This post shows you how to build a little purpose-made sawbuck for use in chopping up vines and green twigs. That, plus an electric hedge clipper, and you can efficiently chop vines and similar material into pieces just a few inches long, suitable for composting.
The results aren’t “shredded”, but you control the size of the pieces. If you want shorter pieces, it just takes more passes with the hedge clipper.
Edit 4/8/2024: Also works well with somewhat larger branches and a chainsaw, if you are looking for kindling-sized sticks of wood.
The line of reasoning.
Based on what I’ve been reading, most (maybe all) chipper-shredders are all-but-useless for materials like vines and green twigs.
After a couple of hours of looking at comments for various chipper-shredders on-line, it finally dawned on me that maybe that’s the wrong tool for shredding vines and green twigs. Great for the bigger, stiffer stuff. Not so much for “whippy” stuff like vines and branch tips.
OK, then what’s the right tool for chopping up masses of mixed-size green twigs? My answer is, a hedge clipper. When you think about it, that’s what a powered hedge clipper is designed to do: Cut through masses of small branches with minimal effort.
Plus, corded models are cheap (like $40). And I already own one.
But, juggling a hedge-clipper in one hand and a mass of twigs to be cut in the other is asking for trouble.
So what I really need is something to hold the vines and twigs in place, so I can get at them efficiently with my hedge clipper.
In the end, what I came up with is essentially a little sawbuck, with a couple of modifications specifically for this purpose. All it takes is a few scrap pieces of lumber, some screws, and a length of cord.
Details follow.
A purpose-built sawbuck
Source: Wikipedia.
Above, that’s a sawbuck. It’s a crude wooden rack used for holding wood to be cut. You place your wood in the crux of the Xs, and have at it.
Below is my custom-built little sawbuck for chopping up vines and branch tips. For scale, that’s maybe two feet tall.
- It’s small, because all you’ll be chopping on it is twigs and vines.
- There’s no wood running down the crux of the “X”, so you can chop right through that space.
- There’s a set of ropes (connected to a bit of 2×4) that run over top the vines to be chopped, to hold them in place.
Sawbuck in action
This sequence starts with a big wild grape vine that I pulled down as I was cleaning up my back yard this afternoon. And ends with a pile of sticks.
The vine:
Folded up, resting on the sawbuck:
Ropes pulled over, ready to be cut with the hedge trimmer. Note the dangling board, holding the ropes. Step on that to board compress the bundle of twigs, for cutting.
Below, halfway through, showing the cut end of the bundle of vines:
The final product: A pile of sticks. If you want shorter sticks, make more passes with the hedge trimmer as you cut.
Some notes on construction
Dimensions are not critical. I built mine this way, from scraps of wood I had sitting around.
- The base of each side is a 2′ long piece of 2×4.
- The uprights of the “X” are 2.5′ long pieces of 2×2.
- The uprights are screwed into the base, two screws at each location, for rigidity.
- A 2.5′ piece of furring strip was screwed to each side to serve as a blade guard. Make sure that’s attached well below the crux of the “X”, because you want to be able to pass the hedge trimmer through that space.
- Join the two sides by screwing them together about 11″ below the top of the uprights.
- Add a cord to hold down the vines. Drill three holes in one of the base pieces, one next to each upright. Drill three corresponding holes in a loose 2′ piece of 2×4. Thread a cord through the holes so that you can use the loose 2×4 to drape the three sections of cord over the vines. You hold that loose 2×4 down with your foot, as you cut, to hold the vines and the sawbuck in place.
- I added a little length of chain between the two halves, sized to keep the bottoms of the two halves from spreading out under load.
Adjust the rope so that you can load the sawbuck with material to be cut, pull the 2×4 with ropes over the material to be cut, then step on the 2×4 to keep everything — sawbuck and material to be cut — firmly in place. (This will be obvious once you have it all assembled. You adjust the length of the rope so that the moveable 2×4 hangs just off the ground, when draped over the load of stuff being cut.)
Obviously, none of the dimensions is critical. Twice the thickness of the uprights determines the smallest chunks you can cut, right where the vines cross those uprights. If you have a ton of material to cut, this small size (or this entire approach) might not be practical. But even with this 2′ model, I can work through a pile of vines and twigs in a surprisingly short amount of time.
It’s a little sloppy, but it’s hassle free. I tend to cut bigger chunks out of the pieces hanging off the ends. And once you get down to your last rope, you may have pieces fall out. But as long as your hedge trimmer is sharp, it’s all-but-impossible for it to get jammed as you try to cut.
Toss the thin materials to be cut into the middle of the X. Bring the ropes overtop the materials to be cut. Step on the 2×4 to tighten the ropes. Have at it with the hedge clipper until you’ve got nothing left to cut. Then repeat,
Folds flat (ish) when done.
Conclusion: Not perfect, but it works.
From what I can tell, chipper-shredders have problems with vines, branch tips, and other thin, flexible material. Particularly when you have a variety of sizes of material to be shredded.
By contrast, hedge clippers have no problems cutting such material. They won’t shred it fine, but they’ll certainly reduce a big pile of vines and such to a small pile of sticks.
This little knocked-together sawbuck lets you use an electric hedge trimmer to chop up vines and similar material safely and reasonably effectively. The results are a little rough, but compared to (e.g.) having at it with a pair of loppers, this method is less work, and takes less time, to yield a much more uniform final product.
So, if the question is, what chipper/shredder works best for vines, my answer is, no. Don’t use a chipper-shredder for that. Use hedge clippers.
