Ditch & Bank Mower Build

[yellowandbeige]

Boy I have thought a lot about making a boom mower myself, very interested to follow your progress.
I'm wondering? how will you adjust the attitude, or angle of the mowing deck? will it be free swinging to follow the ground? or will you have another cylinder to offer tilt to the deck?
Y&B

 

[sandman2234]

I just figured out that I saved the thumbnails instead of the pictures. Here is one that I do have. Note the bolts that allow you to remove the leading edge of it, to have an open acess of you are cutting heavier stuff.
I haven't figured out what the tires are made of, but they are hard, very hard and will probably do a fantastic job. I was impressed, and sorry that my poor tractor isn't going to be pulling it. If I didn't want to pull the bush hog at the same time, it might be worth keeping, but I need more capacity, and thought I might get away with this instead of spending the money to buy a batwing mower.
Still looking for a batwing, hopefully one with a broken main gearbox, since I have a new one, and one side gearbox.
David from jax

 

[Joee]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for all the responses it’s giving me great food for thought.

My original intensions were to incorporate some type of shear pin or a way for deck to rotate if it strikes an obstacle. But with length of build I just want to get it working and then backtrack to updates. One idea I have for deck breakaway is attaching deck with two diameters of pipe so it can spin independent of boom arm. I saw this principle used here on something in the past. Sure would like to hear some other ideas on deck and arm protection.

Looks like I need at least 3/4" hose on cutter motor or heat may become a problem.

Tractor has 8 gpm flow so it looks like 1/4" hose to cylinders on arm would work. What would I gain by going to larger hose? I don't need super fast speed of movement but at the same time I don't want it to creep super slow. Buying as much hose as I need would be expensive if I have to buy twice.

I do have thoughts of removable swivel wheels at some point.

There will be another cylinder to handle angle of deck. Will have pics of this soon.

Thanks for everything you guys

Joe

 

[GuglioLS]

Your bank mower is going to be real nice when completed. You have put a lot of effort into it and it shows. I remember a while back seeing oneHERE IS the link to it.
Keep us up to date on your progress.

 

[Brad_Blazer]

Last week I was at Tarheel Tractor and saw one of these mounted to a 100 hp used tractor.
eBay: HARDEE 3 POINT HITCH 5FT DITCH AND BANK MOWER
It had it's own pump powered by a PTO shaft. Looked pretty effective. It also looked like it had a counterweight that moved in the opposite direction of the mower.

 

[Renze]

Tom Veach, i just couldnt recollect the hydr. calculation units without finding a book hidden somewhere in the trash cabinet. Thanks for helping me on this.
By the way, the proverbial back of an envelope calculation, according to teh Dutch version of this saying, the Dutch do it on the back of a cigar box... ;-)

We have a 60 cm (2 feet) lawn mower, with a 6 hp Briggs & Stratton engine. With hydraulic tractor power i would be able to put about 12 hp on this, so i think my lawn mower would cut some trash and thorns if it had double the power... I think this would be my best bet, i am just going to need a belt to speed up the revolutions of the hydraulic motor... the one i have on the shelf, has a stroke volume per rotation casted into the housing so that should be easy to find out.

 

[Tom_Veatch]

...
We have a 60 cm (2 feet) lawn mower, with a 6 hp Briggs & Stratton engine. With hydraulic tractor power i would be able to put about 12 hp on this, so i think my lawn mower would cut some trash and thorns if it had double the power
...

The "lawn mowers" I'm familiar with use a single rigid blade mounted to a central shaft. When they encounter a heavy object, it either gets thrown, of if too heavy to throw or shear with a single stroke, it comes to a (very) sudden stop and possibly needs a new crankshaft. DAMHIKT.

If that describes the mower you are talking about, you might want to think of coming up with some sort of swivel mount for shorter blades. Then if you run into some stalks, brush, or trash too thick to be severed with a single blade passage, you can get multiple strikes on the object without stalling out the power source.

 

[Renze]

Tom Veatch, off course swiveling blades is the idea.

...this ditch and bank mower will be added at the bottom of my project list as i have a dirt buggy and a straw chopper with higher priority.
With the dirt buggy, i have some friends waiting with foam on their mouth to help me, so that will be a quick job, but with the straw chopper i'm all on my own...

 

[Mith]

My chart show you'll need 3/8"-1/2" for the rams.

1/2"-1" for the motor.
1"-1 1/2" for the intake to the pump.

Looks like a real nice project

 

[Joee]

Hi,

Trying to finish up all the final details of the boom mower project and when one gets figured out, two takes its place. I have been working out the deck linkage and this is what I’ve come up with so far. I’m not 100% sold on my idea, but got to have someway to attach cylinder to deck. Anyway, here are a couple pics.

Joe


ps Any ideas?