Flail Mower Let's talk flail mowers

[IslandTractor]

hmmm i cant even find Iron Horse as a member.... is he an Aussie?

He is. However I don't think he's been active on TBN for a while. Not sure if his screen name was Iron Horse or Ironhorse so you might search old posts for both names.

 

[moriboy]

Keep us posted on how the Landpride works out. We haven't had many of those represented here.

Will do.

 

[leonz]

I've been following this thread for some time and finally decided that a flail mower would be a better choice for me than my rotary cutter. I bought a Landpride FM4188. It's built very well and I can't wait to use it. Unfortunately we are under fire restrictions until some rain comes in. My rotary cutter (10FT twin spindle) works great but is hard to maneuver around trees and other obstacles since it sticks out in the back quite a ways. I've also encountered quite a few rocks and have damaged the blades on several occasions as well as the deck. I sure hope the flail works as well as I think it will.

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Hello Moriboy,


I want to welcome you as the newest resident member of the "Flail Mower Nations".

We are a very happy bunch of flail mower owners and we are eager to help the newest FMN residents
or the folks that want to ask questions about Flail Mowers and are thinking about buying one.

The Flail Mower Nations do not require the payment of taxes nor do we require any paperwork for "proof of resident status" as far as passports, driver license or other ID's to enter the Flail Mower Nation to enter through out beautiful beer garden entrance to the Flail Mower nation(too many black helicopters).

Your Land Pride Flail Mower is a Maschio Orchard and Vineyard Shredder under Land Pride Paint.
The Maschio's have been building farm equipment in Italy for over fifty years like the Caroni family and make very good equipment.

The European flail Mowers and power lawn equipment are built and tested to the much, much more stringent safety standards of the European Union.

Your going to love the rear inspection door to change broken hammers or to remove them to sharpen them,The rear door also doubles as a trash door when mowing as you can mow very tall brush without plugging.



Now, please invest in an inexpensive wet well grinder(amazon is one place to buy them) to maintain the edge on cast hammers that your flail shredder is equiped with. They are heat treated and will lose thier temper if they are run across the face of a high speed bench grinder.

Be sure to measure your New PTO shaft properly to assure that the shaft does not get bent and or breaks the PTO stub shaft or break the gearbox on the flail mower. There are plenty of Videos on how to do that on youtube and link to them on the forum here.


SO ask questions, think about it some more and come back and ask more questions, think about it some more read the manual and come back and ask more questions.



Happy mowing my friend.

 

[leonz]

I just bought a Caroni TM1900, and the first thing I did was take it apart, look at it, and then put it back together. It seems simple enough, and - unless there is a great mystery that is not apparent to me; I fail to see why anyone can justify the big bucks that some other brands charge to sell similar equipment. I suppose time will tell, but the Caroni makes sense in the way it is constructed. One side note - it was not easy to work on as it had to be lifted and rotated in order to get to the parts. It is a tad heavy and then the roller fell out; I could only scratch my head and wonder how I was going to put it back together at the same time the scraper bar was pinned between the brackets.

I looked at a well used old flail mower just before buying the new Caroni - and it was the same width and they were asking $1000 more for it. That made no sense to me.

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Hello Steve1300,


I want to welcome you as the newest resident Member of the Flail Mower Nations.

You have the same size Caroni Flail Mower That Doctorjay has at his place in Ocala, Fla. "more cows than people"

The Caroni Flail Mowers have the same frame size and many of the same parts as their rototillers and their economy of scale in building flail mowers and rototillers lets them build them in quantity as they ship them all over the European Union and United States as well.

Please send me your E-Mail Address and I will send you a parts manual if you did not receive one from agrisupply with your flail mower.

The mud scraper removes both mud and wet grass to keep the rear roller free of debris.

The roller hanger brackets rear roller bearings and mud scraper can only be installed one way.

Send me your email and I will send you PDF copies of the manuals.


No worries,

happy mowing my friend.

 

[kco]

Does anyone know about Victory Flail Mowers? On their website they use the same model numbers as the Value Leader flails. The only difference I can see is they are green and cost about $400 less model for model. Their specs read the same and shipping is included. I did notice that they call the deck material 6 mm which is about .244 inch Valu leader call 1/4 inch or .250. Can .007 make that much difference?

Smilinjak

I think the deck material will be the same thickness and the 6mm vs .250 is simply conversion rounding.

Take a look at this thread for more information:

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/...rge-flail-mowers-post4480299.html#post4480299

The posting by Jack Yuan is interesting and you can perhaps PM him with questions since he sources the mower for Victory. Perhaps he also knows who sources Value-leader.

Jack also commented in this thread when I mentioned my AG180 mower in this post:

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/...alk-flail-mowers-post4514172.html#post4514172

The comments are for the AG1xx series mowers but likely relevant for other series.

If you search for AG180 flail mowers you will find several outfits selling similar mowers including Europe, New Zealand and Australia. You can likely do the same for the model you are considering and compare various suppliers' features with Victory and Value-Leader brands.

I bought a no-name AG180 from a local supplier who imports them in my area. I think the build quality is good. The welds are continuous and look good (to my untrained eye) and the overall finish looks good.

