End of Year brush hog results

[woodlandfarms]

Well, I am in LA, but I wanted to throw out what happened with my mower mods.

As you might remember I have the 1850 brush hog, a 3 spindle belt driven hydraulics powering the center spindle mower.

Upgrades I did was put on thicker / harder blades that were upturned, removed all the broken bolts and put in hardened bolts with hockey pucks as bounce returns..

Things I found out, the thicker blades are a big improvement. They have yet to bend. Spinning that much added weight increases vibration and I think probably wear. That will remain to be seen.

The upturning the blades improved grass mowing, but caused much more dust and dirt in the air, as well as they are a bit more prone to getting stuck with large sticks...

The hockey puck bumpers did not work. Well, they worked, and worked all season, but they dissolved on the second to last mowing. Now, this is ugly hogging, maybe in a less tough environment it would be a good idea. I ended up putting in a stack of soft (not hardened) washers and they are working well as bumpers. Bent up a bit but they reduce the blow.

The big thing was bumpers on the center (powered) spindle. I have found that this is a bad idea for me. The bumpers got broken off, twice. So I went without bumpers, and put hex plugs in the holes to keep debris out.

The blades have not got stuck under the stump jumper, i think the rotational mass with it also being powered makes it really hard to get stuck but I am no engineer.

Anyway... Gleen what you can...

Carl

[Sedgewood]

Originally Posted by woodlandfarms

The big thing was bumpers on the center (powered) spindle. I have found that this is a bad idea for me. The bumpers got broken off, twice. So I went without bumpers, and put hex plugs in the holes to keep debris out.

The blades have not got stuck under the stump jumper, i think the rotational mass with it also being powered makes it really hard to get stuck but I am no engineer.


Carl

Interesting. I've tried several blades over the course of may hundreds of brush hogging and mowing hours with the 72 inch roughcut mower on my 1845 and never added bumpers, never saw the need for bumpers, never had a problem I could attribute to a lack of bumpers. The only thing I can think of that might have spared me all this recurring bumper maintenance, unless my nub of spindle and weld in the center of the jumper is smaller than the typical nub, is that the blade bushings I use are loose enough to let the blades deflect and pass over (under:-) the nub without sticking.

Sedgewood

[woodlandfarms]

My sticking issue was minor until I bent the blade tips up... THen it was constant...