[klunker]

OK, so I've got a Woodmaxx 8800 that I have had for about 3 years. Have about 40 hrs on it.

My issue is this.
The blades getting dull. I run the chipper till it gets to the point that it won't pull stuff in to chip. The infeed roller just "spins" on the wood. I have to help by pushing the wood thru. And pushing pretty hard at that. The seems to happen all at once. It'll be chipping fine then the next branch goes much harder.

So at that point I'll pull it apart and change the blades, both the blades on the flywheel and the on the infeed bed.
When I look at the blades I don't think they are very dull. I mean you really have to look at them to see a degradation at the cutting edge. I have decades of experience in tooling. I have seen cutting edges that cut steel in way worse shape than these blades that were still working, and these are just cutting wood.

Another thing is the Stainless plate that lays below the infeed roller, on top of the infeed side of the bed knife. Why does it it lay on top of the bed knife? When you tighten it down it bends the plate. Why not just make it shorter so it butts up to the bed knife? It would still sit above the bed knife and not stop anything sliding in.

I got to thinking about these 2 things today as i was chipping away. And I came up with the following. I think the blades aren't dull but the bed knife has worked its way away from the flywheel knives and the cutting cln'ce has increased too much for it to cut efficiently. This fits in with the plate laying on top of the bottom knife. Maybe it lays like that to help keep the bed knife from sliding back. My plate shows signs that the bed blade has pushed back and dug a ridge in the bottom of the plate. The mark is not the same as just being tightened down on the bed knife.

I guess I'm going to make a call to woodmaxx Tuesday and see if I can have a discussion with someone in the technical side of things.
And next time it starts cutting poorly I'm going to check the cl'nce between the bed and the flywheel knives and see if the bed knife has moved.

Any other woodmaxx 8800 users have anything to say about the look of dull blades, length of time the blades last before a change is req'd or any of my other observations?

 

[mussermike]

I have the woodmax as well with 40 hours on it. My first set of blades got dull at 10 hours. Everything you described in having to push the branches in with force was happening to me. I turned the blades around and everthing was back to normal ( i have the usa made dual blades). Then at 25 hours i changed them again. I probably didn't need too but i figured i will changed then every 15 hours. I think it is all about what type of wood your chipping, is it dirty or clean, is it green or dried out ect. If your first blade change was at 40 hours, i think that is pretty impressive.

2032r gen1

 

[Kennyd]

We have only about 8 hours on ours, so I can't help much.

 

[Bubber]

I'm opening mine up today to do maintenance and check the blades. I'll try to post some pics.

Commenting, so I don't forget to come back

 

[klunker]

I have the woodmax as well with 40 hours on it. My first set of blades got dull at 10 hours. Everything you described in having to push the branches in with force was happening to me. I turned the blades around and everthing was back to normal ( i have the usa made dual blades). Then at 25 hours i changed them again. I probably didn't need too but i figured i will changed then every 15 hours. I think it is all about what type of wood your chipping, is it dirty or clean, is it green or dried out ect. If your first blade change was at 40 hours, i think that is pretty impressive.

2032r gen1

No, sorry if I wasn't clear. I have changed the blades maybe 4-6 times. So about 6-8 hrs per change. I use Woodmaxx's blades.

I chip anything from older somewhat punky Aspen to year old Ironwood. I can chip Aspen as big as I can fit in the thing without a worry. Especially if its been laying down for over a year or two. Ironwood about 2 inches on fresh blades. I doubt if I was chipping just Ironwood the blades would last more than 2-3 hrs. So I stay away from Ironwoood, Hickory and Maple unless it less than 2" or its been down for more than 3-4 years.

 

[klunker]

I'm opening mine up today to do maintenance and check the blades. I'll try to post some pics.

Commenting, so I don't forget to come back

If your wear is like mine it'll be VERY hard to catch it on camera. Its hard to see with the naked eye in good light.

Check the clearance between the bed knife and the flywheel knives. Should be according to Woodmaxx be at .020-.030. I set mine using a .022 feleler gage. Then check the other knife on the flywheel and its usually about .002 bigger or smaller depending upon which kinife I use to set it from. So my flywheel isn't perfectly square with the bed knife, its off about .002. That's is nothing to worry about so I set it like I mentioned.

 

[klunker]

We have only about 8 hours on ours, so I can't help much.

That's about how long my blades will last. They seem to go from cutting good to not cutting at all in a big hurry. A matter of a couple of minutes I'd say.
What are you chipping?

I've seen mentioned using the chips as method of telling if the blades are dull. In my use I find this very hard to do. It depends greatly on the fact that you'd have to be chipping the same stuff for the whole time. I don't have just one type of stuff that I can chip for over 6-8 hours at a time. I figure I get about 1 1/2 yards of chips at best for 1/2 hr of chipping. That requires a big pile of stuff with the chipper going constantly.

 

[Barnes]

I have 12 hours on the 9900 that I got last year, and still working fine so far. Only feeding issues have happened while feeding balsam deadfall into the unit: Very hard wood, with lots of extremely strong horizontal branches that won’t fold back like branches on other trees.

Since I have not yet had to change the knives on mine, just curious as to how big of a job this will be and how long it will take?

 

[klunker]

How long to change blades? how big of a job is it?

On a 8800 you have to raise up the feed roller, I use a pry bar and hold it up with a couple blocks of wood.
remove side panel, 4 small nuts.
remove plate below infeed roller, 4 1/4" fhcs.
remove bed blade, 3 10mm fhcs
open cover over flywheel, 1 1/2 bolt
rotate flywheel and remove 2 blades, 4 10mm fhcs ea blade
I then clean up the blades, stone them off, clean and stone off flywheel in area where they mount
then reassemble everything.
When reassenbling the bed blade it needs to be shimmed to .020-.030 from the flywheel knives, pretty easy to do with 2 feeler gages, one on each end or the blade.
All the blades are torqued to 40-45ftlbs
Removing the fhcs is a pain cause the sockets are packed with chips/debris, you have to dig out the junk before you can get an allen wrench in them.

I would think anyone thats done a decent amount of wrenching could handle it.

As far as time, I'd say it takes me about 2-3 hrs or so. I'm in no rush. I clean, grease, and vac all the chips and junk up as I go thru it.

 

[klunker]

I called Woodmaxx this morning, got a answering machine, they claim they will call me back in 24-48 hrs.

Personally I wouldn't call that great customer service, 1-2 days to return a call.

But we'll see. Trouble with a return call is I'm not going to sit around waiting for the call so if they don't call when I'm in the house I'll have to call back and the game of phone tag will begin.

 

[Barnes]

Thanks Klunker.

I‘m not looking forward to doing this, even though I have opened my unit up partially last year while tracking down the problems that I first experienced right after delivery (as I reported elsewhere).

Even though I did find some initial quality problems with the unit I got, I have to say that the responsiveness and service that I got from Joel, their service manager, was rapid and outstanding, so I hope you have the same experience.

 

[klunker]

My 48 hrs passed without a call. Guess i'll have to call again Friday morning.

 

[Got2]

Never had much success getting a reply from Joel to my direct inquiry be it email or voice. Calling Sales has always been productive.
It would seem that Sales is the "gatekeeper". Once contact has been established I have found response to an issue to be more than satisfactory.