3 in. 7 HP Gas Powered Kohler Engine Direct Drive Certified Commercial Chipper Shredder with Trailer Tow Hitch

Kohler engine failed (20hrs run) Chipper knife and drum exploded (25hrs) DK2 sent wrong part, then entire replacement transmission (1 month in shop, $250 out of pocket labor costs) DON'T BUY THIS CHIPPER!!!

Thought I was buying a quality US built machine. Nope, made in China - poorly. Missing parts, parts not manufactured correctly, parts painted poorly, bad welds, etc. I can't even finish assembling it, because there's a hole missing in the tongue assembly and the metal is fractured. DK2 customer service has thus far been mostly non-responsive. They've got about 24 more hours to tell me when the new parts are coming or this thing is going back to Home Depot.

Been a little over a year since I bought this machine. have run a decent amount of hard and soft wood through it. Dry and fresh wood. it does a good job. I have run 6" branches through it and it will chew through them but you have to be patient and keep pulling back the branch as the motor bogs down. Make sure you keep one sturdy branch each time as a push stick to feed the other branches through as when they get short the drum spins quickly and won't grab the smaller stuff. also be sure to have proper safety equity when using this. Unit pulls easily with an ATV.

Unfortunately this chipper/shredder is not able to handle the work that it is rated for. Really struggles w hardwood wider than 2". Branches need to be arrow-straight to go into chute. Clogs easily. And worst of all, one of the blades broke off, pierced the chipper room. After a few months of use, the machine is now unusable. Do not recommend.

Reason. For 1 star is it jammed the first 3 times I put something through it! And they were not even close to 3 inches. Big Problem You have to put it up on blocks to unbolt the wheels to get access to pull cover off to clear it.try carry all you tools with you around your property and then getting down in the dirt to crank it open. This was bought to make my life easier. HA on me. So tired of that not working in the heat I’m afraid to try it again. That’s a lot of money for a so called “Commercial Chipper”. Really disappointed. Really want to return it. But don't know if I have to take it all apart to do that.

I love this thing. It chops everything I feed it. So far I have made 3 pickup loads of mulch. I have put limbs of 4" to 5" in and it barely slowed down. Just get them started and it pulls them through and spits out mulch. It is loud so be sure to wear ear protection. It does take a minute to stop because there is a lot of momentum from the heavy blades spinning. I have accidentally bumped the kill button then wondered why it wouldn't start. Now I know to check that first. I'm very happy with my purchase.

This is a must have if you plan on taking numerous trees down. I have taken one down already with it and have others in line to remove this year. After the proven performance that it displayed on the first tree, I can rest at ease knowing this will make all future tree removal a breeze. I will update my review if I experience any issues in the future, but I believe there won’t be any. Great machine that performed excellent! I am very happy with it. Thanks HD.

The chipper and how it functions is great. That i have no problem with. The axle is about 20” from end to end. Its absolutely under engineered. I had this chipper assembled for two days when it rolled over going around a corner. The safety chains on the tonge are a joke. They have key chain strength snap links that tore away instantly. I spent the better part of 20 hours redesigning and fabricating the axle, tongue, tongue jack, wiring and skid frame. Installed new safety chains that will actually do something in the event the chipper disconnects from my truck. I now have something that is road worthy and just needs fenders and lights. I would have gladly paid another $700 to get a better designed product. Like i said, the chipper is great. It works better than i expected but the towing system was complete garbage from the start and will absoluly tip over going over a bump or around a corner at even 10 mph without serious modification. My repairs cost me about $175 in materials at a local steel yard. They should have just built it right from the factory

