I mow 10 acre of grass lawn/gold course. My rear discharge finish mower kind of evenly disperses the clippings. I need a rake that can windrow the short grass clippings. Does anyone know of such a thing?
It would be better to pick up the clipping and put them into my compost pit. I cannot see myself out there hand-raking 10 acres. I visualize a "train" of my tractor, my finish mower, and a rake or vacuum. I have seen the large comecial vacuums but wow are they expensive! I purchased a small used vacuum but it is only 40 inches wide requireing the grass to be gathered into rows first.
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It depends on what you are willing to do period:
A rear finish mower cannot be used with a vacuum collector without a lot of modification;
and a flail mower sweeper collector is apparently something you cannot afford.
The flail mower sweeper collector uses full width air paddles to aid in creating suction to either slice and throw the grass
clippings over the rotor or blow them into the hopper for disposal into a dump truck or pile.
Your rear finish mower cannot be used with a "Cyclone rake" brand trailered vacuum system and the tiny sweeper
collector offered by everything attachments is a poor substitute in my opinion, much greater in cost, and is narrow in width.
The horse power of your CT335 is more than adequate for a larger three point hitch flailmower.
speaking as a flail mower owner the best option for your puzzle is a flail mower with a high number of grass knives
and a wide cut which will leave little to no residue.
A flail mower is a safer more cost effective method of mowing and it cuts the full width of the mower width.
A flail mower using grass knives has more total length cutting edge surface than a RFM and slices the grass blades versus
tearing them like a rotary mower does and the turf comes out perfect as the flailmower has a full width steel roller to
prevent scalping.
The flail mower uses what is referred to as the verticut method of cutting grass, and brush and its design makes it a very safe mower
for the following reason.
The Y type grass blades slice the grass blades rotate at a very high rate of speed and lift the grass blades up and over the rotor and throw it back on the ground
to decompose.
The slower you mow the smaller the clippings or you can simply drive over them a second time to recut them.
They compost quickly and their is little residue to see afterwards even with tall grasses when mowing a low speeds for the following reason;
the grass knives are still slicing at the maximum rotor speed with overlapping blades slicing the grass as the mower advances.
An example is the Caroni FRTM1900 flail mower
F-front mount option
R-rear mount option
1900 MM
F-finish cut
four rows of grass knives 112 in total
75 inch mowing width
540 rpm PTO speed
hydraulic side shift of 450 to 800 millimeters in width dependent upon mounting position 0 or Position 1
rear roller scrapper
www.agrisupply.com is th eastern US importer for Caroni Products
They are offering an internet buying price if purchased through the web page with freight to your door included in the price.
The home page does not list the price for the TM1900 but several of the members here own them and are very satisfied with them
and thier operation.
I own a mathews 48" flail mower with four rows of Y twin grass knives and dethatching blades with my father and we have had it for 30 plus years now with no issues other than rebuilds and normal maintenance.
of large TracVac loads to get it all picked up - I worked on it for around a total of 5 days, time-wise (not including time for equipment maintenance)
