Woods BB720

[Rowski]

What great peice of equipment. I've done about 15 hours of cutting with it. 3 hour on very rocky, steep, weedy (spiria {sp}, rasberry bushes, goldenrod). Even backed over a few 2-3 inch trees. I even got to test it out on some canary rye grass, which was over 6' tall. Never lost power but the tractor was working, fuel usage went way down.

As far as the BB720 goes it very rugged. I had a few beach ball sized rocks loose underneath the cutter. Didn't damage the shell or structure but sure did do a number on my blades /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif! The chain guards work very well. The rounded back of the cutter seems really nice. Like when you try to swing (by turning sharp) the rear of the cutter close to an object. I've read a lot about people having trouble with the top link hinge assemble on the cutter binding and not working properly. The Woods design has not given me any trouble at all. I've on some very uneven ground including mowing across ditches. It "floats" with terrian very well. The feature that I like most about the BB720 is the ease of removing the blades. It took me about 20 minutes to remove both blades. Sharpen or at least remove the hanging pieces of steal. Clean and lube the pins and install the blades. Did it with only one person. Also that the bolt, that holds the locking plate in place for blade pin, need a torque of only 85 ft-lbs. Something else that amazed me is how well the cutter cut grass that was about 1' to 1.5' high, very nice clean cut. The blades were new and not dinged up /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif.

The hydraulic toplink really goes well with the cutter, I can level it out a different hieghts. It also helped me cross a brook and a ditch. I could shorten the toplink up so the cutter was at almost a 45 degree angle (back higher) and cross with out having the cutter dragging on the ground.

How many acres per hour do most of you do with a 72" cutter, average?

 

[JohnMiller3]

<font color="blue">...How many acres per hour do most of you do with a 72" cutter, average?... </font>

Cutting with a 6’ Mower @ acres/hr.
Mph / 100% / 85% efficiency
<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>
4 2.909 2.473
4.5 3.273 2.782
5 3.636 3.091
5.5 4.000 3.400 </pre><hr />

Depending on the terrain and how dense the cutting is:
(On wide open fields @ 5.3 mph w/ 7’ cutter, I can do ~~ 3.8 to 4.5 ac/hr.)
(On tough trees/brush, crawling speed w/ 7’ cutter, ~~ ½ ac/hr. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif)

 

[Rowski]

Thanks /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif!

That will really help my estimating on cutting jobs. I'm hoping to walk the perimeter of a field with a GPS. Load the track into my GPS software and calculate the acreage to estimate the job.

 

[knucklehead]

Derek - JMIII beat me to it. Of course, I am at work and distracted from priorities. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

I always enjoy your posted assessments/experiences with your equipment. The NH 2120 is also one of the tractors I'm impressed with, along with certain orange ones - for future upgrade. My neighbor has the BB600 powered by a new Kubota and the thing that impressed me is how quiet the cutter is when running. Must be all that steel - my much lighter (1/3 by weight - same 5 foot cut) unit sounds like there's a hailstorm going on underneath when I'm into the 1/2-1" woody stuff. Makes me wonder what the 6000-8400 series are like - not sure who would be drving who with my older 1700 Ford!

I'm not really an expert on what you can expect for coverage - but you can fine tune your estimates by the seat of your pants. When you see better how the BB720 performs behind the NH2120, and your best performing ground speed for various materials you are cutting, just divide the product of ground speed in mph and the swath in inches (maybe less than 72") by 99 (5280 ft/mile x 1/12 ft/in x 1/43650 acre/square ft = 0.01008 or just about 1/99).

If your speed is in ft/min, use 1/8730 (60 min/hr x 1/12 ft/in x 1/43650 acre/sq ft = 0.0001145). I was also thinking about efficiency, wheel slip, or whatever - can you use your GPS to estimate actual ground speed and eliminate that variable?

 

[Rowski]

The first problem, small one, with the BB720. I was cutting some very thick stuff 5 to 6 feet high of 'berry bushes, vines, goldenrod, spiria, birch and poplar saplings. I must have caught a small sapling or vine on the cotter pin that holds the rod that the safety chain hang on, rear guard. It broke the eye (where the cotter goes). The vibration cause the rod to vibrate out. Luckly I stopped to clean the screen in front of the radiator and do a walk around the equipment. So I only lost 7 of the 35+ peices that hang down on one section. The rear has a right and left section. So it cost about $10 for new chain and my labor 1/2 to fix. Lucky for me the rod was still useable, just welded a bolt in stead of the cotter on the broken end. I will fabricate a bracket to prevent this from happening again.

So far this Woods cutter is rock solid. Toplink hinge works perfect. I'm very glad I got a Woods!