Turning bark into mulch

[gyrfalcon]

I bought a bag of bark mulch the other day, and on the way home, it suddenly struck me as ridiculous that I'm hauling firewood bark off to dump in the woods and then paying money for bark mulch to put in various places around the garden.

Does anybody make mulch out of their bark? And if so what do you use? I have no need for a heavy-duty chipper, so I'd want to rent or borrow a piece of equipment instead, but what am I looking for, just any old chipper?

 

[JustWood]

I saw a guy take a crapped out push mower and cut a 4x4 hole in the top of the deck about where the sharp part of the blade wood be. Then he fabbed up a funnel and welded it around the hole. He put everything up to about 1/2" thick through that thing.It won't make uniform product but it broke stuff down and cheap too versus a chipper.

 

[gyrfalcon]

You know, I can't tell you how much I admire and envy you guys with the equipment, the expertise, and frankly, the b***s, to improvise this kind of stuff. With luck, maybe in my next life...

Unsolicited advice for all you guys-- if you have daughters, bring them up to use power tools and be self-sufficient on this kind of stuff.

 

[fatwoodfirestarters]

Ok this is a good question and here is what we do. We run a packaged firewood business and have piles of scraps from the 4way wedge. We try to pick up the large peices and sell them or just burn them to get rid of them. The smaller peices are left and it piles up, and then starts to break down in a few months and at this point we use the bulch and sell some as well.

 

[maverick06]

check out craigslist for chippers, you can get some super deals there! I just got a MTD 8hp chipper for $75 because the carb was junk. I cleaned it and its working fine now (although i bet it will have to be replaced soon, $45)

I am not sure what type would produce the best mulch, chippers or shredders. But there is a lot there and its cheap!

 

[midwestcoast]

Old thread, but I still think of that redneck chipper idea every time I go past the small engine repair place with 50 old lawn mowers sitting there waiting for me to take a grinder to the deck. I even have a stand imagined-up where I bolt the thing down & it drops chips into a bin, or heck, right into the wheel barrow.... :-/