Jack did highlight valid differences for my mower though. In order of importance for my application they are:

1.rotor quality and balance: vibration and balance weights--my mower has virtually zero vibration with 292 g and 257 g weights on each end. That does not seem excessive since just the bolt for each of the 16 blades weighs 225 g and the blades average around 1,040 g.

2. vent plug instead of solid plug on horizontal shaft from the transmission to belt pulleys. Mine had a solid plug which I replaced with a vented plug. I also let my vendor know Jack's recommendation.

3. transmission: mine has a smaller 50 hp rated transmission than Value-leader's 65 hp rating. Jack said some vendors make their own. Since my tractor is just 28 hp at the PTO I am not too worried. Also, my manufacturer supplied the transmissions for Comer in Italy and I believe they have a good reputation for driveline parts.

4. flail blade weight variance. Jack supplies forged vs cast blades for more consistent weight. But he did not specify an acceptable variance. The weight range for my existing 36 blades (2 sets of 16 plus 4 spares) was 1,003 to 1,072 g. I think it is easy to compensate by grinding sets to similar weights (I did my spare set yesterday). I also compensated for weight difference in my current set (which I have not ground to similar weights) by installing them in balanced pairs as shown in this post:

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/...alk-flail-mowers-post4559547.html#post4559547

I don't know if it is worth the trouble, but it can't hurt.

5. front debris guard: my mower uses hanging chains vs steel plates which are safer.

6. BX (segmented) instead of B (solid) V-belts: Jack Yuen mentioned this in another post. BX belts create less heat. I assume the Victory mowers use BX belts since he sources the mowers. I think most flail suppliers use B belts.

One "plus" for my mower is an extra cover protecting the lower part of the standard fan belt guard. It may have saved my standard guard a couple of times.

Jack's comments are good in helping evaluate mowers. Of course there are things such as bearings that we cannot see, and availability of parts is important.

Good luck in your search.

 

[TurtleCreekFarm]

I have had a Woodmax 5' Flail mower since April this year. It is one of there ver 2.0 units with a welded chassis. It works well and yes the clean-out door comes in handy. I did have a bearing fail with less than 10 hrs on it. Woodmax replace the failed bearing with no cost to me. I now grease all bearing before each use just to be safe. Woodmax's flail mowers are built in China to WoodMax's specs. What I like about Woodmax is someone always answers the phone (during business hours) and they want to make sure there customers are happy.

Well that's one real life review on TBN. Sounds positive to me too. I look forward to getting mine. What knives do ou have on yours?

Thanks for posting

The 3 point Y blades.

 

[sidecarist]

The 3 point Y blades.

I ordered the scoop hammer blades, and a set of Y blades as well.

 

[vlcakc]

I have a serious buyer for my TC45D and New Holland 918H flail, so will probably be replacing them both soon. I will probably buy the flail from the same dealer as the tractor to hopefully get a little price break. If I buy a Deere tractor I'll probably go with a 390 flail. If I buy a Kubota tractor I'll probably go with a Landpride FM 3188 or FM4188. Both flails seem to get good reveiws here. The Landpride is somewhat heaver than the Deere. Either seems to be a good choice, but is there any real advantage with one over the other? Vic

 

[powerscol]

OK I am narrowing my choices. There is the Peruzzo brand Elk Cross Series and Fox Cross series Ditch Bank Flail Mowers and a Maschio Girafetta 160SI . I did find out the difference between the SI and SE The SE the gearbox is outboard of the mower body and the SI is inborad in the traditional spot. Is anyone running the Peruzzo brand units? There is only about $500 between the three of them.

Thanks for any help

Ok folks - I am looking for US and Canada dealers for these. So far only Iowa Farm Equipment shows up. I especially looking for a Maschio Girafetta 160SI . So any dealer help is appreciated. I can wait to buy, so I am, trying to find a fall sale or better shipping. Anyone used a good local dealer?
Thanks

 

[leonz]

I have a serious buyer for my TC45D and New Holland 918H flail, so will probably be replacing them both soon. I will probably buy the flail from the same dealer as the tractor to hopefully get a little price break. If I buy a Deere tractor I'll probably go with a 390 flail. If I buy a Kubota tractor I'll probably go with a Landpride FM 3188 or FM4188. Both flails seem to get good reveiws here. The Landpride is somewhat heaver than the Deere. Either seems to be a good choice, but is there any real advantage with one over the other? Vic

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Hello Vic,


The three Land Pride units have a rear inspection door that also acts as a trash ejection door for thick heavy brush to eject it right over the flail mower rotor. This lets the end user keep and run a smaller PTO HP mule for the specific flail mower models power range as the brush and heavy grass is ejected completely out of the rear door without remaining under the mower shroud.

The FM21 and FM31 do not have shredder bars to recut the material. The Land Pride FM41 model has re-cutting bars to shred the material further on the first pass if the trash ejection door is not used on the first pass


The John Deere 390 model flail mower will shred brush and grass both and re cut it a second time.
It does not have a trash ejection door/ mower service door to allow the material to be thrown
directly over the flail mower rotor and out on to the ground to allow you to use a smaller mules
engine frame size.

It is pretty much up to you how much you want to spend for a new mower and if you want fine finish
every time you mow. The 390 will give you a fine finish every mowing but you may have to take half
cuts in really tall brush and then re cut it a second time to shred the clippings even further to avoid
excess grass clippings laying on good sod killing good turf if you cannot pick it up.