What is the best budget shredder?

[BennyBoy87]

I can vouch for the heavy duty shredder doing a good job. I only wish it became available for 109.99 earlier, as I paid 139 for it... but it is a good shredder

 

[bonneville]

Any more recommendations on shredders? Does that $109 shredder produce a slightly finer cut than the cheapo model? I saw a video of an East Indian dude shredding rolled up leaves using a home made long blade chopper/slicer like assembly...it looked like it produced a very fine cut which he would then rub up in his hands to produce what looked like a good shag....anyone happen to see that vid?

 

[MarcL]

Any more recommendations on shredders? Does that $109 shredder produce a slightly finer cut than the cheapo model? I saw a video of an East Indian dude shredding rolled up leaves using a home made long blade chopper/slicer like assembly...it looked like it produced a very fine cut which he would then rub up in his hands to produce what looked like a good shag....anyone happen to see that vid?

Yes I have. that is like a tobacco plug cutter. or a cigar tuck cutter.

 

[larryccf]

only issue with one of those slicing cutting / chopping setups is, imho, you have to moisten & press the leaves into a sort of brick for feeding thru the machine - im not real crazy about the extra effort and steps, plus the time waiting for the tobacco to dry some before chopping, but if that's what you're interested in, tobaccoandmachines.com has two, what they call "guillotine" cutters http://www.tobaccoandmachines.com/index.php?s=produkty&id=75. One of them is indicated to cut pretty fine, .3mm

i went with "el cheapo" shredder first, to try, and it didn't quite last 5 lbs before it basically started falling apart. The clamping pad at the top of the threaded rod, where it presses against the underside of the table edge fell off - it was only crimped on, but didn't expect that to last too terribly long. The dogleg that is pre-bent to fit around the tabletop's edge was not quite square, probably off by about 10 degrees, enough that it kept trying to walk off the edge of the table and even fully clamped, the shredder head wasn't parallel to the table. Then the handle came loose - when i tried to reverse it because of a jam, it just unscrewed - apparently it was thread locked on and the thread lock let go. While re-threadlocking the crank handle, i noticed the rivets holding the head to the vertical bar or clamping bar were loose

fwiw - the same "el cheapo" shreadder is sold under a half dozen different names for around $30, but it served it's purpose. I ended up going with the G120 shredder off the tobaccoandmachines.com web, and am now in the process of motorizing it

i'd probably go with the HD shredder from WLT if i had it to do over again, or one of the 100mm shredders with sealed bearings off tobaccoandmachines website. It's a polish website but the guy's english is decent and he was pretty good in communicating and honest. Only issue is his prices are in euros, and two weeks after buying, the euro fell and i'd have saved $22 bucks if i'd known

here's a shot of el cheapo



if you do buy one from the polish website, be sure to ask for the price without VAT (polish VAT is 23% and it's built into the retail price). It ended up covering my shipping costs to the US

 

[Jitterbugdude]

Nice write up. As for motorizing your new shredder try a drill in the end. It works great and is cheap. You can then take your time getting the parts to make a "real" motorized set up.

 

[bonneville]

thank you for the reply....a cigar tuck cutter.....first i've heard of it. I notice some people say that the tobacco has to be wet or compressed for guillotine type cutters to work but that didn't appear to be the case in the video of the east indian. i wonder what imight be missing here?

 

[larryccf]

i used a drill, just didn't like the ergonomics - found a cheap / reliable 1/2 hp 110V motor, that already came with a small (1.6") pulley on the shaft - motor turns at 1475 rpm, so it was fairly easy to dial it down to 240 rpm with a large pulley on the shredder

i'll post some shots when i'm finished. I was a little surprised at elec motor prices but then again i haven't had to buy one in 25 years

 

[Jitterbugdude]

You might consider getting a motor/gear reduction set up going to increase your torque. For example: a 1hp motor typically produces about 3 ft-lbs of torque. If you use the same motor with a 10:1 gear drive you will increase your torque to an incredible 30 ft-lbs. I originally set up my Polish shredder head with a belt and pulley system. It worked well but I had one too many jams (of biblical proportions). Currently I am slowly rebuilding my system to utilize a 10:1 gear drive. Brown Thumb used a gear drive in his system and I believe he could probably shred concrete with it with no jams! Below is a video I made of my original belt and pulley system.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsEWumwGFXQ

 

[larryccf]

nice looking shredder - and looks like it was doing a pretty decent job.

curious what rpm are the shredding rollers turning at? When i looked at the polish vendor's website, he seemed to favor 200 rpm for the rollers. When i tried my angle drill, lowest i could set it for was 800 rpm which was direct drive to the rollers, meant they were turning at that speed as well. And as you describe, i got massive jams every few minutes - it was pulling the leaves in way too fast.

 

[Jitterbugdude]

I was running that at approximately 200 rpm. The "Polish" shredders I have came from Lucas in Poland. He sells on Ebay.
Are you using an electric drill or a battery powered one? I can't turn my rollers slow enough with an electric but the battery powered one is perfect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs3Jg5_APHk

 

[ZigZagZeppelin]

I bought Don's el cheapo 0.8 mm cut shredder, it comes tomorrow. If it lasts me 3-4 months I'll be happy, certainly it was cheap enough.

I'll spend bigger once I gain experience. I don't plan on shredding a pound in one sitting anyway.......maybe 4 ounces tops.

 

[larryccf]

I was running that at approximately 200 rpm. The "Polish" shredders I have came from Lucas in Poland. He sells on Ebay.
Are you using an electric drill or a battery powered one? I can't turn my rollers slow enough with an electric but the battery powered one is perfect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs3Jg5_APHk

That's definitely a heavy duty set of rollers. actually i had better luck with my electric, 1/2 hp milwaukee drill, much better control speed-wise, but still not slow enough. Last one i tried was a makita 9.6 volt battery powered angle drill. But now that you mention it, i didn't think about my 18V makita -iirc, it has a 300 rpm setting

i bought my G120 from tobaccoandmachines.com, also in poland. I saw those heads on ebay uk and ebay poland but not on ebay US
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