Flail Mower Let's talk flail mowers

[Dan in MN]

Since the manual calls for weights at those locations, the first step would be to acquire those weights, not change out all the knives and hangers that look fine..

 

[Ford850]

Since the manual calls for weights at those locations, the first step would be to acquire those weights, not change out all the knives and hangers that look fine..

Yeah I agree the weights are the first thing to add, as long as the blade placement is correct so you know how many to add where. Since the hangers are different styles and weights, I think they would be next. I removed 'changing blades' from my post above since they do look like they're in good shape yet.

 

[CCWKen]

I sure can't imagine "field balancing" a drum, with or without the knives. All the weights on mine are welded in place to balance the drum. It's a 72" drum. As long as all the knives are in place, this works really good. I can tell right away if I sling/knock off a knife but can still cut without much vibration. Loosing 3-4 will shut me down depending where they were lost on the drum. I keep about 10 sets of knives and D-loops in stock. I have the cup-knives so the cut is like a finish mower but can cut about 2-3 times faster than my mower. Takes a lot of work off the ZTR down front and along the 1/4 mile driveway. I also mow the state and county road side of my fences with it. That's a good mile but 3-4 passes and I'm done. It would look like a jungle if I waited for the county to cut it.

 

[Catman8]

Yeah I agree the weights are the first thing to add, as long as the blade placement is correct so you know how many to add where. Since the hangers are different styles and weights, I think they would be next. I removed 'changing blades' from my post above since they do look like they're in good shape yet.

I do agree with what your saying, that makes sense. All the blades are in the correct stations, but as you can see from the photo the blades are not any of the four styles the manual calls for. I will start with ordering the weights and see if that corrects the vibration, if that doesn't work I will replace all the hardware because I don't want to go through all the work of replacing the hangers and find out it's the style of blade or the link. I am still stumped as to why the hanger bolt holes don't line up, I even went to New Holland and bought two hangers and those holes did not line up either. Thanks Dan in MN & Ford850 and everyone else who have helped.:thumbsup:

 

[Catman8]

I sure can't imagine "field balancing" a drum, with or without the knives. All the weights on mine are welded in place to balance the drum. It's a 72" drum. As long as all the knives are in place, this works really good. I can tell right away if I sling/knock off a knife but can still cut without much vibration. Loosing 3-4 will shut me down depending where they were lost on the drum. I keep about 10 sets of knives and D-loops in stock. I have the cup-knives so the cut is like a finish mower but can cut about 2-3 times faster than my mower. Takes a lot of work off the ZTR down front and along the 1/4 mile driveway. I also mow the state and county road side of my fences with it. That's a good mile but 3-4 passes and I'm done. It would look like a jungle if I waited for the county to cut it.

This is how I'm seeing it, your not balancing the rotor per say, your just keeping the rotor ballanced with the removable weights, your just increasing or decreasing weight in equal increments on both ends if you change from one style of blade to the next, because fine cut blades take up more stations and the manufacturer knows that reducing the weights will keep the drum balanced, and vice versa.

 

[powerscol]

Catman8
There is another possible solution before buying weights. Pull you knives with the hanger and bolt and weight each one. By doing this you can sort the knives to have as close to equal weight for each station row also it is important that opposed station rows (180 from each other) have equal weight if possible. Best solution is to have equal weight on each row. How this will not totally solve the problem as the knives at the end when swinging will create forces based on their weight. So if you were going to try and balance this weigh, weigh each component and try and have the knife heads balanced too.

 

[IslandTractor]

Catman8
There is another possible solution before buying weights. Pull you knives with the hanger and bolt and weight each one. By doing this you can sort the knives to have as close to equal weight for each station row also it is important that opposed station rows (180 from each other) have equal weight if possible. Best solution is to have equal weight on each row. How this will not totally solve the problem as the knives at the end when swinging will create forces based on their weight. So if you were going to try and balance this weigh, weigh each component and try and have the knife heads balanced too.

I don't think individual blade/hanger weight variation will be enough to make any difference. Recall that several of us with flails who operate in rocky environments experience blade loss quite regularly. Unless two or three whole sets of knives are missing (=way off balance) there is little noticeable vibration when mowing after losing blades. I've weighed the "heavy duty coarse cut" blades from Flailmaster and Caroni. They don't vary more than a few grams. I've even mixed Caroni and Flailmaster blades (which do vary by as much as ?1/2 ounce or so) and experienced no vibration.

 

[powerscol]

IslandTractor - your probably correct. I just remember reading somewhere here where a person solved their problem by removing all blades, spinning the drum bare to check balance, then sorting knives to solve a problem. Hopefully he gets it sorted out.

 

[Catman8]

Update: Bush Hog FH188, I called Bush Hog and they no longer have parts available for this flail, they can't even tell me how much the adjustment weights weighed so I can make my own, talk about not being able to support what you build, I know it's old but most companies have documentation and blueprints on hard drives.

Flail-master is sending me sample knives and hardware so I can compare the hanger brackets. Looks like I will be troubleshooting the vibration problem one step at a time.

 

[Dan in MN]

The manual tells you how thick, and has a pretty good picture to estimate size, so I'd still start there. You won't be an exact match, but presumably much closer than no weights at all..