GreatCircleUSA Wood Chipper Shredder Mulcher Heavy Duty Gas Powered 3 in 1 Multi-Function 3" Inch Max Wood Diameter Capacity EPA/CARB Certified Aids in Fire Prevention - Building a Firebreak

I have had this chipper for 2 years and really worked it hard. Great engine - usually starts on the first pull. Instead of burning, I used the wood chipper. May take a little longer, but safer. Received undamaged from UPS. It was easy to assemble. It has worked great from the beginning and was great on gas usage. Easy to maneuver around my 2 acre lot. It was well worth the price.

Given the very high rating from my fellow purchasers, I had high hopes when I made the purchase of the Great Circle Chipper Shredder. I was particularly pleased when the package arrived a day early. My enthusiasm was quickly dampened, however, upon inspecting the box and even more so when I started to unpack and eventually assemble the device. Here is my story in the order of my disappointments: SHIPPING PROBLEMS 1. The package was delivered by UPS. It doesn’t look like they were particularly careful in shipping as the box was canted in the truck and the driver complained about the weight (130#). He had no dolly nor automated lift so I offered, and he accepted, my help in carrying the box to my garage. When I opened the cardboard box I found that several of the wood packing slats had broken, the chipper had broken free from its restraints, and there was visible cosmetic damage to the unit. 2. The shredder hopper had several dents and one corner was dinged pretty badly with a shard of steel protruding from the side of the hopper. Presumably this is related to the shipping. 3. There was packing material (wood and plastic wrap) jammed inside or bolted into the exhaust manifold. It wasn’t clear that this was related to the shipping. Perhaps when the unit was packed this occurred. There is no way to tell for certain. PRODUCT PROBLEMS 4. There was a steel bracket suspended from the air intake filter box but attached to nothing else. The other end was near the oil plug so I even tried removing the plug to see if I could make the bracket connect there. It didn’t fit. Why is this engine only partially assembled? To leave this bracket in place, it will only rattle and possibly cause damage. It serves no functional purpose in its current configuration. 5. The assembly kit was short one nut. The chipper cone was to be attached to the chipper body, but there were only two nuts on the three threaded studs. I looked everywhere for the final nut, but was unable to find it. 6. One of my biggest surprises was the fact that the axle on one side didn’t even have a cotter pin hole. How exactly am I supposed to attach the second wheel? How does something like that get overlooked? This, along with the other complaints above, really make me question the quality and workmanship of this product. At this point, I can’t speak about the performance of the unit. I’m afraid to start it without first talking to the manufacturer. I also fear that should it start, the second wheel may fall off (not secured) and create new problems or void any warranty. I also want to remove the wood and plastic packing materials stuck in the engine manifold after talking to Great Circle. Assuming that I can edit this review, I’ll report back after talking to Great Circle tomorrow. For now, I’m sorry to report, buyer beware! UPDATE (Tuesday, 6/26/2018): I spoke with Great Circle today. They said that they are going to send a replacement unit and it should arrive in the next 5 days. Will update you and the review when chipper #2 shows up... UPDATE (Tuesday, 7/3/2018): As promised, Great Circle shipped a replacement unit and it arrived a day early. There was still extensive damage to the packaging and minor damage to the product. I maintain that their shipping protection is substandard given the weight of the chipper. As others before me have found, the air filter was damaged and I ended up duct taping it which worked adequately. The reason for the bump up from 1-star to 4-stars is related in part to the amazing customer service in which they shipped a replacement right away. The other reason is the performance of the product. I gave the chipper its maiden voyage today and it worked like a charm. It was pretty simple to get it started and it ripped through the branches and brush pretty readily. The resulting chips/mulch was much finer than I expected, and I suspect that will make it perform better where I placed it on bare soil. The large branch feeder (<3") worked best, though the branches had to be pretty straight to fit. The small branch hopper (<1/2") was more difficult to feed and it sometimes took a bit of work to get the blades to engage with the branches and pull them into the chipper. All-in-all, I'm happy with the purchase and, once again, tip my hat to Myesha and the Customer Service Team for addressing my situation so promptly.

