neonkopite, "...do you have any idea where to purchase screens for this particular unit online..." I don't know where to get the screens cheap anywhere. I ordered all of my MacKissic stuff through our local MacKissic dealer in Maine, so I didn't get anything online. That was several years ago, and the screens weren't cheap even then. I think they were over $40 each. "I went with the mackissic, with shipping it ended up at $1,400" What model of MacKissic did you get? I paid $1,400 for my 12PT9 with optional screens about seven years ago, and prices have gone up considerably since. The current Merry Mac Tow-Behind is $2,000 at Northern Tool. I did order Pick Tines for my Merry Tiller online from West Power Tools. They have since changed their name to ReBorn Tools and their website appears to be mostly "broken". "..if I had to get only two screens, what would you recommend?" Well, I wouldn't get the wet stamped screen (I did, but I was going "whole hog" on screens). But, as has already been mentioned, for wet materials you can just remove the screen altogether. I really like the fine product I get from the ¼" screen. I think you get a 1-inch screen standard. I think my second recommendation would be the ½" screen. That gives you a doubling of hole size as you go up from ¼" to ½" to 1". That would be my selection of two extra screens, because I like to make fine products for rapid composting or for soft mulching or path materials. When I am using the ¼" or ½" screen and I notice that the screen is starting to clog up, rather than stop and clean the screen or change the screen, I just toss in a smallish chunk of wood as a "screen cleaner." I keep a few appropriately sized chunks of wood handy just for such occasions. That piece of wood keeps bouncing around in there as the hammers bash and re-bash it and the repeated impacts of the wood on the screen scours off the clogs and opens the clogged holes. It's a very noisy process, but you are supposed to be wearing ear protectors anyway. I wear my Stihl chainsaw helmet because it has a screenwire face protector and big ear covers. Since the screens are now so expensive, you might get by with just one. In addition to the standard 1-inch screen, I probably would settle for the 1/2-inch screen. As for online sources, I dunno. Right offhand all I have seen is The LawnMower Shop, and their screen prices are higher than what you mentioned as excessive. Do you have a local MacKissic dealer? ZM (not associated with any product or vendor mentioned)

Hi rustyj14, I wish I only needed to chop up a bunch of leaves and twigs! I wouldn't bother! I'd just leave them on the ground and let nature take its course! I live in the coastal south and things decompose amazingly quickly here. My challenge is much bigger - I have hurricane wind and flood debris on several acres. So far, the plant debris has been consolidated into several large piles. You'd be amazed at what people are charging to haul the debris away. I'd have thought that by now, about a year after our storm, costs would be much more reasonable, but...... While it will be a lot of work, I figure that by dealing with the plant material myself, I can pay for a chipper/shredder, chainsaw, and whatever else I end up needing. I should have a lot of native mulch for composting and bigger pieces of wood for the fire pit I am imagining. When the house is demolished, I guess I will just have to pay to have it hauled. I would have never in a million years thought that I would own and use a tractor, but it has saved me countless hours of back breaking work. It has given me independence in a situation that, once upon a time, I thought would suck the life out of me.

I've settled on torn corrugated cardboard too. I tear into pieces two or three inches square, and that size plus the corrugation helps to keep more air in the compost. These days I do almost equal parts by volume of food and cardboard. My pieces may be coarser than necessary, but the very fine confetti-like output that you want for security's sake from a shredder will, as others note, tend to clump when moist. (Re shredders, it's great to hear that people have found bargains and it's probably worth checking Craiglist and ebay and so forth. After going through four or five over the last decade, my own experience, FWIW, is that the cheap ones have such meager rates of flow that you end up not using them -- or they break. We've ended up with a powerful Fellowes MS-460Cs, which is almost as convenient as tossing stuff in the wastebasket.)

Could somebody please define "cardboard" for me? Are you talking shirt board like cereal boxes and pizza boxes are made of or tasty, homey, corrigated cardboard? Two vastly different things. Both of which have no catagory for egg carton or coffee tray cardboard. When we talk cardboard are we all talking the same langage? I add all the egg carton, coffee tray cardboard I can find to my system. I want to increase the numbers to handle corrigated cardboard. Cereal boxes I am ok sending to recycling. What type of cardboard is it you all are shredding? Anybody not shredding and adding whole and letting ninety, billionty worms do the work?