Berta flail mower

[travisbb]

I happen to have a G110 with the GX390 and the 85cm (34") Berta flail mower.

I'm happy with the extra width because when I'm not power limited I can more faster.

Flail mowing is very power intensive and the G110 can run out of power and bog down if things are sufficiently thick or tall. When that happens I either take a smaller cut (half to two thirds the full width) or, if I'm at the edge and can't take a partial cut, go down a gear.

Third gear cuts up relatively easy ground (think 6-8" lawn) alright, but the cut quality is poor and wavy. This feels like the tractor is moving fast enough that some ground moves to the backside of the flail before the hammer has a chance to come around to cut it.

Second gear is where I do most of my cutting. It'll do waist-high grass and small woody bushes without slowing down. Especially thick growth will bog it down, but I find that's usually only a few dozen feet, so I take half strips in the thicker stuff and then return to full strips. This ends up being the fastest overall way to mow.

First gear is slow, but very hard to bog down. I normally use this for the first round of a field where I can't take a half cut.

Other than cost or wheel spacing reasons, I don't know why you wouldn't want the larger flail mower. The gx390 does keep up with the full 34" width in usefully tough material. With the larger mower you can always take smaller bites, but you can't take larger bites with the smaller mower.

 

[ppea]

Thank you all for the advice. I will stick to version 85 in the end. The only problem would be the 2-3 week delivery time.

 

[Jens767]

Hi again ppea

You won't regret your decision, and the Berta is more than worth waiting 2-3 weeks for!

I fully agree with the comments posted by travisbb above. I look forward to hear your comments when you have seen and used the Berta - you won't be disappointed I'm sure


Best regards

Jens

 

[Jens767]

Hi Gravely1961

Thank you for your reply

I am aware, that I'm probably pushing the flail mower towards its limits by lowering the cutting height that much, and the knives especially, are not going to think nice of me, I guess

You certainly have a valid point in recommending proper knives/blades for this kind of work. I was just curious to try it out, and I don't have enough work of this kind I think, to justify special knives. The original knives will surely wear out prematurely if I use the mower with the cutting height set this low to often, but as this is only a part of my "mowing", I fear that I might "wear out" long before my Berta does

As I wrote post #6 in this thread, I hadn't any pictures to show, so it was probably a bit difficult to visualise the results. Now I have pictures, and I hope they might help a little



The above 2 pictures shows one of these areas, where the wild boar had turned the sod upside-down. On the first picture, the "damaged" area is on the left, and the area that I'm working on, is on the right. This is how it looked after one pass. On the second foto is the finished result, after 2-3 passes in total, with the cutting height set at around 22 mm. As a first try I was rather pleased with the result, but I will probably tryout an even lower setting later.

As said, I also tried to use the Berta at its lowest 8 mm setting, as a sort of scarifier/de-thatcher. Here is how it looked:



I began my mowing the lawn like I always do, with my Zanon lawnmower set at 8 cm cutting height. Then I changed to the Berta flail mower, and worked the lawn one more time. Whereas the lawnmower can easily work in 3. gear, the flail mower had to work hard in 1. gear! For me it was "a walk in the park" though, as I just had to walk slowly behind the tractor - and on top, I didn't have a bag to empty all the time

This is how the same area looked the day after, and after my nice neighbour had removed the clippings with his ride-on mower:



As an extra - and to me unexpected - bonus, my lawn has grown much better than in other years, and become much nicer to look at. Especially the honeybees are just enjoying the white clover so much




Best regards

Jens

 

[ppea]

I order today the berta for 2674 usd with quick coupling included.it arrives in max 3 weeks.Can you post some pictures of the grillo with berta ?

