the bag in about 1/2 hr of steady use - this is MUCH easier than bundling them for the trash pick up. I am using this mainly for the smaller (under about an inch) branches and bundling the thickest ones for pickup or just putting them in the trash bin. I did try a couple of 1 1/2 thick branches and it will shred them but it is slow going. This machine is absolutely worth the money! arrived quickly and did the job easily. As others have said, I cut the branches into about 4 ft lengths (was getting ready to bundle them for trash pickup anyway) removed most of the side branches and they fed great - you're not going to be able to feed them whole most of the time smaller side branches can be left on but its much easier if you just use a set of pruners as you pile them up - its a small shredder if you have reasonable expectations it is a great tool to have around for cleanups. DO get safety glasses, gloves and maybe a set of ear plugs it does spin the branches around and smack you in the face occasionally if you're not careful!!! and pretty loud while running. ---Oh and the book has a couple of "jokes" in it - kinda funny......