I myself study product reviews prior to purchase so I hope this helps anybody interested in buying a product like this. I have used it for several moths now and ready to review. First of all I must say I am greatly impressed by this chipper and it has exceeded my expectations. This thing is a real work horse and does everything as advertised. I was skeptical when I first unboxed it thinking for its size it would not handle the job I bought it for but boy was I wrong. I had a overgrown fence row that needed clearing but no way of hauling off debris, the man I have that does my tree trimming told me he would have to charge a hefty price to do it because of the man hours involved. This thing chewed up and shredded everything. What I didn't use for mulch or to big to shred someone picked of for mulch and firewood for themselves . But be CAREFUL like I said this thing is a real hoss and you have to pay attention to what youre doing especially if you have never used one. Please read instructions and heed warnings. After a bad storm I lost two trees and again this thing was put to the test and it do a fantastic job. When it came time for the annual leaf clearing this was a real time saver and made work much easier than years past. Second thing is the customer service. My chipper arrived damaged from shipping so me and the UPS guy took pictures and he advised to contact the manufacturer and see about replacement parts. I sent photos and emailed to Great Circle and within a few hours I had a reply outlining corrective measures to ensure my satisfaction. I had replacement parts (along with some extras) sent out that evening. That kind of customer service is really rare these days. Third is the engine . Again I had doubts the 7hp engine could handle driving blades to shred a 3 inch diameter limb but it sure did and it starts very easy. Closing Ill say I am completely satisfied with this purchase and if you are considering purchasing a shredder I recommend this one. If you have a wooded lot or just a lot of trees and shrubs this thing is great. With my fence row project, storm damage and fall clean up mine has paid for itself this year.

Homeowner and no commercial use! I purchased this with high hopes. At first, it seemed to work okay with small branches and twigs. But, placing them into the funnel often led to jams and the cutter blade seemed to dull quickly. This forced you to push the branch in manually and often times it would grab the branch and give you a painful hit as it grabbed on. Emptying the bag is a chore. Remove the clip from the bar the bag rests on, then remove the two screws and string that holds the bag to the machine. Very time consuming. to remove and reattach the bag. The bag quickly developed holes in it. If the blades did a better job of shredding, you most likely would not get longer twigs poking through and ripping holes. Emptying the bag is a two handed proposition as the debris is tightly packed and won't fall out when you open the zipper. One hand holding the bag and one hand digging in the mess to pull it out. The pictures show the poor stitching quality and rip at the screw hole. Now for leaves. I waited for my leaves to be dry so they would be easier to shred. Waste of time. Same as with the twigs. Packed in and two-hands to empty. The leaves didn't appear to be shredded and looked like they just shot through the machine. I should have just raked them into a bag. My old Toro electric does a better job. For the price, the engine seemed to work fine and started every time. It is very loud so you will need ear plugs and over the ears protection as well. The protective piece of plastic from the top loader guard blew off after the first use. The bolt came flying up out of the hopper and into the air. Appears to be from one of the cutters but, I haven't had a chance to take it apart yet to see. The machine would have been ideal for a homeowner with a a decent sized yard for fall cleanup. The concept is good...the execution is poor due to the cost-saving measure of utilizing low quality parts. Save your money.

