Trimming Machines, and the Ultratrimmer

[luh3417]

I have been looking at a lot of dry trimming machines and I am not ready to believe in them. The simple logic is they shake the bud around a lot. They all show off some finished product, which I can believe looks pretty good. Maybe you need 2 hours to polish up the result, rather than 8 or 10 hours for a full hand trim. But nobody seems to show photos, before and after, with a loupe or microscope, showing trichomes. Surely, these machines knock off half the trichomes.

Does anyone have direct experience or photos demonstrating, most dry trim machines decimate trichomes and bud potency?

The exception could be this http://ultratrimmer.com/ or possibly also this http://thewhiptrimmer.com/ because they handle and shake the darling buds less.

 

[HeartIandhank]

Why do you want to dry trim with a machine rather than wet?

I just purchased a Bonsai Hero.. should be here next week. It is not an auto trimmer but more like auto scissors. I plan to use these to trim wet plants.

I like the auto scissors as I hate removing buds from the branches before drying.. I've never been able to get a decent taste or smoke out of buds that are removed from the vine at harvest.

$500 for 2 scissor set, shipped from the Netherlands for $50. They also have a lighter duty model for a lower price. But the one I got is built to run every single day, industrial grade.

 

[HeartIandhank]

I like the look of the ultra trimmer though.. great idea.

I know a dude who loves his salad spinner for small crops and uses a TrimPro Automatik for bigger crops. He says the machines do less damage to the buds than a trimmer with gloves and scissors will do.. I have a hard time understanding how that can be.. but.. he does have experience with them and I do not, so..

 

[luh3417]

TrimPro only make wet trimmers. Maybe that is to their credit. Rather than make a dry trimmer that rips off people's trichomes. Not to get too negative, but buyers seem to demand mainly good looks. I really don't know what people expect, for $1000, minus paid $150 for the trim. If prices get much lower, it could soon add up to, just convert the entire plant to oil, colas and all. Conversely, I don't recall buyers offering more because my weed is strong. So the reality of the market: most dry trim machines would result in, the same weed (minus half the trichomes) sold for the same price, less trimmigrants, and a side profit in kif (that's where the trichomes went). I'm not going to go down that road, but maybe the world is heading that way.

 

[HeartIandhank]

TrimPro only make wet trimmers. Maybe that is to their credit. Rather than make a dry trimmer that rips off people's trichomes. Not to get too negative, but buyers seem to demand mainly good looks. I really don't know what people expect, for $1000, minus paid $150 for the trim. If prices get much lower, it could soon add up to, just convert the entire plant to oil, colas and all. Conversely, I don't recall buyers offering more because my weed is strong. So the reality of the market: most dry trim machines would result in, the same weed (minus half the trichomes) sold for the same price, less trimmigrants, and a side profit in kif (that's where the trichomes went). I'm not going to go down that road, but maybe the world is heading that way.

Oh totally.. I agree.

My people won't buy the bullshit that comes in the mail from out west.. shaped like a pine cone, , no smell, no character whatsoever..You buy the butchered weed then you buy the missing surface area of the bud later in "wax", "shatter", "bho".

The falling price of MJ has hurt quality.. I think the whole "dabs" thing hurt the quality of MJ too..

That kind of herb resells around here for $600 per qp.. not arrives here for 600 but resells here for 600. local high quality hand trimmed sells for $1k per qp.

It is not even the same product.. It's like apples to applesauce.. Spaghetti to Spaghetti-O's..

 

[luh3417]

I don't get it but maybe, the customer (patient...) is always right.

Anyone out there used one of the dry trim machines? Did it take half the trichomes, and half the potency? And half the time off your trim job? And give you twice the dabs off the trim?

 

[Donktastic]

I own the Trim Reaper and love it. The trick with auto trimmers is to just use them for your small nugs, the ones that take hours to trim and only result in a few ounces. Anything bigger than say a golf ball then I do by hand, that's no big deal because you can trim an ounce in a few minutes by hand if its all top colas. With the reaper though and plant undergrowth I can literally trim a pound off of a fresh plant in about 30 minutes by striping my branches and throwing everything in, so its a huge time saver for big harvests or harvests with excessive undergrowth.

As far as losing crystals goes, its not as bad as you think. You auto trim when the buds are fresh off the plant (bonus for allergies) so the trics are elastic, instead of brittle when they are dry. The reapers itself only mildly agitates the buds with some soft rubber fingers over a metal plate. At the end of the project there is a noticeable amount of scissor hash build up on the reaper, so you are losing something, but you would never know it on the buds.

After my glowing report I need to say now that I rarely ever use my reaper now, but it has served me well in the past. I grow less undergrowth these days and I make dabs with all my extras so I don't have much need for the reaper. Its nice to have around for potential bigger projects though, and its paid for itself by renting out to my outdoor buddies during season, but I wouldn't respend the money on it at this point for my needs.

