Flail Mower Flail mower vs. rotary? (pros & cons)

[IslandTractor]

How high can you set most of the flail mowers. Can you get is up 6 inches or so? I assume you can run it up of the ground using the 3 point hitch?

4-5" no problem with roller on ground. Cuts fine off the ground too but mulches best with roller in ground contact. Cuts ok backing into brush but cuts better going forwards.

 

[leonz]

How high can you set most of the flail mowers. Can you get is up 6 inches or so? I assume you can run it up of the ground using the 3 point hitch?

======================================================================


The higher a flail mower is off the ground the less effective it is at mowing as it cannot create the "ground effect"
negative pressure gradient to help suction all the clippings up and over the Flail Mower Rotor.

You can mow at a higher cutting height but the cut will not look nice and your clippings will not rot and dissolve as quickly.


A flail mower works best when the rear roller is riding on the ground. The rear roller is what regulates the mowing height on a flail mower-unless it is a towed motorized unit where a crank and worm gear regulate the rear wheel height or the front and rear wheel height of a towed motorised 4 wheel flail mower with wheels within the mowing width of the flail mower.

 

[Piston]

Rather than start a new thread I thought I'd just ask here....
Regarding flail vs rotary, I have a heavy duty rotary mower but would love a flail mower that could deal with similar brush cutting that my rotary mower does. So, what is the heaviest duty most capable flail mower I could use with 40 hp pto? I'm not looking for fine finish cut, rather just want to mulch up material more, but I want to take down anything I can drive over and be able to mulch it up. I don't care if I have to go extremely slow by the way, just want the heaviest most capable cutter my tractor could handle.

 

[Arc weld]

How much money do you want to spend or do you have money burning a hole in your pocket?

 

[Piston]

Just in general, forget the cost, just looking for the heaviest duty most capable flail that a 40hp tractor can run. I know I don't have enough hp for a small mulcher, so I figure a flail is the next best thing???
(6' size)

 

[Arc weld]

For what you want to do I'm not sure you have the power for a 6' but maybe. 40 engine HP or PTO HP? Not sure what you're cutting but a Super Heavy Duty Alamo will cut up to 1" thick grass and weeds. Small saplings wouldn't be much of a problem. Give the link a few seconds to load.

http://www.alamo-industrial.com/Documents/Literature/1_shd_aug_2013.pdf

 

[IslandTractor]

I agree with ArcWeld. A heavy duty Alamo is probably the toughest flail on the market for CUTs but I'd think that a 40hp CUT is not going to use such a mower very effectively.

I have a medium duty rough cut flail (Caroni TM1900) and use a 40 hp tractor. With the flail I can bog the tractor down in thick 1" brush that I can drive through with my Woods BB600 rotary. Yes the rotary is narrower but the real issue is that the rotary doesn't spend any energy mulching debris. Of course the flail cut area looks mulched while the rotary cut area looks like someone just tossed grenades.

I'd want 60hp or more to run a true heavy duty Alamo flail efficiently.

 

[leonz]

Hello Piston,


Option one is to invest in the smaller model Landpride Flail Mower that is actually a Land Pride Branded Maschio scoop knive/cast hammer "Vineyard Flail Mower" that has a trash door that will allow you do two things , 1. change hammers without crawling under the flail mower, 2. use its trash door to its maximum advantage.
Wherein the trash door allows you to eject the material mowed directly out the back of the flail mower if desired and also use the optional shredding bars as well when the trash door is closed.

Second option is ordering a 4 foot cut Caroni flail mower with the scoop knives.

third option is renting the smallest FEMCO tracked forestry mulcher for a week or a few days and you will level shred and mulch everything at or below the ground surface. There are several Femco dealers in your area.

 

[Piston]

Do I have enough hp to effectively use the FEMCO mulcher behind my tractor???

Other than that, it sounds like with my limited hp, the best I'd be mulching would be about 1" in diameter?

I can do a solid 4" diameter tree/sapling if I take it slow with the rotary mower, I was hoping to get somewhere close to that even if I have to crawl at slow speeds.

 

[leonz]

The Femcos are very small self propelled diesel powered track drive units with full FOPS/ROPS cages.
I thought I mentioned they were self propelled?
Its a one and done approach and you will clear it all off.