Draper 35900 Garden Shredder, 2400W, 230V

Surprisingly long delivery time, a week, but arrived on the estimated date. Read the instructions, which were brief & easy. It describes what you can & can't shred well with the machine: Yes> green wood cuttings up to about 30mm went through well & cut up into small chips, neatly into the bag. Very thin twigs tended not to be cut up, but since they were small already, they didn't really mess up the total mulch & you can put them through again in a bunch if you want to. Best work on straight branches, but you can force irregular bunches through with the paddle fairly easily. No> hard dead wood, especially over 15mm, its not made for this & cannot cope, just judders your hand while you try! I shredded hebe, rose, honeysuckle, hydrangea, willow, ash & beech prunings Easy to put together, open up to clear & move around. Bag works well, catching all my chippings, filled it twice in about 20 minutes & used this to mulch about 3m2 around fruit bushes. Not particularly noisy, but wear ear defenders if you're doing much, or hyper H&S. Nothing flew back at me but wise to wear safety glasses just in case! Examined the blade afterwards & it looked in perfect condition, without any dents or nicks. I was very careful not to put any stones or even soil or roots through!! Probably need a sharpen after 4 or 5 hours work, but looked very easy to remove with supplied allen key (not too keen on this metal key being stored in the cutting compartment though!?). Very pleased with this buy, after reading dozens of reviews on various shredders, before finally selecting the Draper! It does what I really want, simply & effectively!!

It got through all of the vegetation I put through it, including branches of buddleia and even apple tree (up to a decent thickness). It also managed the more leafy green stuff - hedge trimmings and ivy. Doesn't like too many leaves or short twigs, they need to be mixed in with branches. It needs to be regularly unclogged, but not a big issue really. My only gripe is that this appears to be the exact same machine as the lidl machine my mate has - who bought it for over £30 less. I think Draper have just put their name on the same factory model. Get it in Lidl on offer if you can. Lastly I imagine that the blades need sharpening reasonably regularly. All in all happy with it.

Draper was supposed to be a good make - so I thought. BUT - the shredded materials were very course - often I got longs strands of material coming through and re-shredding them didn't help. - after a couple of days the shredder broke. So I gave up, sent it back and asked for a refund.

I purchased this item a few weeks ago and had not had the opportunity to use it until yesterday, 8th June 2014. Out of the box it was very easy to assemble, just a matter of fitting the wheels to the stand; using the supplied clips, snap in the hub caps over the wheels and then fit the shredder onto the stand and secure it with two self-tapping screws. Five minutes and it was assembled. I purchased this shredder primarily as having checked our insurance policy, I found that I should not have a fire within 50 metres of our thatched cottage. Whilst our chosen site for bonfires is about 40 metres from the house, I decided that a shredder had to be purchased just in case (a lot of asset to place at risk otherwise). So onto the shredder! We have a long drive and a large garden with around 160 metres of hedge and a further screen of coppiced trees down our 100 metre long drive. I decided that as I was using it on a Sunday afternoon and after reading other reviews that I should start on the driveway as the shredder is reckoned by some to be noisy. Armed with loppers I went down the drive for 25 metres and cut sufficient branches to shred and fill up the supplied bag with fairly fine chippings/mulch three times; believe me this is quite a lot of branches and quite a lot of chippings. I found that the shredder worked very well with a combination of branches and leaves, the resultant mulch was really quite fine, particularly the wood chips, although the leaves could have been chopped finer, I could not see one leaf that passed without being cut. The shredder did jam once, only because I failed to empty the bag, resulting in the chute becoming blocked. You simply unscrew the front section, using the large "hand sized" screw at the rear, remove the front plate and clear the blockage. After use, I cleaned the blade and interior of the case, sprayed it lightly with WD 40 and wheeled it away to store it. In summary then: PRO'S Easy to assemble Easy to operate Copes well with a mixture of leaves and wood Produces a fine mulch which is ideal for composting Relatively cheap and I believe that you can sharpen the reversible blades when required (unlike the Bosch variant) Appears well made and pretty robust I thought that in use it was quiet and whilst I wore ear protectors, my wife and son claimed that sitting some 40 metres distant on the patio that the noise was not as invasive as our distant neighbour's lawn mower and chainsaw! CON'S It is reassuringly heavy (had to say something re the weight) The supplied bag is quite flimsy (but should last if care is taken) I intend to place an update and if possible some video footage of this excellent item, but Amazon seems to have issues with the video footage from my iphone, so don't hold your breath. Overall, excellent five star item and well worth the money. UPDATES Please see comments plus, on 14th September I trimmed yet another hedge. Massive amount of holly, most of which I rendered down using the shredder; which is quite a job as the wood is harder than what many would think. For the first time I had a serious jam where a pice of wood got stuck between the blade and the body. I think that I probably need to sharpen the blade. It still went through loads of branches afterwards, but that will be my next job on a rainy day. I could have reversed the blade, but even allowing for the fact that this is a relatively easy job (open up the shredder and remove the blade and reverse it using the supplied allen key) it worked fine afterwards. I must admit that I am pleased that I purchased it, particularly for the branches rather than the leafy stuff and for me it does the job. See comment.

