Here's a suggestion. I once saw a guy take his shop-vac and place the motor head on top of his chipper shredder (without a bag). He then vacumed up leaves and they shot down into the chipper shredder hooper. He cleared a huge pile in just a few minutes.

I read on a forum (not sure if it was this one) where someone used thier brushcutter like you'd use one of the little handheld drink blenders to shred the pile. Probably want to make sure that there are no kids hiding in the pile or left toys there first though :). The vacuum cleaner sounds like a winner though.

Good Luck,

Dave

Umm, I'm nearly positive the shop vac idea is no good. A vac needs a VACUUM to operate - no canister, no vacuum. Don't go tearing apart your vac on bad advice.

I have the same problem with my Super Tomahawk. This year, I hand fed the leaves and it wasn't a terrible job. The bigger problem I had was the screen kept plugging (I'm having a screen with 1 inch holes fabricated to fix that). Next year, I plan on getting a leaf blower like you'd find on a lawn mower bagger and directing the outlet into the intake of my shredder. I missed a blower for 50 bucks on craigslist this year, but now I have all year to catch another one. If this works out as good as I'm envisioning, I can suck the leaves up right outta my lawn sweeper. Now, why didn't I just buy a bagger for my mower... :S

Good luck.

I have been using my brushcutter as a chopper/blender. It is somewhat slow and coverage is not as complete as with a dedicated shredder. It does work well when you have the leaves contained in a space large enough for you to stand in the leaves and still maneuver the brushcutter around. A messier but quicker and probably more complete method would be to run your mower through the pile. It would be blown every where and would not be as easy to pick up and put into a bin but you would get nice fine shredding.

Would like to have a chipper shredder but I can't justify the $1500 for what I would want.

I have a Sears chipper shredder and I had all those same problems with the leaves, not to mention the noise the thing makes. Now I rake the leaves into a row and run my mulching mower up and down the row. The mulching mower doesn't blow the leaves all over, it blows them back onto the ground. Then I put the bagger on and go over them again, and dump the bag into a landscapers barrel when it's full. The little bit that the bagger can't grab I rake together and pick up with a snow shovel, or just leave. The shredded leaves are good for the lawn. About 15 bags of leaves fill up the barrel once, plus the grass gets cut in the process, and the leaves are cut up small for the compost pile. I also use them to mulch my garlic patch, and I throw some in my chicken and duck pens for them to mess with and get a good dose of nitrogen. I used to put 100 bags at the curb, I haven't put out one in the last 10 years. Clean the air filter when you're done, the dust from the leaves clogs it up. Try to do it a few days after a rain event, the moisture keeps the dust down, and keeps the leaves from blowing all over. The damp leaves also add moisture to the compost pile. I did it Sunday morning, and Tuesday morning the pile was steaming hot.

Nice tips vinnyc