One more thing to add is that the trim that collects off of it makes bad bho and kief, the reaper grinds that up really fine so lots of plant matter gets through the filters. It makes a much lower quality, darker harsh.

Edit to add: noticed you meant dry trimmers, I don't get them either seems like a good way to make bud powder.

 

[DemonTrich]

I use a 19" spin pro knock off. Been using it for 2+ yrs. Before that was a 16" spin pro knock off. Trim wet, never had any complaints for anyone. Just got done with a 19 plant harvest in 2 days by myself, 10 hr days.

Clean the trimmer with 153 proof also holds for some pull n snap after its purged and vacd. Nice and tasty.

 

[luh3417]

There are two things we want from the trim process. 1. good looking buds without extra leaf 2. preserve trichomes, by minimizing handling. 1. is a matter of taste, but 2. can be measured scientifically. Either approximately with a loupe or microscope, or exactly by say shooting some into wax, or having it analyzed. Compare A and B, hand trim vs. wet trim machine vs. dry trim machine.

I am prepared to believe that a wet trim machine is a pretty good compromise. The trouble is, you only have one chance, one window of time, to do your wet trim. For example, the weather may rain early and you may have to just yank your plants and dry them before they mold. (Talking about outdoor).

I saw some pretty solid results with a TrimPro rotor. We didn't quantify it, but the weather held, and it clearly saved hours off each pound. (One minor gripe is that they buds lay on their sides after in a rack, and don't hold their natural shape.) That said, the motor in the TrimPro Rotor is a piece of junk. After it failed, we replaced it by jury-rigging a variable speed drill from Harbor Freight onto the top of it. Even a bottom of the barrel, Chinese drill motor looked and ran like a Mercedes compared to whatever broke-dick motor Trim Pro used. These machines are priced by what the market will bear and the potential savings, not by what it costs to manufacture them.

Back on dry trim, its common sense that shaking your bud around for 15 minutes is going to lose half the trichomes, so I've lost faith in everything but the Ultra Trimmer. Guess the next step is for me to put my $4000 where my mouth is. Here is their video

 

[Dennis Maughan]

I own a ultratrimmer. It arrived beat up from the poor packaging and it does not trim well, unless you dry your buds past sellable condition. Do not believe Berry the owner he is a con artist.
I still have the ultratrimmer if anyone want's to purchase a not so good trimmer.
I also own a trim pro automatik It is another piece of junk that has been sitting for years
Do not purchase the ultratrimmer or you will throw $4750.00 away.

 

[DemonTrich]

• I seen the youtube vids of the trim pro rotor. The TPR IS an absolute waste of money. My 19" salad bowl hand crank trimmer does a fantastic job. Might have to hand crank it, I do 16 turns, and comes out damn near perfect. The TPR you have to wait, and wait, and wait for it to trim it. Granted, I do a nice pretrim before I process it In then trimmer. I can get 2x as much trimmed with my hand crank vs the TPR. I almost bought one, had I not seen the vids on how they work. PASS!!! Now I just need to stop being a cheap ass and buy the t4 mini, or the centurian Jr models. But at 5k, I'd rather upgrade my 2001 truck. Lol

 

[Dennis Maughan]

I have owned a Trim Pro Automatik for many years. I only used it for one harvest because it bounces the buds around with the trichomes coating the walls of the trimmer.
To this day my trim pro is still coated with the trichomes that should have stayed on the buds.
If you are trying to decide weather to purchase a Trim Pro or a Ultratrimmer, talk to someone that owns one first. I wasted my money on the Ultratrimmer and the Trim Pro.
We still trim by hand!!!!!

 

[Mr.GreenJeans]

I tried a Trim Pro once. Once. NEVER again. You spend months babying your plants and giving them just the right nutrients and love to make them as big, happy, and potent as the genetics will allow ------- and then you fuck up your bud because you don't want to take the time to properly hand-manicure it. I don't get it. Now I suppose if you were some big-time commercial grower processing hundreds of pounds at a time, then automation might be worth the degradation of quality because it's all about volume, plus you wouldn't care because the trim would become edibles, oil, etc. But for guys like me, who get a couple of pounds per grow of final product, hand-trimming is the only way to go and it results in a clearly superior product. NO commercially-grown/processed weed can touch good hand-trimmed and properly cured homegrown!!!!

 

[NULLNOS]

I own a ultratrimmer. It arrived beat up from the poor packaging and it does not trim well, unless you dry your buds past sellable condition. Do not believe Berry the owner he is a con artist.
I still have the ultratrimmer if anyone want's to purchase a not so good trimmer.
I also own a trim pro automatik It is another piece of junk that has been sitting for years
Do not purchase the ultratrimmer or you will throw $4750.00 away.

