Yellowfin: Price was my biggest consideration in refusing the Ninja bade, but engineering superiority of the generic blade I bought was the deciding factor even if the prices had been the same. The generic blade I purchased (Forgot the brand name long ago.) has an undulating blade design. The blade is bent to lift the grass at the outer edge and bent on the inner edge to force the grass back down. The generic blade is sharpened almost all the way to the mounting hole. I have always been happy with the clipping quality of regular blades because I cut grass on a regular basis and the resultant clippings are fine enough with regular blades. Where mulching blades excel is if you miss your regular mowing schedule and you have to cut tall grass. I used to use my dethatching blade mounted by itself on my mower until this year when I started attaching it to the bottom of my regular blade with high lift wings and that allows me to dethatch and bag at the same time. I am going to experiment this year by placing a generic 20" blade under my 21" blade to see if I can induce even more lift when cutting my grass. If the 20" blade does induce more lift, I will be able to raise my cutting height on the mower to the highest clearance notch which will give me about 1/2" higher grass and I will only lose 1/16" because the second blade will sit that much lower than the primary blade. Cutting at the highest height setting with just the primary blade does not give decent suction to raise my Kentucky Bluegrass and the cut is not as nice as the next highest setting. The reason I am going to use a 20" blade on the bottom of a 21" blade is because of the rolled under lip the Snapper decks have. A double 21" blade setup might not clear the lip. Fairyprincess

Ufortunately, it's going to be impossible to find a new quality chipper at the price point you are shopping. There is hope however. Your best bet is going to be a used older Troy-Bilt Super Tomahawk or an older MacKissic 12P chipper. Both of those would suit you well. You will have to be patient and spend some time finding one, and may have to do some work/maintenance on it when you get it, but it will treat you well.

Skeptical or not, I mowed 3.5 acres in an hour, around about 80 trees and several hundered feet of flower beds. The walker is rated at 6.5 miles an hour. I never run that fast, no need. All the BS about ground speed means little when it comes to real practical mowing over a real yard, not a flat open field. The mowers that are suppose to run 13-16 mph are going rediculously fast if in fact they go that fast. Most yards would never allow that kind of ground speed. To rough, to much turning and too many obstacles. They would have to run about the same speed that I do. Quote from their web site: Fast on the Job DonÂt be fooled by the popular idea that the mower with the fastest ground speed always finishes first. For many jobs, the total time is influenced by the amount of trimming and maneuvering and the required cutting quality. While many of the mid-mount "ZÂs" have a faster top speed than the Walker, the Walker often wins the job time race. The mid-mount ends up faster only when mowing more open areas where quality of cut is not too important and there is little maneuvering and trimming. Even though the mid-mount may have a faster top speed, it is the actual working speed that counts on job time. This is how Walker wins the race - a consistently higher working speed. In many cases, the mid- mount has to slow down and even go slower than the Walker to do the job. For example, when maneuvering, both the fast machine and slow machine will need to slow down to make a tight turn (to avoid turf damage) and because the Walker is better balanced, it may be able to turn faster. In another illustration, when cutting heavy grass and cutting quality is important, the mid-mount may very well need to slow down to "Walker speed" or slower to get a quality cut. And then there is trimming. The mount often cannot reach into all the areas for trimming, and some secondary trimming with a line trimmer or push mower is required - this extra time is an "equalizer" making the Walker faster on the job. Why not design the Walker to go faster? It would compromise the design of the Walker and we would lose more than we gain. To get "mid-mount speed", the Walker would need less sensitive steering, more weight on the deck caster wheels (to avoid deck bouncing) and bigger drive tires (raise the center of gravity). That would spoil the essence of what a Walker is and what it does best.

yeh i find usually the best advice is to do all you prunning a couple or so times a year in blocks and go hire a shredder machine, then you maybe can do bigger branches and hire a chipper. keep in mind no matter how much you pay the common garden type shredder is exactly that a shredder with some chipping capabilities. some gardeners over here get a bloke in with a chipper and they get lots of stuff ready and then he does the big cutting, too easy realy. they get an added bonus he takes any unchippable stuff/or gen' rubbish to the tip free. and look at the action of the machine if you are going to buy, for me i like the models that will shred fibrous plants ie.,. gingers, bananas, palm fronds etc.,. flail type shredders won't. and last but not least don't buy from a discounter like all machinery at the end of the day you get what you pay for, go talk to a specilaist store. if you go the hire path you may be able to try different models and see which suits you best. the best thing about hiring is you don't have that machine sitting there doing nought most of the year, and servicing or break downs are not your care. len Here is a link that might be useful: lens garden page