Ship to store was free. On arrival for curbside pickup, Home Depot provided 3 strong workers to help me load the 200 lb. wood shipping crate into the back of my Toyota RAV-4. It fit easily with one half of the back seat folded down. Everything was well packed inside the crate. Bubble wrap and cardboard prevented much in the way of paint scuffs during shipping. It was helpful to have the assistance of my wife in assembling all the parts. Everything fit together with no problems. Now I've used the chipper for about two hours with light chipping of fruit tree prunings and some other prunings of ornamental shrubs. The big branches (up to 1-1/2-inch diameter) were rapidly pulled into the 3-inch input chute. Smaller straight wood sucker prunings were quickly shredded via the upper chute. The largest of these were about 3/4-inch in diameter. If the length of these was not excessive, the chipper handled these without too much loss of rpm. Smaller very branchy twig-like prunings needed to be hand reduced in size so they would feed into the opening at the bottom of the top chute. This took a lot of time, but it easily handled the task. The only thing the chipper didn't handle very well was wet herbaceous material (like soggy hydrangea flowers). So I cut the wet parts off, and the more fibrous stems easily chipped up. The pile of prunings had been rained upon for over a week. So all being wet didn't help. But for the most part the chipper did a great job. The power of the engine impressed me - large material was just gobbled up, sort of like an explosion. I quickly learned that all personal protective equipment (PPE) was very important. Chips were flying in all directions. I used my own PPE, since the supplied PP equipment (ear-muffs, gloves, goggles) was not of highest quality. But I used inserted ear plugs plus over the ear hearing protection, dust mask, eye goggles and light gloves. While I made an effort to direct the chip stream into a 50 gallon metal garbage can, many chips were spread far and wide. So my wife will be making a canvas tube that can be tied to the chipper output chute. This will direct more of the chips into the can. Bear in mind that along with the chips is a tremendous amount of air that is propelling the chips. But this is a work in progress. In general our yard doesn't allow for uncontrolled expelling of the chips. The only defect I found with anything was with the key-operated lockout-on/off switch mounted on the top chute above the engine. It did not work at all to kill the engine. The engine cable is fully inserted in the lead cable for the switch. But it has no effect on the engine with either way the key is turned. But the handy fuel shutoff lever below the air cleaner quickly kills engine power. So I'll be draining the break-in oil even though it has only 2 hours on the engine. At bit over 1/2 quart, the expense isn't a lot. At 5 hours I'll do another oil change as per the Kohler manual. The chipper won't be used again for a few months. So I'd rather have fresh oil inside during the inactive period. Overall I am very pleased with my new chipper. I consider it to be a great value, particularly with Home Depot's special price that was 2-3 hundred dollars less than from other sources. Free shipping to store was another plus. If I had to do it over again, I would pay the $45 for home delivery. The round trip fuel cost to drive to and from Home Depot wasn't much less than that. But seeing how well the chipper is protected by its wooden crate, along with the excellent packing of parts inside, one can be confident that the chipper will arrive in good shape. Any damage to the wood crate during shipping could be noted on the shipping receipt. The crate takes quite a bit of time to open. There's a forklift base with 4 sides and a top all held together by bend-over metal tabs. These take a bit of finessing to get the sides to come apart. I kept the crate for further use in the future. I've had the chipper less than a week. But I'm excited how much work it will save me compared to an electric chipper I've endured for years. Before purchase I talked at length to Greg the owner of the Detail K2 company. He was most helpful in answering my questions. I have no hesitation in highly recommending this product. It has exceeded my expectations.

Over the years we had accumulated many stumps on the wooded property surrounding our cabin. I decided to try the DK2 Stump Grinder. Honesty, for $1,200 I wasn’t expecting much. I figured if I ground 10 stumps before it disintegrated, I would break even. It arrived as advertised. Assembly was straightforward. It was beefier, a higher quality than I’d expected. The 14 hp Koehler engine started easily. I really put it to the test. I ground 8 stumps the first day, and I was pretty bushed, but very impressed. These stumps were not small. The smallest was over a foot in diameter, and 3 were pine stumps over 3 feet in diameter. Over a few days, grinding a few hours a day, I ground a total of 29 stumps. They averaged over 2 feet in diameter, a variety of pine, cedar, oak, sweet gum. After about 15 stumps, I had to replace the belts. My fault because I had not tightened them. I just bought $20 V belts at the auto parts store and they worked great. After 20 stumps it threw a grinding tooth. The unit comes with a complete set of replacement teeth. So I replaced the tooth, but it kept throwing the same tooth. Turns out the mount in the grinding wheel was not right. I called the manufacturer, and they sent another wheel, and another complete set of teeth at no charge. Overall, I really like the machine, and highly recommend it. It is far better quality than I expected for the price. A word of caution. A stump grinder takes a heck of a beating. You have to tinker with this machine to keep it aligned and functioning. Also the grinder weighs over 200 pounds and moving it and using it takes strength and effort. I am 63 years old, and I’m no weightlifter, but you’ll need to be in decent shape to use this machine.