Yesterday, Praew and I drove to the other side of Bangkok to check out a business that sells wood chippers (among other things). The place was quite interesting. It looked like a 3 storey tall family owned warehouse of equipment. The lift (elevator) was large, industrial, steel, very slow, had that old fashioned kind of sliding metal grate, and when it stopped, it did so surprisingly abruptly with a kerchunk you feel in your knees (despite it moving so slowly). And when we got to the 3rd floor to check out the wood chipper, it looked like a large, mostly empty warehouse with no-one else in sight.

We ended up buying a Kojima brand wood chipper/leaf shredder. (Don’t let the Japanese sounding name fool you, the salesman said it is a Chinese company.)

If you are wondering what this machine is, it has a 6.5hp engine with a belt drive connecting it to a fly wheel which drives a very scary looking wheel of blades. It has a hole in the side with a long chute to feed in small branches, and a hopper on top (with a long chute) to feed in loose leaves.

In goes sticks and leaves, and out comes a pretty fine pile of organic flakes. The long chutes make it less likely your fingers will get caught in the blades.

I’ve attached a picture to the right where I am holding up one of the input leaves above a small pile of shredded leaves that came out.

If you are ever looking for wood chippers/leaf shredders, diesel water pumps, grass trimmers, etc. in the Bangkok area, I have a fairly good impression of this shop so far. It is called Nakarin Bangkok and it is located in the Thawi Watthana area. It had a legitimate business feel, the salesman was quite helpful, and he ended up talking us out of the larger more expensive model in favor of the smaller cheaper one explaining that he didn’t think the bigger one would help with anything we cared about. Hurray for honest salespeople!

In addition, the workers assembled the machine in front of us and explained everything we wanted to know. We might be back when it comes time for water pumps for the pond.