Toughest Flail Mower: Gearmore?

[Fred Cowell]

Aloha,
I'm researching a purchase of a flail mower/shredder to chop up coffee branches after pruning. I own a Gearmore GML49, but I keep loosing knives and hammers. I tried out a Gearmore GCF41 and it worked much better. The hammers and attaching ears were much tougher. It chopped up the branches fairly well and it didn't mind if it hit a rock or two. Does anyone have opinions on the toughest flail mower that can run behind a 37 hp tractor?
Thanks in advance.

Life is too short to drink crappy coffee.

[Superduper]

I have a vrisimo shredder and it is designed specifically for the purpose that you describe. It is an orchard quality mower and intended for frequent commercial duty usage. They call it severe duty. Mine is but a small 36" flail but it tops the scales at 820 lbs with the shaft. I believe a 4 footer will weigh in at something like 1150 lbs.

The normal manner in which they are used is in orchards, after pruning the trees, the branches are deposited in a windrow no wider than the machine mower width. The tractor is then driven over the branches and the flail mower using heavy duty hammers shreds them. These mowers are also fitted with rakes at the rear the keeps the material in the mower until the size is reduced to desired levels before being released from mower.

I don't know how you will get it shipped to HI, however. Furthermore, they are hugely expensive to begin with (figure about $7k to $8k for the shredders.

Vrisimo Equipment Company

[Fred Cowell]

Does your vrisimo have hammers or knives? I looked at the shredders at the Vrisimo site and they appeared to have knives. Also, what model is your 36 inch shredder? Our row spacing is only twelve ft wide but we plan on stacking in rows as wide as the shredder. Thanks again.

[Superduper]

My shredder has hammers. I think the S300 comes outfitted with knives but hammers are options. I think the S500 series come standard with 2lb hammers. The width of these machines can be huge. You have plenty of space with 12 feet to work with but with only 37 hp, you are going to be limited to a more reasonable size that your machine can handle.

[Iron Horse]

Get one with "P" type hammers , place the branches a little wider and do two runs , one up one back . It will take the same time and make it easier on the gear .

[Superduper]

Originally Posted by Fred Cowell

Does your vrisimo have hammers or knives? I looked at the shredders at the Vrisimo site and they appeared to have knives. Also, what model is your 36 inch shredder?

Fred, My 3' shredder is no longer a current model. The closest thing they have to mine is the 4' S300-4, come standard with flail knives but optional with hammers. The machine is built plenty heavy duty and can take the hammers with no probs. The S500 are heavier still and comes with even bigger 2lb knives. Hammer kit again is optional. I was told that my model was discontinued because it was too expensive to produce compared to the current S300 series. The list price was $7450, which is A LOT for a 36" mower.

The Gearmore GML49 weighs 580 pounds. The GFC41, which you are having better luck with, weighs in at 615 pounds. By comparison, the closest that vrisimo has in size for their current S300 series is the S300-4, weighs in at 1170 pounds. My S100-3 weighs a little over 800 pounds. I keep going back to the weight because it generally is an indication of how heavy the units are built. Again, these are "orchard" grade or severe duty units. I initially wanted to buy the GML49 which I thought was top-of-line quality but when I saw the vrisimos, they just blew me away. The build quality was far superior and lucky for me, I got a great deal on mine as they were closing out that model. I highly recommend these machines.

I've enclosed some more pics of my mower. The current S300 series and S500 series are similar, almost identical, in my opinion.

[IslandTractor]

Well, I am pretty sure my Caroni TM1900 is not the toughest flail mower in the world but it is sure a good bang for the buck. It weighs about 500 lbs and is really more of medium duty machine. I use it to clear brush and have unintentially tangled with a number of large metal objects without any damage to the mower. It uses knives but they are bigger than the ones designed for mowing grass. It chews up brush and branches pretty effectively. I don't know how thick the pruned branches you are trying to mulch are but I have pretty good luck turning one inch material to splinters without any problem. The mower is 75 inches wide and costs about $1600 plus shipping. I use a 40hp tractor.

Here are a couple of photos of the mower, the mower from underneath to see the knives (and angle iron wrapped around shaft) and an example of how finely it cuts in thick brush.

(cannot get photos to load so will try in next post)

[Superduper]

Island, I see the TM1900 mower at my local TSC and frankly, it's likely what I would have ended up with because the price is so attractive but when I found the deal on mine, I couldn't pass it up, even though it is so much smaller. I would never have bought my Vrisimo at the list price, as I could never afford it. That being said, without actually having compared the build quality, you wouldn't know but having seen both close up, the Vrisimo is at least 2 steps up in quality over the Caroni. Still, the TM series of the Caroni flail mower is more of a medium duty (compared to the smaller TL series). It is perfect for occassional usage but not designed, however for day-in, day-out usage. It is a mower, not a shredder. What fred had in mind, might be a little more rougher on the mower. Rather than hitting an occassional brush, he is thinking of pruning his orchard of coffee branches and shredding them with the flail. Continuous such use has got to be hard on any mower. On the other hand, you are right though. At the $1600 price, I think one would be hard pressed to find any flail mower to be a better value in terms of price/performance. There are some chinese made mowers that are much lower in price but given the choice, I don't think I would go that route.

You said that your mower weighs 500 pounds. I've got to think that it is more. By comparison, at the 75" width of the TM-1900, The gearmore weighs in at 740 pounds and the Vrisimo S300 weighs in at 1470 lbs. The S500 even more.The hammers of the gearmore are slung on link ends. That might be the weak link, I don't know. The Vrisimo hammers are mounted directly on hardened bolts without links.

[allen in texas]

this thread has made two decisions for me.

One,
I want a Vrisimo shredder.

Two,
I'm going to buy a Caroni TM1900 from Agri-supply.

Money ya know.

Now, I have a question,
When I have to replace the blade/hammers, reckon I can upgrade to better?
In other words, can I put cast hammers or something like that?

[swines]

Have you looked at one of these with the extreme duty knives?

http://www.alamo-industrial.com/Prod...D_shdflail.pdf

They have multiple dealers in Hawaii.