Woods DS96 not very good in thick grass

[LD1]

Understood. If you go through with it, keep us posted.

Certainly will. Just no telling when that next job where the conditions are right, is gonna present itself.

 

[PSDStu]

I measured the rear opening of my RCF3096 cutter and it's 57 1/2". I have attached a pic when it was new. I also have a pic of the rear of my Brown 416 which is much different then the opening of the much older Brown 415 cutter I have . At some point Brown closed the rear opening to the current setup which is much smaller then the opening I have on the 20 year old 415. I will try and get a pic of the older 415 tomm to show the difference.

Both of the Brown single spindle units have no problem discharging grass/field cuttings out...... the LP 3096 even with the Chain Guards removed makes no attempt discharge the cuttings out rear like the single spindle cutters do.

 

[LD1]

.. the LP 3096 even with the Chain Guards removed makes no attempt discharge the cuttings out rear like the single spindle cutters do.

Do you have the same issues I describe with dense tall grasses.

Everything discharges out the back and disperses nicely on 12" stuff, and don't clump up, as pictured in my first post. But there is a limit to how much it can discharge, and it's somewhere between what is pictured....and 3' thick vegitation.

 

[LD1]

Just took some measurements off my ds96.

Rear opening only 51-1/2". And I loose a solid 5" of height due to the piece that the tailwheel attach to.



Front opening is 10" high. Rear is only 8.5" high. Blades 6" front....and 7.5" rear.

Considering I am effectively cutting at 6", that only leaves a 2.5" tall x 51-1/2" wide opening to disperse clippings. And with lift type blades, those clippings ate getting thrown upward as well. Just not a great design for clearing lots of clippings.

Too much liability I guess for the mfgs and not wanting to be throwing a ton of debris.

It's only the dense stuff that causes fits. A 3-4' field of weeds, like ragweed, queen Ann's lace, etc with little grass content isnt a big deal. But lots of dense grass laid over (that if stood up would be 3')....that's the problem.

This is how I normally run in thick stuff...

 

[PSDStu]

Do you have the same issues I describe with dense tall grasses.

Everything discharges out the back and disperses nicely on 12" stuff, and don't clump up, as pictured in my first post. But there is a limit to how much it can discharge, and it's somewhere between what is pictured....and 3' thick vegitation.

No I don't get any clumping..... it's all laid out pretty well.

 

[LD1]

It looks like you lose quite a bit of opening height too on that piece that angles down where the chain guard then attaches.

But you are ~7" wider too. Not that I think that would make enough difference in my case. Are you running high lift blades or standard?

Looking at any old single spindle cutter......especially the square ones.....the rear was completely open....full width....all the way to the deck.

With just 51" open at the rear of this DS96....and loosing 5" vertically....I'd say an old square back 48" cutter had more area to discharge cuttings.....but was only mowing half the amount.

 

[LD1]

I forgot I had some pictures of the most recent job I did that gave me some fits with the density of the cutting.

Real thick and "low land" areas around a pond. This is the kind of stuff that refuses to discharge well, no matter how slow I go. Cutter loads up, bogs down, then pukes a wad of grasses out the back and is fine again for a nother 10-15' of cutting. You can see this pretty well in the second pic



This is an area near the back....was not bad at all. MX5100 + DS96 handled this at ~5-6mph with no issue


Ton of garden spiders too, webs just glistening in the morning sunrise.

 

[LD1]

Got it cut out



Potential job Sunday morning to try it out on

 

[DiskDoctr]

Nice thing about steel. Keep the pieces. If it doesn't go as planned, weld it back on or cut out more

 

[aczlan]

Our 7' finish mower (A Walco-Douglas 90-RD) is wide open in the back across 3/4 of the cutting width, it spreads clippings nicely even in thick stuff.

Aaron Z