“Bang for your buck,” are the first words that jump to my mind after test driving the RC1522G.
The new RC1522G is Rayco’s offering to the Australian 15-inch capacity wood chipper market. The first thing to mention is that it’s made in the US, like many decent wood chippers. It has an impressive list of features such as being powered by a V6 130hp GM petrol engine that turns the 30-inch diametre drum.
The “No Choke” throat opening is 15 inches high by 22 inches wide, resulting in an easy 15-inch chipping capacity.
Branches and logs are fed by a pair of feed wheels with hydraulic lift and crush, the upper having a 20-inch diametre to easily climb over tricky timber, and the lower being smaller to save weight and production costs.
Speaking of weight, this machine weighs under 3 tonnes! This means that most modern 4×4 utes can legally tow it.
The clutchless PTO system is easily accessible through a removable belt guard door, meaning less maintenance, less to go wrong and more money saved. It measures 4.57m long by 2m wide by 2.75m high and sits on a heavy-duty 3175kg single leaf sprung axle fitted with electric brakes.
Large logs are unlikely to stall or block this machine, partly due to the Versa-Feed automatic feed control and the tried and tested X-Charge discharge system. The hydraulic winch has a super smooth control and (my favourite) a pivoting rotary fairlead situated up high enough to place short, as well as long, sections of log onto the folding infeed tray.
It’s easy to place all the mulch due to the hydraulic swivel discharge chute that can be adjusted at the pull or push of a lever.
With a pile of trees on the ground ready to chip, I was surprised to see a Mazda ute pulling the 15-inch chipper, but when I learnt of the chipper’s low weight I was impressed.
After hitching it up to the truck and as it warmed up we did the usual run-down of the machine and its safety features and a quick lesson in the operation of the levers and what they did. Then we were ready to chip!
As we started feeding branches and logs there were no issues with throwing the chip out as it hit the headboard of the truck with no problem. A selection of wide angle branches and twisty logs gave the lift and crush a good work out, but again, no problems.
We had a pile of larger logs that were a little too big to lift by hand, so we gave the winch a try. The winch controls are super smooth – probably the easiest to control on any chipper I have used – and the well thought-out, versatile fairlead roller tops it off.
Global Machinery Sales recommends, as with any big feed wheel machine, that you try to cut longer lengths if possible as short sections of log can be a little tricky as they tend to catch on the infeed table.
However, due to the height and distance the fairlead is from the table, it was a piece of cake to load the logs: once again, no problem.
The RC1522G had no problems keeping up with three of us feeding the chipper. The V6 GM petrol engine really does the machine justice; as quick as we could put logs and branches on the infeed table, they were fired into the back of the truck in tiny pieces.
To sum up, the RC1522G is a real 15-inch chipper with all the bells and whistles that really work, and it can be towed behind a regular 4WD ute. And what about the price? About $80k will see you at Australia’s 15-inch chipper party.
This article originally appeared in The Australian Arbor Age Magazine. Reviewed by Mathew Smith. Images by Paul Skinner.
