Trac Vac Shredding Leaves

[wrisleyk]

I recently procured a Trac Vac for my yard and am thinking about how I could make it shred the leaves even smaller to add capacity. Has anyone ever thought about, or have actully, put some kind of knives or blades at the inlet of the hopper? I was thinking of adding blades spaced about 1 inch apart at the inlet shute on the hopper but I am unsure if this would work. Any experience or opinions?

[Kent]

I think you'd create clogging... I don't think the leaves will hit those blades (or knives) with enough force to slice them into smaller pieces. I'd suggest you go to the Gator blade style of blades or even add double blades on the deck to chop the stuff up smaller inside the deck, before it ever goes into the vac.... I just used my factory vac setup with Gator Blades for the second time on Saturday. My first impressions hold true -- I think they're chopping the leaves to far less than half the size of the factory high-lift blades. I know that I'm certainly dumping the trailer a lot less (I have SEVERAL huge maples to clean up, in addition to several walnuts!) and clogging has not been a problem. Previously, I'd get clogs from the walnut stems getting caught in the hoses.... The only clog I've experienced was when a chunk of maple branch got turned cross-ways in the hose between the vac and the cart.... the branch was at least 1/2" in diameter, and made it all the way through the vac's impeller but hung up in the bend of the smaller 6" hose going to the cart....

[UCD]

I went over my leaves two weeks ago just trying to stay ahead of them with stock blades on a 48" deck. It chopped them up but not much. I bought a set of Gator blades and went over them again as I had a lot more leaves on the ground. The Gator blades chopped them up real fine. In most areas you would not know that there was any leaves there. I think one more time over them when they are all down will do it. No raking leaves this year. Just mulch them.