This is a well built, solid machine with a strong engine, good design for chipping and mulching, and it does handle up to 3" as advertised. That said, it took me several days to get the hang of it-- Engine: 1. Others say there is no easy way to turn the engine off, but my machine came with a switch that does kill the engine. 2. The engine is moderately loud so if you have good hearing, wear ear plugs. If you wear hearing aids (like me), take them out. The engine is considerably LOUDER if you have the top hopper open. I recommend you close it except when you need to use the hopper or you want to "blow out" the bag. More on that later. 3. Starts easily, but if the engine is cold (this is the first time you are running it today) set choke ON and speed LOW and pull the cord. If engine is warm already, you can skip the choke. After a couple seconds, set choke OFF and increase speed to desired level. DO NOT LEAVE THE SPEED AT LOW. The engine is not happy at low speed. That said, maximum speed is not required. I prefer a little lower speed so there is a little less vibration when pushing branches into the chute. Bag: 1. Others say the bag is too small and difficult to attach and I agree. The bag fits around a rectangular port and they provide two knob-screws to secure it, but you must be sure the bottom of the bag opening is going over the metal protrusion and also you must cinch the drawstring tight and use a decent clip to hold it. I used these clips: "DYZD Plastic Cord Locks End Spring Stop Toggle Stoppers Multi-Colour" which cost $6 for a set of 10. You only need one, so you have 9 more for other uses. 2. If you are using the bag and the some stuff gets stuck at the front of the bag, you'll notice a change in sound as the machine bogs down and you'll see chips/mulch going sideways instead of in the bag. Usually when this happens, you can simply open the top hopper slider for a couple seconds. When you open the hopper, the machine becomes a strong blower and this can often clear any blockage going into the bag. If that doesn't work, lift the bag off the ground and shake a little. Worst case, remove the bag and clear the blockage directly. 3. After a couple days of use, I got tired of constantly starting/stopping the chipper to empty the bag, so I built a box! See picture. Now I run for over an hour before I have to stop and empty the box with a shovel :) It never gets clogged and the machine never bogs down. Chipper Chute: 1. True to advertising, it will handle wood up to 3" in diameter as long as its straight enough to fit down the intake tube, but I find it more efficient to cut/saw anything over 2" into 18" lengths and stack it, then run an ad in craigslist for "free wood" when the stack gets big. People come immediately. 2. Keep in mind you will need to pre-process most limbs and branches before you feed them into the machine. Any branches too large to bend parallel with the limb will need to be cut off first. Crooked limbs will need to be cut into sections small enough to feed into the intake tube. I got some "Fiskars 32-Inch PowerGear Bypass Lopper" for $5. They have a decent lever design so it's easy to cut anything up to 2". Pretty amazing. Of course, if the side-branches are very small, you can use normal clippers or just tear them off with your hands. 3. NOTE: The chipper chute leads to sharp metal blades that look like a beard razer blade. They can get dull and need to be replaced. I've used the machine around 10 hours / 4 gallons of gas and the blades are still OK, but I see GreatCircleUSA sells the replacements for $25 on amazon. Top hopper: 1. The top hopper is for leaves and small twigs. However, if you put a large amount all at once, they might not fall in, so you'll need to shove them down with a medium-size stick/branch. I typically just nudge once side down to get them started. The machine likes to grab them all at once and pull them in, so I don't recommend putting things like ivy into the hopper unless you have already cut it into short lengths. 2. NOTE: The top hopper leads to large free-spinning metal whackers with a similar design as a garbage disposal. These are not sharp and probably never need to be replaced, but if you accidentally put a rock in here, those whackers will take a serious beating before the rock finally falls into the bottom well or gets kicked out. If you hear a rock banging around in there, stop the machine, remove the 6 bolts to remove the hopper assembly, and extract the rock with some grabbers. Also, if you put branches in here or dense ivy or other things that can get tangled up in there, it can wedge the machine and stop it. Again, you'll have to remove the 6 bolts to remove the hopper assembly and clear it. FINAL NOTES: 1. Use a chair! Otherwise, you are constantly stooping over to push things into the chute, and your back will hurt. I like to pile things up and then feed the machine from my chair. See picture. 2. Wear gloves! The machine grabs most branches and pulls them in, but if the branch has leaves or bends you will have to shove it, and it will be vibrating like crazy. 3. It paid for itself quickly, as it costs $400 to rent a chipper for a week and I have used it for 6 weeks. The build quality is solid and it will last for many years.

This is an amazing product. I used it to grind up a pile of coarse tree cuttings that a tree cutter left behind. The Great Circle chipper/shredder made a nice pile of finely ground mulch suitable for mulching flower beds etc. i highly recommend it for light to medium sized mulching jobs. It always started on the first or second pull of the starter rope. The noise level of the engine is a little higher than I would have preferred.

So when I placed the order, it was for a GreatCircle, 212cc, 7hp, 3 in 1 Chipper/Shredder/Mulcher. What actually arrived was the same item with the Landworks logo. Some quick digging revealed that it's all the same company and my assumption is that it's the same item, just painted a different color. But some updates to the listing wouldn't hurt to make this clear. The box arrived and looks like it had been through the wringer. Opening up the box and pulling it out I only noticed one dent at the corner of the hopper. Assembly was easy with 10mm and 13mm bolts, took less than 15 minutes from the time I had it out of the box until it was fueled, oiled, and ready to go. Starting it was easy, and feeding this thing trees and brush it's clear it can handle up to the 3" thick limbs that it advertises. It's a great chipper, though I haven't started using the mulching side yet. The real problem arose after about 30 minutes of use. I noticed that there was fuel leaking on the ground, so I shut it down and took a look. The cover for the air cleaner presses against the fuel lines leading to and from the shut-off valve. The vibrations of the machine over 30 minutes had cut through the fuel line. I solved this by taking a rotary tool and removing two small circular indentations where the fuel lines pass. Not enough removed to interfere with the seal, but enough to give about 1/16" clearance between the cleaner cover and the fuel line. I have contacted GreatCircle to see if they will send me a replacement fuel line, and will update this review according to how their customer service responds. Overall this is a good machine, I just don't understand how there can be this kind of a design flaw on their engine. Since it's labeled as an AlphaWorks engine, it's their in-house brand, and I assume they use the same engine on other products. I only hope their customer service doesn't make this a 1-star product.

