Bush mower high rise?

[ottawarob]

I want to mow some really uneven trail behind my place with my bush mower, mostly taking out small saplings, underbrush, etc. Too many rocks to take my bush mower back there right now as is. Has anyone ever made extension skids for their bush mower? If I could get it 8" or so off the ground it would be perfect. What I'm not sure of, is if having the blade that high up would start to cause issues with the cut (not that I care that much, it's mostly for bush and sapling clearing.)

 

[leonz]

Hello Ottowarob,

The issue is strictly from the need to operate the mower safely as a rotary cutter they have to be on the ground to mow.
Is the ground stable enough now to walk on and put driveway stakes in the ground to mark the location of the offending rocks?

If you use driveway stakes you could spray round up or burn the brush around them with a propane torch and you could steer around them if the terrain allows you to.

It would save you a lot of headaches and possible injury of you spent some time on the phone with Jay at Earth Tools for some idea of what to do.

 

[ottawarob]

Ah right, I hadn't thought that this would increase the chance of shooting junk out of the mower, yikes.

I'll have to scope it out again next spring but I don't think it's doable with the mower. This is really a path through a forest floor, I'm probably better off with a bush trimmer, at least for round one.

 

[joecoin]

I'd say you would need to extend the flap that tries to prevent things from shooting out. Both front and back.

Instead, I use a commercial grade weed eater with a Beaver Blade (chainsaw teeth) to cut in rocky/uneven areas.

 

[NibbanaFarm]

Use a sickle bar. Very safe.

 

[tcreeley]

I use my bush hog to cut saplings and every thing else- like leveling ant hills. If I am really unsure of rocks, I'll skim the bucket a few inches off the ground at a slower speed and let that make contact first. What I worry about is the angle of my PTO shaft. I tow my bush hog and I don't want to raise it too high and crimp my spinning PTO shaft and bend it.

 

[BCSSHOP]

Yes, use the sickle bar. Brush mowers can eject debris at speeds over 100mph. Sometimes brush mower blades get damaged and they can likewise come off at lethal speeds. One customer showed me his steel toed boot with the entire steel toe cut off the boot while he was wearing it! He was not injured. I quickly asked him to return the brush mower to me for full credit before he or someone got hurt. He loves the BCS duplex sickle bar for brush mowing in rocky areas where previous mowing was done many years ago.

 

[wstr75]

I cut a trail through the woods between two properties this month using the BCS sickle bar mower and then followed up with the Pallatino flail mower. The flail chewed on the few inches sticking up of the cut saplings and left a nice looking path.