Sickle Bar Sickle Mowers

[wurso]

Jack,

Thanks very much for your ideas. I went to the web site that you suggested. It looks like the DR Trimmer product would certainly do the job. Up until this year, I've been using a hand held brushcutter to trim the bank. But health problems (my arms are pretty well shot due to Carpal Tunnel and other repetive motion ailments) are what's convincing me that sitting in a tractor and using some sort of an attachment is probably the best option for me.

Thanks again!
--Wayne

 

[Bird]

Jack, the problem with that is that you have to walk behind those things instead of riding the tractor./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif And of course, the DR trimmer/mower is what I have and use./w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Bird

 

[Bird]

Wayne, are you getting old like me?/w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif I sold my Stihl string trimmer and bought the DR trimmer/mower, and sold my B7100 without power steering and my Cub Cadet riding mower and bought a B2710 with a finish mower after having Carpal Tunnel surgery on both hands.

Bird

 

[wurso]

Hi Bird,

I'm not one of those guys who is rusting out... I'm wearing out! I had Carpal Tunnel surgery on both sides also, along with surgery for Pronator Teres Syndrome (a nerve impingement in the upper and forearms) also done on both the right and left sides. Far too any years of putting in 16 hour days as a Software Engineer pounding on keyboards all day long! After 22 years, things just gave out. Unfortunately, the surgery didn't really fix anything.

How about your surgery? Did it work?

--Wayne

 

[Anonymous Poster]

I waited a long time to get the surgery, felt even though I was screwed up at least I wasn't paralyzed which I felt was a risk with surgery (my paranoia). I was at the point where I was banging my fists on the wall to make the pain go away or at least change. A couple of people mentioned that the longer you wait the more chance the surgery won't be able to correct it. I bit my belt and did it, should have 10 years earlier, used to ride my dirtbike sometimes with my elbows because my hands were numb, learned to carry things with my legs 4 feet apart so I could drop stuff and not hit my feet.

After the surgery I still have a little loss of finger tip feeling but nothing like it was. I used to work on cars it was frustrating not being able to do intricate things if I couldn't see my hands, now I can stick my fingers up behind a dash, find and loosen wingnuts etc. I'd definitely find an orthopedic surgeon that has a lot of practice.

And on the subject...or off the subject as it has wandered, you folks that are using walk behind string trimmers, do all of yours just have a plate in the front under the spinning hub? I've only got about 20 minutes experience with one and I find it difficult to do this without having the front hub plow in the dirt or holding up while pushing it forward seems difficult. I'm trying to mow rough ground, bumps etc and even with the pretty big wheels, 16"? on this Troy bilt it is a struggle. I've almost decided to take the L35 and BX2200 and make this whole @#%@^^#@4 place mowable with my JD Garden TRACTOR, even if the ditches have to be 30 feet wide to lessen the slope. I would think a bar sticking out the front with a wheel on it would make far more sense, at least the option of attaching one. Kind of like the guide wheels on my landscape rake. I realize this would reduce the useability of it tight areas, but as another fellow posted, I've got ditches, some along the county road and could not find a sickle mower I could use that was "my size". I don't have to stick the "nose" of the trimmer into anything much as the wheels on this can be canted to left or right so wheels go straight but trimmer deck is cock-eyed so you can run along fences etc.

One of you mentioned how easy it is to push your trimmer over rocks. How are you managing that?

The ditch by the county road will be hard to convert to a mowable area, I figure to reduce the slope to safe number I'll have to cut into the pavement lane about 6 feet. Oh well./w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

del [email]oldcarparts@mygarage.com [/email]

 

[Von]

Del,
Just do what my dad did about 30 yrs. ago in front of has place. He just put pipe (what ever he could find, size went from 10" to 20") and then back filled. by the time the town figured out what he did he had been cutting the grass on it for a month. When they redid the road about 10 years ago and redid the drainage they were shocked at all the different pipe that they found. I think that the plastic 12" is not too much money, and you got the big Kubota to do the work with. It would be nice to have a flat part to mow.

von

 

[Anonymous Poster]

There's only one problem with that idea. The creek runs through 2 24" culverts, and sometimes that's not enough. The ditch is about 600 feet long in front of my place. That size culvert ain't cheap! Speaking of culverts though it always surprises me when someone down the street puts a culvert in and goes and gets the 10" when even after the drain splits and one 24 inch goes under the road to the other side, they are still going to get hit by 24" of flow. Their driveways wash away every other year or so.

Your dad's work reminds me of something. If you just DO THAT no one cares, but if you go down to the county to get permits/permission etc. they will say it's impossible or require engineers, surveyors, geologists, hydrologists, planners, right-of-way variances and a host of other things to make something simple into something impossible.

As Nike likes to say...JUST DO IT!

thanks for the post!

del

 

[Bird]

Wayne, I guess I'll get way off topic (not the first time), but my mother had the carpal tunnel surgery on one hand in a small hospital down south and it didn't help. Then my youngest daughter had to have the surgery on both hands (and one elbow - Cubital Tunnel Syndrome) in Dallas, and it did help tremendously. So my mother came to Dallas, went to my daughter's surgeon, had the job re-done (he said the surgeon down south didn't do it right), and no more problems; it was fixed. Personally, I put if off as long as possible, but when it got bad enough that I didn't even go to bed for 3 months because of the pain, I finally went to the same surgeon and had both hands done for the carpal tunnel syndrome (and should have them done for the cubital tunnel, but haven't - borderline so not too much problem). It was well worth the time and expense for us. I guess like a lot of things, it's important to find the right "mechanic" and that can sometimes be difficult to determine.

Bird

 

[civguy]

I am surprised people are using the walk-behind trimmer on a farm. I bought one (can't remember the brand) and was ready to return it after 30 minutes. The problem was, it took every bit of strength I had to push over the rough terrain. The ground has to be perfectly smooth for it to be useful. Since I was going to use it in culverts and fence rows, the ground is nowhere near smooth so it is useless to me. Maybe I will give it a second chance if others are using successfully. Besides, I have not thought of an alternative yet.
I am going to try the handheld brush cutter with a solid blade next. I considered the sickle mower, but the price was high and it only gives me one additional pass.

 

[W5FL]

The walk behind trimmers are much better than the metal blade hand held trimmers. My walk behind will cut 1/2 inch diameter weeds like they were not there and the metal blade trimmer wouldn't cut that large. These trimmers are now 6 HP (3 of them make a TC18)and with the large wheels and angle rotating heads allow you to trim a fence row and push pretty easy over my terrain. They use a lot of string on really rough stuff, but cut about everything they hit.