Reviews of specific attachments

[ronjhall]

Bob
First day of Spring is March 20th. This only being January 15th I would narrow your wants down to do SOMETHING. Weatherman predicts more snow and rain for the next week. Trucks look like crap with mud, salt and road dirt from the top to bottom. Get it washed and 1 hour later it warms up and the road to my house turns to mud again. Can't wait for spring and more mud. /w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif

 

[TresCrows]

OK, I will be the rogue, yes you probably paid more for the IMPLEMENTS (not attachments or utensils--I did the same thing) /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif because they were painted that purty green color or orange or whatever. On the other hand, you can rest easy in that the implements offered by the tractor manufacurers will not void your warranty, will operate flawlessly with your machine and will--well--be color matched if that is important. I have been told by tractor savvy people to purchase only the FEL and MMM (possibly backhoes also) specific to the tractor and buy everything else from Woods or KK or Landpride. You do, it appears from examination, get more bang for the buck, often heavier materials or other niceities with after market implement manufacturers. For example my Kubota boxblade cost 2 times as much as a Landpride unit of similar size, it is a nice blade for sure and I like it but it is not quite as nice or heavy or perhaps versatile as what I could have gotten from Landpride--oh well--live and learn. But the paint matches and it is a nice blade--just not 2 as nice or even as nice so I will not be buying any more such deals with the possible exception of a tiller from Kubota--tractors yes--implements-probably not. It is the same with with JD or NH or Kioto etc also--price and shop for yourself and you will see.
All in all you probably did better than you think /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif since you got a package deal and your dealer seemed to be a genuine nice guy and such, on the other hand if you feel like you just visited a used car lot and came away used then you might have been. In that case I might would consider doing a trade on the implements for Landpride, Woods, KK etc and cash back or against my loan amount or toward an additional implement. Don't get to wrapped up in the color thing--Landpride beige is probably better than JD green (blue or orange too) at a substantial cost savings.
Sorry I did not toe the line and tell you what you might want to hear --- I never do that -- perhaps the best thing to do is to be satisfied/happy, years from now it will mattrer little say the crows.
J

 

[Bob_Trevithick]

<font color=blue>...Sorry I did not toe the line and tell you what you might want to hear --- I never do that -- perhaps the best thing to do is to be satisfied/happy, years from now it will mattrer little say the crows.</font color=blue>

No, I wanted honest opinions, and I thank all who replied. Sounds like I did okay, probably could have saved some money if I'd given it more thought. Live and learn.

I would still be interested in finding a place where specific equpment is reviewed and compared.. kind of like Car and Driver does.. take a bunch of equipment and beat the snot out of it and see what works best.

Do you suppose equipment manufacturers would shower me with tractors and attachments if I offered to provide such a service? /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

Bob

 

[MChalkley]

I've had a Landpride blade, rake, box scraper, and rotary cutter. I abused all of them pretty badly, and never managed to damage any of them except the rotary cutter. The 25-series rotary cutter doesn't like to be backed into 3" diameter trees. Other than that (which I can't say was Landpride's fault), I had no complaints with any of their stuff. I can't exactly compare them to anything else, though, except to say that (excluding the rotary cutter damage) it wouldn't have been possible for any other brand to do any better.

 

[Bob_Trevithick]

Thanks, Mark. Land Pride sounds like good stuff. I have one of their Spreaders that I'll get to use this Spring.

About the rotary cutter.. this brings up a question that occured to me. A rotary cutter sounds like a pretty versatile device. Would it be feasible to use one as both a brush cutter and also a finish mower? I assume not, or everybody would. Do they do a messy job on regular grass?

 

[TerryinMD]

Bob,

About finding a place to review implements or having a manufacturer give, err have you evaluate them /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif, just put out a question on TBN. You WILL get lots of replies.

If you wish to pursue the first part of the above paragraph, pack a big lunch and do not hold your breath. /w3tcompact/icons/eyes.gif/w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif/w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

You made the best decision with the information you had at hand. As TresCows said, the equipment is pretty well made and will be backed by the dealer and the warrenty.

Terry

 

[MChalkley]

Bob - While it's certainly more feasible to use a rotary cutter as a finish mower than it is to reverse the process, I wouldn't want to use a rotary cutter on any lawn I valued. It might be possible to do a decent job, if the lawn was extremely flat, but not likely.

There's several problems with using a rotary cutter to mow a lawn. One is the fact that they aren't meant to cut very close to the ground - 3-4" minimum - in my opinion. Since they don't have wheels at all four corners, they scalp a lot. Also, since the blades are big and heavy and made for cutting big tough stuff, they tend to mangle grass blades, pulling some up, and basically beating it off, instead of cutting it cleanly. They also don't mulch grass at all, they just thrash it around.

Keep in mind, though, that I'm not a grass cutter. As I've said before, I deliberately keep the amount of personal grass that has to be mowed down to a small enough amount that one charge on a electric mower will do it. And I'm serious. Any more than that and I'd have to concrete it and paint it green, 'cause I'm not going to mow it. Some of the guys here who specialize in grass can probably give you a much better answer than I can.

 

[ronjhall]

Bob
<font color=blue> Do you suppose equipment manufacturers would shower me with tractors and attachments if I offered to provide such a service?</font color=blue>
Sure if you pay for them in advance. /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif