Manual Shredder?

Lotus-eater

I would love a shredder, many for compost making. But the electric ones seem noisy and expensive. Is there a manual one on the market? Or any other ideas?
ps I'm not going to use my mower before anyone suggests it

TAG

Yes you can get small manual ones. You'd probably find one in Tesco's - they seem to sell everything apparently.

Lotus-eater

Ahh sorry, I see what you mean, I meant a garden shredder for garden waste. Note to self, must be clearer.

alanobrien

Lotus-eater wrote: »

I would love a shredder, many for compost making. But the electric ones seem noisy and expensive. Is there a manual one on the market? Or any other ideas?
ps I'm not going to use my mower before anyone suggests it

The bosch ATX range is one of the quiet type but as you say they are not cheap. If a manual one exists it would have to be a fairly heavily geared sturdy beast to break up wood up to 40 mm diameter so i suspect it to would be expensive given it would not be a mass produced item. The nearest thing i can think off that would look like one is an old victorian hand blender - they used to be bolted to kitchen tables, weighted a ton and had long cast iron handles. It would be fun trying to use of one of them as a shredder

You could buy and old mower as another option rather than using your own. Second hand ones are fairly cheap but i have never found that method of shredding to work.
Other than that a saw, seceteurs and a lot of patience also works

Lotus-eater

alanobrien wrote: »

You could buy and old mower as another option rather than using your own. Second hand ones are fairly cheap but i have never found that method of shredding to work.
Other than that a saw, seceteurs and a lot of patience also works

I tried it once with the mower and it was rubbish and I have to spread it out on my lawn or something which would make a huge mess
I saw this program last week and he had a lovely shredded compost pile, it looked great and I was jealous, thats what got me started

I agree it would have to be highly geared and after 5 mins of using it (if it exsists) I might be regreting it

It just seemed a good idea at the time.........

DKLS

I'm not sure a manual one exists, I usually hire one over a weekend, sharing the costs with neighbours, and we all have a pruning/shredding session which produces lovely mulch. and works out at £5 ea.
No more bags of bark chippings for me

Lotus-eater

I've looked very hard and didn't find anything, a few other people wanting to find one, but nothing at all in actual hardware.

I've given up and got a good but cheap electric one off ebay.

DKLS, that was a good idea, I'm sure it will help someone else.

MonkeySaving?

Bosch ATX range all the way, especially the quiet one. Well worth the £199 from B&Q...it would have cost us double that to get a tree surgeon in to trim branches and remove them. Tooled up have them on special offer at the moment http://www.tooled-up.com/Product.asp?PID=114385&Referrer=Froogle