Farmer-Helper FH-BX42 Self Feeding Wood Chipper

I purchased this earlier this year. I have been clearing some trees that had grown too close to the house over the years. I needed something that would work with my very small Kubota Sub Compact BX-1880 tractor. While I am right at the low side of PTO horsepower, it exceeded my expectations. My son and I cut some maple trees and it made short work of all the excess limbs and such. Even with my small tractor we weren't having any issues with 4"+ limbs. We had a 16' dump trailer full of chips. I am amazed and so happy I took a chance on this brand. I have friends that have the more expensive copies and theirs don't seem to do as well as this one. Great purchase. I just wish I had bought the tractor and this chipper years ago. Great experience!

I bought this purely on price and availability. I didn't expect it to be great. I will only use it a few times a year so I was OK with that. That is after I finish the large clearing project i bought it for. I have to say I am impressed. The quality is better than the more expensive copies of this model. I have run a lot of material from smaller stuff to stuff that barely fits. It sucks it all in and creates nice mulch. I have used it for 3 weekends and run it hard. I assumed I would have to sharpen the blades daily or at best after each weekend. I haven't had to sharpen them yet and they cut like when it was new. This Chipper greatly exceeds my expectations. I was expecting to have the same problems with it that someone I know has had with a well known company's version of the same machine has had. Including he has to sharpen the blades daily. Some parts on his have bent. His cost more so I expected this to be a little worse. Its not it's a lot better. I got a better machine than I expected. I am very satisfied. Don't be afraid of it because it is priced lower than others who copy the same machine. My buddy was and paid more and got less. He regrets that now. I truly didn't expect the chipper to be as good as it turned out to be. I don't know why one is better than the other. But it is. My buddy is going to bring his blades over to see if they will interchange with mine. If so he will buy replacements for this machine for his.

I finally got tired of cutting and then burning all the small trees and other brush around my 18 acres, I looked locally but found nothing I liked so after a google search I found this one. I have bought a lot of items on line since Covid started but this was the heaviest Item I’ve bought, I did have to drive 40 minutes to the FedX freight location to pick it up due to the rural roads I live on. The assembly took me 2 hrs, I did have to shorten the PTO drive shaft to get it to fit on my Kubota L2501 and it matches the color of the tractor! We used it for about 4 hrs yesterday and it worked great, only had to clean a clog once because we put too many small green twigs in at once. This is a high quality well built out of thick gauge steel machine that will get passed on to my son’s and probably to the grandkids too!

Everything we hoped it would be. I chose to pick it up rather then have it delivered, so Betstco put it together. I did have to shortened the driveline. We ran it for about 6 hours today and we are very happy with it. Have it behind our Kubota B2301.
Betstco treated us very well and even let us know that a sale was coming up. Not many places would do that.

Works Great!
I waited until I used the BX42 for a while. I am running it with a small 20HP compact tractor I have not had any problems and have chipped almost all of my brush piles.
Great price and free shipping! I am very happy with this purchase.

I just received my BX42 wood chipper and Fed Ex even delivered on a smaller lift gate truck at no charge.. Arrived in very good condition with only a couple very minor scratches.. Not bad after traveling over 2,000 miles..It aalso came with the legs which I thought was optional..1 hour and 30 minutes later and it was ready to go.. Spent about 4 hours chipping limbs from a very large dead ash tree with no glitches or issues and chips were no different from the chips of a $30,000 dollar commerical machine that i have used in the past on occassion..I might add I limited the size of limbs to no larger that 2"-21/2" as anything bigger I use for firewood..I did toss a few in at 3" or so or with no issues or bog down as my tractor is a sub compact Kubota BX-25D..