It's ok. I should have perhaps bought a more powerful machine. It does the job for me, but tends to clog up at times, inconvenient to take to bits to clear.

Spent a long time reading reviews on most of the Shredders on sale around this price. None of them came out very well, but this one seemed to have the least number of bad reviews. IMO Draper have always supplied good quality items at slightly high prices but as in all things, you usually get what you pay for. So far I've been very pleased with this shredder. It doesn't deal with thin flexible twigs with leaves on e.g. broom, and sticks more than half an inch (15mm for the younger readers) can get stuck between the feed in hopper and the cutter. They bounce around like mad things and you have to stop the machine to release them. But in general, it does what I expect of it. It shreds most sticks, stems and twigs up to three quarters of an inch. I don't put anything thicker through it 'cos I can keep them for burning and as mentioned, they don't get right through. It does clog up if you put green stuff and or thin stuff through it but its just a matter of one handscrew to open it up and clear it. The bag is a bit femma and I doubt it will last more than one season but IKEA do a good line in similar bags, so I'm told. I would recommend this machine but I haven't had it that long. I've filled a one tonne bag (the ones that gravel is delivered in) with the shreddings so far, so I have put it through its paces and I have a similar amount of shrubbery to get through again. But I have no doubt that this shredder will be up to the job. on the down side, its a bit noisy but so it should be if its chopping up sticks. but a good machine and a good buy

This machine is OK for shredding soft materials, like large flowering plants or weeds, and for very small branches, i.e. twigs. However even this small stuff requires you to work very hard with the pusher to get it into the blades. If you need to shred even quite modestly-sized branches, forget it, the Draper can't cope. You will need very good ear protection and tolerant neighbours to cope with the extremely loud screaming noise it produces as well. It yields finely shredded material that makes a good mulch, but it clogs easily too. I bought mine to replace an old Bosch 'silent shredder' that munches branches into lumps rather than finely shredding them. This really is quiet, deals easily with quite big branches, and draws them in so you don't have to push. I found this much more useful, and have had to return the Draper (using Amazon's very efficient service) so I can buy a new Bosch. I recommend that prospective purchasers consider which of the two kinds of shredder will meet their needs before buying.

The shredder works well and proved a good buy. It blocks occasionally especially if thin twigs are put through but is easily cleared. The blade is reversible and will resharpen so it should last some time before I have to buy another blade. I found the screw holding the blade very tight (they used lock tight on it) and I used a tube on the Alan Key to release it. The Alan Key was located inside the body so I removed it and attached it to the cable as I did not want there to be any chance of it going through the shredder.