 

[Jens767]

Hi ppea

I'm not familiar with the Grillo myself, but I got my Berta with the build-in factory made male coupling. If this option is available for the Grillo as well, I will highly recommend you to make sure, that that's what you get! For the BCS it looks like this:



The factory made coupling brings the mower closer to the tractor, making the whole unit more manoeuvrable. Most implements come with a standard flange, and then you have to add a coupling to that flange, to make it fit whatever type of tractor you might have. This moves the implement further away from the axle of the tractor, and especially when you want to lift the 92 kg mower off the ground, you will need all the leverage advantage you can get! Especially if you are a "skinny" 82 kg old man like me

If you do a quick search on the internet, there are a number of pictures and videos for you to see.


Best regards

Jens

 

[ppea]

this is for the grillo and is the tractor side .

 

[travisbb]

I'll try to post some pictures in the middle of next week. It turns out I don't actually have any pictures of my flail mower attached to my tractor. I'll take some, but work and life will prevent that until next Tuesday at the earliest.

Is there anything in particular you want to see that isn't in the pictures on the Internet?

 

[travisbb]

Apparently my account is too new to post pictures. They are late because the weather was poor, but they are coming.

 

[travisbb]

Here we go. This is the tractor and flail mower:

Cutting some grass between one foot and three feet tall in second gear:

Cutting my small thistle patch. This is an easy six feet tall. I could mow about half it in second gear, but went down to first so I could chop it up in one pass. There was one spot where I stalled the tractor taking a full bite, but I was cocky and normally would have taken a smaller bite there.

 

[ppea]

Thank you!Mine arrives on friday.I post some pictures after installation.

 

[wstr75]

TravisBB,
Beautiful machine! You've got to love a flail mower eating up big grass and weeds!

As noted by others, a flail mower requires considerable PTO energy and especially so when in high weeds. I learned the hard way mowing high weeds on a hot day is hard on the mower drive belts. I now keep extra belts and they are also rated for higher operating temperatures.

Nothing like a flail for making weeds, grass and garden plants into compostable materials. Congratulations on your fine equipment and kudos for the handlebar LED light!
Bill in NC

 

[ppea]

@travisbb You do not lack weights on the engine side? I have factory weghts and i put aprox 8kg to steering better,i am afraid to brake the handlebars without weights,but comes with disadvantage especially when mow uphil the flail tends to rise.

 

[travisbb]

I have the factory engine weights, they are sitting on a shelf.

I removed them because I found it made my attachments ride/bounce up too much, especially my snow blower. With the flail mower I don't miss the easier lift when turning -- I take a curve instead of turning in place.

Even without the engine weights, I've considered adding weight to the flail mower to keep it from bouncing upwards when mowing uphill or on very rough ground. Very little of the area I mow with it is flat, so about half of my strips are uphill.

The only attachment where I miss the engine weights is the generator. This would probably be different if I had any soil-working attachments which tend to be heavier where you want to turn on a point.

As for the handles, I haven't bent or broken them yet. I did, however, snap the pin in the height selector trying to muscle my snowblower out of a hole when the engine was already lowered onto hard packed snow. I count that in the abuse category though, I was half hanging off the handles.

 

[ppea]

Some pictures of bertha in action.It's very strong,i hit stones, concrete ,metal parts.No signs of wear ,not even on knives.

 

[ppea]

I have weight wheels, can affect the power of the engine if i mow with the weight on each wheel?In majority places on second gear i feel the engine to the upper limit on power.

 

[leonz]

The wheel weights will increase your traction and aid in
stability of the 2 wheel tractor.
It will require a little more engine power but not much.

 

[cmyoung2]

Attached a couple of old rotors to the front of the flail to keep it down when going up hill. Tires are foam filled, adds about 22 lbs each. Help with traction. Duals help with traction and stability, but does make the machine heavy when it does get stuck.

 

[ppea]

I didn't find foam for the tires and i insert a small tire in the wheels and no more flat tires.

 

[WesKootenay]

Attached a couple of old rotors to the front of the flail to keep it down when going up hill. Tires are foam filled, adds about 22 lbs each. Help with traction. Duals help with traction and stability, but does make the machine heavy when it does get stuck.

Please help me understand the setup pictured, what is the Zanon attachment and does its output shaft drive the Berta? :confused3:
Thanks! :drink: