Yes I see it is 25 plus years old but a working unit of that size for 5000 dollars sounds like a pretty good deal to me. Especially for an occasional user.
Nice looking unit. If it has the low hours i think its a great deal. Plus you have the know how to fix/maintain it as well. We dont hesitate to buy old saws from the era so why not a chipper? Used one once. An old one from the 1970's that had none of the safety features...basically grabbed the limbed and yanked it in. It had to be wound down. A bit scary.
Congrats on the purchase. I see that go at auction for more than $10k, but a variety of sizes and age. If you ran it and are happy......enjoy. Depreciate it on your taxes if you can!!!
Keep the knives sharp and anvil set right and she should chip great for a long time! Grease is good too! Also... probably stating the obvious but be careful working on that few hundred pound flywheel! They have a tendency to lazily turn if they aren’t pinned and with all that weight bad things can happen at slow motion!
Hahaha! Thankfully no, get along with her quite well. Yes sir! I work on a few of these for the guy I bought it from. Educated myself on safety before I started. Things can go wrong real fast.