I LOVE this tool!! Just purchased 10 vacant acres in northern Michigan and wanted to start cleaning it up. This thing is a beast. It handled various sizes and species including oak, maple, cottonwood, beech and pine without issue for the most part. Only real issue that I had was having the cute clog when running branches thru that still had many fresh leaves on them. Wasn't a big deal to fix and I knew about the problem from another person who commented on it. I have this attached to a JohnDeere 1023e.
Being female, I rely on many tools to help me get the jobs done like another set of hands. This is no exception. Wish I could afford more "toys" like this one! 🙂

It arrived yesterday, so that was assembly... It did not go together as well as my flail mower from FHM, so I was getting a little frustrated with some little issues, feed hopper flange was a little bent, flywheel cover didn't seat easily... Blades not anywhere near spec gaps...

After getting all that sorted out, it is fearsome. I'm using it with a Kubota B2650 on hard California Coastal oak... Green or dry it eats it even a little beyond the 4"inch spec maximum.. While working on my land a neighbor noticed and asked if I could take care of some stuff on his property so we went at did that too, mostly old very dry large limbs, quickly destroyed it all including a whole christmas tree (did have to trim the dense branches off to fit into the hopper.

Really a great unit... setup took longer than expected as I said, but the machine is fierce.

Works very well for chipping as advertised. Will plug up if one runs very small green limbs through it. Because they will shred and plug up the shoot and wrap around the spindle for the flywheel. But this is a chipper not a chipper shredder. I have a Kubota 2501 and this chipper works well with it. I have not jammed with anything that would feed in it except for the thin green stuff that isn't chippable. Instructions for assembly not all that good but there are videos on youtube. It is easier to assemble with a second pair of hands, but I did manage to do it myself but I am a bit mechanical savvy and improvise all the time.

I've owned this machine for about 3 months now and have put 15 hours on it. This has quickly become my favorite attachment! I own 6 acres of woods with heavy brush that I'm trying to thin out for trails, etc, and this machine does just the job. I run it behind a Massey Ferguson 1240 with 22.8hp at the PTO. This seems to be plenty of power to run the machine. In fact I've never experienced the machine stalling. Instead a shear pin will break. Most of the material I run through it is 1" to 2.5" in diameter. Upon first use I was finding myself limited to 3" as the shear bolts would break. My biggest recommendation upon first receiving is to adjust your blade clearance. Spec is 1/32". Mine was somewhere in the neighborhood of 3/16" to 1/8". I was finding that I'd have to purposely feed very long material that would taper down to a smaller diameter to prevent breaking shear bolts. The thick short material would have a tendency to buck (where the bolt would break). If it did grab and feed it would be a little violent and you could tell the machine was working. After I adjusted blades to the specified clearance the difference was night and day! The material feeds much smoother now and that tendency to buck the material rather than grab and chip is pretty much gone. I've now put several pieces >3" through the machine and have not broken any more shear bolts since. I even put a few pieces of white oak through that nearly did not fit through the opening (at 4"), and it ate it right up. Some might argue that burning brush is faster. I see advantages and disadvantages. I mostly do this kind of work on my property in the fall/winter/early spring when the leaves are down. Getting progressively further from a water source to extinguish burn piles was something I wanted to eliminate. The wood chip quality is also fantastic and I'm finding great uses for it on trail areas where I tend to have muddy spots. The machine is well made and extremely simple which should prevent mechanical issues in the long run. I've inspected it at 15 hours after an initial set up. Bolts were still tight, no interference issues with parts contacting each other. The bearings turn smooth as silk. Blades could be mistaken for brand new. At the price point I couldn't justify the cost of a Wallenstein. Based on the simplicity, I can't imagine what would be more reliable on that unit either other than bearings and blades. Customer service is fantastic. I made multiple calls before and after the purchase. I typically don't bother with email, those can easily go unanswered by any company. Someone picked up almost every time I called on the first try. They were always able to assist me with my questions. If there's one negative I will say I think packaging for shipment could be improved. It comes partially disassembled and strapped inside a steel frame on a pallet. The chutes and upper housing a wire tied in place. Many of my wire ties were broken though which caused some of these parts to rub and wear paint in transit. This is more the fault of the freight company. But if some of these items were lined with cardboard even it would likely prevented most of that. Call Betstco though, they will make it right. All in all though excellent machine for the money.