It's an old Craftsman. Apparently Sears made a million different models that all look the same. Mine still has the label on it, but the ink is faded and I can't read the model number.
It's hard as hell on my hands when I push branches into it. But I didn't buy it for branches. I bought it for cardboard.
Wife bought an "air convection fryer" the other day. Still in the box. The box is about 15" each way, a cube, single-layer cardboard. It came in a shipping box, corrugated cardboard, just big enough to hold the other box.
I cut the shipping box along the edges and cut the flaps off. The biggest piece is small enough to fit flat on the bottom of my utility sink. I plugged the drain, put a couple inches of water in the sink, and sunk the cardboard into it. [EDIT 26 April 2019: I'm no longer comfortable using the utility sink to soak cardboard. My impression is that the glue they use for making cardboard is a water-soluble glue. I started to worry about glue clogging the drain pipe. Dunno if it would, but I don't much like the risk.]
After a couple minutes I took out the cardboard one piece a time and rolled it up into a log. The logs came out about an inch in diameter, perfect for the shredder. I took an old coat hanger, cut off the hook, and cut the rest into four pieces each maybe 8 inches long. Bent each one to put a 1-inch hook on one end and a 2-inch Vee on the other.
I caught one of the cardboard logs in the Vee and hooked the hook on the old ClosetMaid shelving that's over the sink, to drip dry.
Needed one more coat hanger to hang up all my little cardboard logs. When the logs dry I'll set em aside, collect more, and run em through the chipper. Uh-oh.
Need a bag.
Update, 8 March 2019:
My cardboard logs were dry two days later. Maybe only one day, but I didn't check em.
[EDIT 26 April 2019: First of the hopper (big) instead of the chute (small) recently. Works great for the drop from hedge-trimming arborvitae and juniper landscape plants. Flat stuff slides in easy. So I'm thinkin about cutting my cardboard into flat pieces 6 or 8 inches wide instead of soaking and rolling em.]
The long ones (each from one 15"x15" square) are about 16" long and 1¼ (or so) diameter at the bulge near the middle. The short ones (each from two flaps) are 9 or 10 inches long and 1½ (or less) in diameter.
They take up a lot less space than the cardboard box did. Even after it was cut up. They'll go in the shredder better too.[EDIT The cardboard logs are WAY too short to hold onto after they're in the chute. Often, they jam the shredder and it runs slow for a minute and I just have to wait.]
Didn't shred em yet. Still need a bag.
Meanwhile... I keep them in a cardboard box!
Update, 12 March 2019:
Found some good-size burlap bags on amazon, four bags for $16, 24"x40" bags. No drawstring. (The bags with drawstrings are all way too small.)
I saw cheaper bags but they have a lighter shipping weight. I'm hoping more expensive and heavier shipping weight means heavier, stronger burlap.
Perimeter of the outflow opening from the shredder, about 34 inches. A bag 24" wide with a 1" hem, two sides @ 23", about 46" bag opening perimeter. A foot more than I need.
I'm thinkin to use a bungee cord to hold the bag in place. I can bunch up the extra burlap. Maybe I can bunch it up so it closes up any gaps due to shape of outlet.
If the bag slips out from under the bungee I'll fold over the burlap at the opening and hot glue 3" lengths of clothesline rope inside the fold, with 3" gaps between for bunching.
That's all I got.
[EDIT: The bag-and-bungee thing works great!]
Later, 12 March 2019:
Just finished rolling another batch of cardboard. Made hangers out of two more coat hangers. Everything's hangin up. [EDIT: Yeah, I'm gonna stop rolling cardboard, if wide flat strips go into the shredder easy.]
Apparently not all cardboard is created equal. The Amazon box that the 25-lb bag of dog food comes in seems to be thicker and tougher than the first box I rolled. In the photo you can see that the first ones were quite wrinkly. The Amazon dogfood box doesn't get wrinkly. They didn't want to stay rolled up, either. I soaked em for an extra half hour, and that helped. But it didn't help the first few I rolled today.
Couple days ago I rolled the thinwall box from a Schweppes 12-pack. That one was uncooperative. Didn't want to roll, and wouldn't stay rolled. I grabbed the cardboard tube from some paper towels and used the tube as a sleeve over the Schweppes roll. That worked! Gonna have to start saving those tubes now, too. PT and TP tubes, Jim calls em.
Oh, and the paper mache-lookin egg cartons that hold a dozen eggs? You don't need the shredder for them. Soak em, roll em, they fall apart. I threw them out. Think I'll try using egg cartons as seed trays this spring.
Hey, I'm retired. I have time for this. And when Christmas comes I'll be ready to turn all of those Amazon shipping boxes into garden mulch and worm food, I should live so long. Otherwise, I'll be the worm food.
Update, 13 March 2019:
The cardboard logs I rolled yesterday were dry enough this morning to take down and toss into my box of "ready-to-shred" cardboard. One-day drying.
To stop the "unrolling" while drying I can take another hanger and use the "vee" end to pinch and hold the log rolled up.
Update, 20 March 2019:
The days go by. It's a week since my last update!
I'm gonna have to be prepared to cut new cardboard boxes into flats right away when I get em. And soak-and-roll the flats into cardboard logs. So that cardboard doesn't pile up in the garage. And go down to the projects room every day to toss my drip-dried logs into the storage box.
When the storage box is full, it's time to drag the shredder out of the shed and run my cardboard logs thru it. [EDIT: Now I have the shredder, I have a reason to pick up twigs and stuff off the lawn. I'm keeping em in a big cardboard box in the shed. Gotta coordinate collection of shredables. A week or more often passes before I have enough stuff to drag out the shredder.
//
I did get some burlap bags. Didn't do anything with them yet. Oh, and the paper towel and toilet paper rolls I started saving do seem to add up quickly!
Our recycle bin now gets maybe 1/4 full in a week, instead of full full.
Later, 20 March 2019:
Oh, this is gonna work!
We have a river birch tree. River birches are always in the process of shedding bark. It's an interesting looking tree. But not only is it always shedding bark; it is also always losing branches. Not big ones, little ones: foot-long twigs, two foot, three foot at most, eh, maybe four. Half inch diameter or less. Nothing big.
But come the end of winter there can be a good lot of twiglets on the ground: under the tree, and beyond the tree in whatever direction a stiff wind was blowing. I spent an hour picking em up this morning. I got done, I evaluated the situation:
- I got twigs
- I got cardboard logs
- I got a shredder
- I even got a burlap bag to catch the shreddings
- and a bungee cord.
Not bad!
Sometimes it pulls the cardboard in too fast and can't handle it, and it wants to stall. But I find this doesn't happen if I run the briggs at full throttle. It'll be good if I can remember that.
