Portable Leaf "Grinder-Blower"

Portable Leaf Grinder-Blower FARM HOME Miscellaneous “It works twice as fast as most commercial leaf grinders and grinds material into tiny pieces that make great compost ” says Marvin Hechel Neshkoro Wis about the portable leaf grinder-blower he built from scratch     A 10 hp engine that belt-drives 2 different home-built cutting mechanisms as well as a blower fan powers the machine The first cutting mechanism is a chopper and the second a hammermill-type grinder     “The leaves come out of this machine in pieces about the size of oatmeal ” says Hechel     He uses a home-built trailer to dump leaves into a big pile next to the leaf grinder and then shovels them into an opening at the top The leaves fall onto a 3-ft long 8-in wide conveyor belt which drops them into a chopper equipped with a series of steel blades that rotate on a shaft “The chopper fractures the leaves and also smashes any garden waste that I put in such as sweet corn stalks before they reach the grinder ” says Hechel     The chopper delivers the leaves into the grinder which consists of a series of 2-in wide steel plates off an old hay disc mower mounted on another shaft Hechel drilled 100 1-in dia holes into the plates and also welded small metal discs onto them “The plates rotate on the shaft at about 3 000 rpm’s and keep shaving the leaves down until the ground-up pieces are small enough to fit through the holes ” says Hechel     A blower fan then delivers the ground-up leaves through a metal pipe equipped with an adjustable blower spout on top     “I built it from stuff I already had and couldn’t be happier with it ” says Hechel “I spent only about $100 The fan is off an old walk-behind snowblower     “I built it because I wasn’t happy with what was on the market I had already tried using two different leaf grinders but they were light-duty units and worked too slow It took about 10 min to grind a bushel basket of leaves whereas it now takes me only about 2 min Also sometimes chunks 3 or 4 in long would come through whereas with my machine everything comes out looking like oatmeal ”     Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Marvin Hechel W423 County Rd E Neshkoro Wis 54960 ph 920 293-4731

To read the rest of this story, download this issue below or click here to register with your account number.