In article ,
Stephen writes:
Hello,

I was considering buying a garden shredder. As I understand it there
are two types: one that has rotating blades, like a large food
processor. The pros are that it will cut leaves into a fine mulch but
the cons are that they are noisy, the blades quickly blunt, and they
don't like thick branches.

I recently picked up an ALKO shredder second-hand.
Not knowing anything much about shredders before, this one
is the rotating blade type, and probably towards the more
expensive and robust end of the market (so second hand is
definitely a good move here, as I wouldn't pay anything like
the new price).

It doesn't cut up leaves or any very fine twigs much -- they
just get ejected. It is superb with branches though.
Instructions say it works better if they've had time to dry
out after pruning - mine were all very well dried. I haven't
tried it with fresh cuttings, which are apparently more likely
to jam.

The other sort is supposed to crunch the waste between cogs. These are
supposed to be much quieter and require less servicing and cope with
thicker branches but apparently they do not shred leaves. Leaves get
spat out whole, unless you can feed them in amongst some wood.

No experience of this type.

Have I got that about right?

I quite like the silence and reliability of the second type but I feel
that although we prune branches, I would expect we would want to
dispose more green matter than wood. Does these mean I need the first
type?

Not in my experience.

Are they really noisy? Do the blades blunt that quickly? Can they be
resharpened at home? What size branches can it cut without
complaining?

The noise didn't bother me.
The blades didn't noticably blunten during my long session.
I sharpened them before I started. The (second-hand) machine
came with completely blunt blades and it didn't work at all
until I had sharpened them. That may be why it was discarded.

Search back for my previous article on uk.d-i-y which had more
detail and lots of others' comments in the thread.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]