I was kind of excited by the youtube videos. But skeptical since they always cut the scene. Or Clearly showed someone trimming as long as a tumbler and saying it was a shorter time. Another issue I had is in their pictures they show a guy with a missing finger tip. Just a little red flag!! Regardless I was interested and contacted the company. I asked a few questions and Barry responded at first, but ignored my second set of questions. I wrote another email to which he responded: "What the fuck are you talking about?" WOW I've never dealt with such immaturity from a salesman, let alone a business owner. I was turned off immediately and told him so. He responded with info on the unit, as if I would actually do business with such a jerk. I wrote back informing him again about his rude behavior. To which he responded "Go fuck yourself!" WOW! I can't imagine anyone in their right mind wanting to do business with this guy. I was nothing but professional. I wish I could say the same for Barry.

 

[mojoganjaman]

I've got a Shearline 2.0...costly???...maybe...but compared to the beer cigarettes and food and wages that trimmers demand as well as the time...it was a no brainer...now myself and 3 yard helpers work 3hrs a day every couple of days...I have a med license for a reason...and knock down 2 7ftr's at a time...defan and buck the stems out then trim 'em up wet......not for the smaller grower...but it chews thru my 25 plants easily...and the owner is a great guy!!!!



mojo

 

[ttystikk]

What about hand held electric wet and dry trimmers? Who has any opinions on these?

They seem a good compromise between big machines and hand trimming, but it would be nice to hear from people who have experience with them.

 

[OldMedUser]

I just used my TrimPro Unplugged recently for the first time and I'm quite happy with the shape of the buds that come out of it. With my arthritis my hands can't take all the hours of snipping it takes me and I'm too damn fussy when hand trimming. Saving me so much time too.

I snip all the bigger leaves and most everything that doesn't have sugar on it onto the clean flour then popcorn and some half sugary leaf goes into a big bowl while the buds snipped off the stems goes into another bowl. Once there is enough bud for a run in the machine I do them up quick. Gives my hands a break and changes my sitting position to give my back a break too.

I cut a piece of nice white face cloth about 3" square to clean the grate with. I just fold it up and wet it with methyl hydrate to wipe it down. Does a great job fast and once the cloth gets soaked with resin down the road it can be rinsed with solvent to recover all that resin. I made sure to clean the catch pan well so the sides can be wiped down too and cut a nice circle of parchment paper to fit the bottom so nothing sticks down there.

It does nip off a lot of bud so with the pre-trim I give them the stuff in the pan is as good a smoke as bud and all ready to roll up in a doobie once dried but mostly destined for extracts. Using the extra blade shim might reduce the amount of bud snipped off but I think it more the leather fingers pressing the buds up against the grate and kind of squashing them down that does that. I have my own ideas about making a different type of finger design so the buds get less of a beating.

Because of the way the set screws hold the fingers in place they project out at an angle rather than hang dead plumb. I put a popsicle stick down the channel behind the tops of the fingers and it fits perfect so the fingers hang straight down and the buds are pushed around evenly in both directions of spin.

Some sort of see-thru cover or screen over the top would be nice too. Bits of buds and even whole buds can get flipped out onto the floor. I'm working on a fix for that too.

It's the only trimmer I've ever used and as I got it slightly used for half price I'm twice as happy with it. If I'd had to pay the full $699 for it I would have got a cheap salad bowl trimmer instead.

 

[OldMedUser]

$700 retail in the hydro store in northern Alberta where I ordered close to a grand of stuff a few months ago. TrimPro has it for $550 Canadian on their website.

I put probably 4 times more than 4-5 golfball sized buds in and I'm sure it could do more. I toss the popcorn in there too and it gets nicely minced. I dry that stuff slowly so it gets rid of the green and makes better cocobudder etc. Might water cure some and see how that works for cocobudder.

I like lots of high grade trim for keif, BHO and the cocobudder. I mix BHO with keif to make a nice black hash. When was the last time you hot-knifed some decent hash?

 

[ttystikk]

$700 retail in the hydro store in northern Alberta where I ordered close to a grand of stuff a few months ago. TrimPro has it for $550 Canadian on their website.

I put probably 4 times more than 4-5 golfball sized buds in and I'm sure it could do more. I toss the popcorn in there too and it gets nicely minced. I dry that stuff slowly so it gets rid of the green and makes better cocobudder etc. Might water cure some and see how that works for cocobudder.

I like lots of high grade trim for keif, BHO and the cocobudder. I mix BHO with keif to make a nice black hash. When was the last time you hot-knifed some decent hash?

Got a dab rig for that lol

 

[Big_Lou]

I function as a "trimming machine". Just provide me with a never ending cooler of beer, music of my choosing, and all the trimmings I can carry home.