As has been mentioned, "Huskee" and "Husquvarna" are not the same. Totally different companies and differing qualities of build. Huskee is, or at least was, a rebadged MTD mower. They may still be making it or they might have changed to a new contractor. Husquvarna is a much better quality and better built machine. Regardless, mowing over leaves should have nothing to do with the engine. The only time I've seen leaf debris kill an engine is when mice have created a nest from leaf debris by packing it between the cylinder heads and the engine cooling shroud. The cooling shroud is the thin sheet metal that surrounds the engine, it's designed to funnel air past the cylinder head to aid in cooling. The mice nests, made from built up of leaf matter, essentially eliminate the cooling air flow and instead insulate the cylinder head, leading to overheating. Enough about that. Of the ones you listed, I'd recommend the MacKissic. Not only can you rake the leaves on the ground right into the hopper, but the internal air movement actually helps to suck the leaves into the hopper, making it easier. You have a huge volume to shred. I have a mackissic 12PT1100, an updated but similar version of the one chas045 has. I have an old table the same height as the top of the hopper that I use as a feed table when doing volume work. The leaves get loaded from the "back" edge of the table top. Toss a bag up there and dump it out. There are raised sides on two sides of the table, about 6", to prevent matter from sliding off the sides. An operator with a hoe then pulls the leaves along the surface of the table and into the hopper, which is under the "front" edge of the table. It goes pretty easy, there's only one lifting of each bag. The nice thing about the 12pt1100, or any other 12PT model, is the hammermill section. It'll pulverize the leaf matter and reduce it more than any of the models you referenced, plus between the hammermill and the chipping function, it's much more versatile. You can shred dry leaves, then toss in a few green branches, it'll blend them nicely. If the hopper does clog with leaves, I just feed a whip of a branch down the hopper, the hammermill grabs it and pulls the leaves through, shredding everything and clearing the clog. You can get a used 12PT for around $500. You'll never need to worry about the hammers, shredding leaves will not dull them at all. When I've done a lot of dry/dead matter, I'll sometimes sprinkle a bit of high-nitrogen fertilizer into the hopper as I'm feeding the leaves. It'll give the composting a kick start. I'd recommend gas over electric just for location versatility. But you know your situation better, and sound reduction would indeed favor the electrics. Sounds like you'll be putting a lot of hours on your machine, watch the lubrication schedules.

To make your own attachment, just measure off whatever shredding screen you already have. Shouldn't be hard to make up if you can weld. But wet material shredding is the downfall of just about every shredder I have tried. My Super Tomahawk (made before Troy Bilt bought out the company) came with a wet material screen that is simply some bars welded crosswise of the curved rails. Bars are about 3/8" or 1/2" in cross section. But I wasn't impressed with its performance, so I tossed all the screens, and tried a totally different arrangement: the hammers rotate between the fixed bars, rather than at right angles to them. Nothing, no matter how wet, can clog it. Of course the feed throat will clog if I try to cram too much stuff down, but I have a scheme in mind to address that issue. I think the screens are quite a bit wider on the super T. compared to the junior, but the same principle should work, unless your machine has a completely different design. I also increased the number of hammers so there wouldn't be such wide open gaps for stuff to fall through unshredded. Its one weakness is that long skinny stuff occastionally goes through unscathed. On a different note, since the engine was dead when I bought the machine, I put on a used 3 h.p. Baldor 220V motor that I've never been able to stall. I run that off a GFCI breaker I installed in my electrical panel, so it's not as unsafe as it might sound. The worst wet, stringy stuff you can imagine goes right through, including corn stalks (wet and very stringy), tomato vines, and everything else. It isn't so great as a leaf shredder, though, as the leaves aren't chopped as fine as I'd like. This post was edited by runswithscissors2010 on Sat, Oct 12, 13 at 2:08

If you can find an older Troy-bilt chipper/shredder, I'd go with that. My cerca 1989 Troy-bilt shreds much finer than a Craftsman, about a 1/16" of an inch! Mine has hammermills, when Yard Machines bought them out (keeping the name), folks said they were not as good. I have heard a number of nice things about the Mac, if you want to spend the money for a new machine. Don't be in a hurry to buy a new machine, all chipper/shredders have good and bad points. I thought the Troy-bilt was a poor design, until I used two others! It might even depend on the leaves, some large leaves won't easily go thru some narrow chutes. Anyway, if you have the opportunity to borrow or rent a machine, do that.

OK, that looks very similar to a small electric chipper that my wife bought. You shouldn't have to worry about putting green material in it. I think the warning about 'dry' just means not to try shredding soaking wet stuff such as right after a rain, or inherently very wet materials like a bushel of fallen fruit. It would probably clog it with a sort of vegetable puree. :-] We've put volumes of green stuff like fresh cedar branches and twigs through ours and it works fine. In fact, with any kind of sticks and limbs, shredding will be easier when they're green. If you start to have problems when shredding green or juicy stuff, alternate with handfuls of dry material like sticks to keep it cleaned out.