I brought this device to replace an MTD chipper/shredder that I had for 30 years until it finally gave up the ghost. For the most part, I’m quite pleased with this chipper. With a few minor improvements it could be worth five stars, but it’s not quite there. For one thing, the bag design is so bad that I can’t believe anyone at the manufacturer ever tried it. The neck of the bag has a pair of strings that are anchored at one end and come out through a single hole at the other end. There simply isn’t any way to keep the bag from blowing off because you can’t draw it tight enough. The answer is easy so I’ll furnish it for anybody else that has fought with this problem. Amazon sells spring loaded clips that go by the name Double Hole Cord Locks End Plastic Spring Stop Toggle Stopper for Drawstrings, I bought these and they work fine. The other thing I don’t like about the design of this machine is the lack of a kill switch. To me this is a major safety issue, not to mention an annoyance. The throttle is adjusted for a fast idle, so you can’t shut it off with the throttle. The book recommends shutting it down with the fuel switch, which drains the carburetor. This is fine for the end of the season, but not for daily use because it takes a couple of minutes to shut down. You can pull the lead off the spark plug, but a much better arrangement would be a switch. Operationally, the chipper is excellent. It has plenty of power and unlike my previous chipper, I don’t have to push the sticks through the input tube. This device sucks them through. I found it easy to assemble and run like many instruction books, this one appears to have been written by a native English speaker. Update 11/16/18 i’ve Run a lot of stuff through this, and it works like a charm. I want to reiterate the two main defects. The bag attachment is lousy. I’ve had it blow off several times despite using care to secure it. It is almost impossible to reattach it with the engine running, even on idle and with the vacuum doors closed. This means you have to shift it down and there is no kill switch. You can pull the spark plug cap, which has a convenient grip, but you’d better be wearing gloves because it is directly below the hot exhaust. These are such obvious defects that it’s hard to imagine it was thoroughly tested in realm operation. I’m writing this having just finished a pile that filled four bags.

I am very impressed with this 7 HP chipper. It chips branches up to 3 inches, shreds leaves, and makes nice mulch. Good Things: Strong on dry branches, Easy top hopper for leaves, Rolls around easy, excellent for yard cleanup Not So Good: It clogs when I grind too many large green branches, I should have bought one size up Final Thought: Solid for most yards if you stick to dry stuff. Go bigger next time for green branches. I still like it and would recommend!

FOLLOW UP: The loose bolt caused some other issues, destroyed some threads. We were able to run it for another hour until everything came loose, and stayed loose. This chipper is now destined for the scrap pile, or, the machine shop to get retooled. Our budget chipper is quickly turning into a very expensive purchase. Buyer beware. Does the trick, but its got issues. The bolt holding the shredder actually came RIGHT OUT during use. Lots of banging and smacking, had to get our mechanic to take a look at it and fix it up. If you buy, highly recommended to not trust the fit and finish from the factory. Take it apart, tighten bolts, add loctite. You'll be thankful you did.

I have had this chipper shredder for several seasons. The machine is very well priced. It came well packaged, and I found assembly was straight forward. The engine is well powered for chipping and shredding. The engine always starts surprisingly easily. The engineering was well thought out. It is a quite simple but efficient design. I was amazed how efficiently the chipper went through large piles of branches and the shredder through masses of leaves and dried grass. The bagger function has been very helpful in collected the shredded vegetation, which I use for chicken bedding. This is an excellent and efficient tool to manage our acreage, which as a sizable woodlot and several gardens. It is particularly appreciated when pruning berry bushes and our orchard.

Heavy Guage steel construction. I was impressed before I started it. Put the oil on before you install the round shute, you will remove it to oil up and a funnel will help. Re-read the switches so you don't flood it. After all the rookie mistakes corrected it started and wow it chips. I used an electric one a few years back, this one seems strong enough to shread that chipper. I had a big pile of branches that have been sitting fir a while, I was going to cut them up by hand and put them in our green waste, never got around to much and that pile is gone now. I didn't use the bag, thought I would try without first. My wife wasn't impressed when it showed up, she thought we could do without it. When she saw the pile gone she said we should work on the rest of the trees. Happy wife.... It doesn't seem to like being shut off and restarted a few minutes later so plan. Cut "Y" branches pile with the thick ends in one direction, two people might help if you can work together. I am very happy, ask again in a couple months, but wow at this time I am very happy. Buy one, electric will chew thin branches, this thing eats 20' long branches soooo easy and it spreader anything I could fit down the round shute. The big hopper takes car of the bits and pieces, take it a bit slower so the don't clog up and you too will be happy.

The product stopped working after about 8 times running it. It had oil and gas. I had to pull it all apart to fix it. The support line was closed and never returned calls left. I actually don’t believe that they even make this product, but just put their sticker on it. The product broke again… this time the drive shaft clean broke off. It’s made with white metal…