Shredder Vac/Blowers - Where’s the beef?

I hate it when there are good tools out there to make life easier, such as shredder vac/blowers, but then because of their cheap construction you’re always faced with repairs. For years I’ve used the little Stihl vac/blowers for vacuuming up leaves in ground cover, cigarette butts, Styrofoam peanuts, and so forth. Works great, but then all it takes is sucking up a stick or piece of bark and then the cheap plastic impeller is shot, or even the case surrounding the impeller gets cracked. Ticks me off to no end. So, someone out there please tell me that there is a shredder vac/blower out there that is commercial grade! Is there one that actually uses a metal impeller instead of plastic?

 

?, but I have that one and totally agree !!! works good as a blower though !

 

I 2ND THAT, Watch out when you suck up a rock the thing may shatter.

 

Well... as a blower I would use it only as a backup. Nevertheless, those vacs sure save time when you have a row of dried up leaves against a building, or along a curb. If I could find a heavy duty vac, I'd be tempted to take the bag off and run a large flexible shop vac tube back to a good sized backpack mounted canister. Wonder how that would work...

Anyway, I'm still ticked off about the cheap plastic they use...

 

I think they were made with metal impellers at one time but the liability became an issue. There is a thread on here somewhere that mentions it.

 

That doesn't look like a shredder at all to me, looks like a blower using the air intake side with a tube, something a home owner would use. I don't think when they originally designed the blowers the engineers envisioned sucking things up. It must take forever using something like that. I have a Troy built chipper/shredder that has a lawn vac attachment. This has metal impellers and as long as your not sucking up rocks will suck about anything. It has a chute for chipping up branches too. Makes whatever you put through it good for the compost pile or chip wood for mulch. I went to the troy built website, but I don't think they make em like mine anymore, too bad.