AlanB's Flail Mower

[AlanB]

After reading with great interest the flail mower discussions here on the board, I have been very keen to try one (own one) I have a couple areas that I think one would help me with.

Mowing in my woods, I think the shorter length will help me work between trees.

Mowing down the leaves / twigs etc that are too small to effectively put through the chipper and by mowing them down, it should help with their decomposition.

Mowing overgrown yards that we occassionaly do. We lost about 10 blades this year too mowing too tall of grass with out mowers. At roughly $10 a hit, that hurts. Yes, we still make money in the end, but if I could do it without costing a blade or two, I would be that much farther ahead.

So while I think that a flail would just be super cool for these things, SWMBO says, it is just my tractor addiction speaking and the Devil will be serving frozen drinks with umbrellas before I spend $2K or so on another toy............... What can I say, she knows me.

Then while perusing the back lot of my favorite used mower dealership, I stumbled over an old one that looks servicable, and John hit me with a price I could live with and afford to experiment with. $200.

So, to add insult to injury, I got SWMBO to drive by with the dump trailer and pick it up and pay for it.

But being the great wife she is, she even helped unload it with Lil, and did not throw it on my head.

So, the questions begin,

Anybody ID it?

Looks galvanized under the yellow paint?

Reccomendations besides make a belt gaurd?

My current thoughts are too change the oil in the gearbox, I am thinking maybe 85-140 and grease it up and spin it and see what happens. Will take a gander at the flail bolts first, and probably take the driveshaft apart, clean and grease and put it back together.

May end up sending a flail to Flail-Master - Mower Replacement Parts, Commercial Riding Mower Parts, Rotary Cutter Parts, Blade grinders, Trimmer Line, Mowing Accessories - Flail Master - Flailmaster - or making a day trip down there (they are about an hour from my house) and learn about them and what they reccomend for Flails.

Any other thoughts?

Oh, and added on edit, Island tractor, you cannot really see it, but the back left tire on that dump trailer in the first pic, is flat Had to get the flail off, to move the trailer, to fix the tire.....................

 

[allen in texas]

just my opinion, but I think you are going to love it.





How come I can never find deals like that???


just call me
pays full price allen

 

[Champy]

alan - how does a flail mower compare with a normal bush hog for cleaning up weeds; grass; etc.....other than being shorter? I'm trying to understand the benefits / differences. THX

 

[slowzuki]

That is a steal of a deal. You can't buy a scrap one out of dealers dumpster for that here.

 

[AlanB]

alan - how does a flail mower compare with a normal bush hog for cleaning up weeds; grass; etc.....other than being shorter? I'm trying to understand the benefits / differences. THX

Shucks Champy, I dont have a clue

I am going on what I have read, and just got off the phone with Joey talking about it as well, so here are the thoughts, with no actual experience to back them up.

Shorter is important for me in the trees, Shorter is important for Joey on the sides of the jumps on the track, the length of a bush hog hurts him on the angles, me between the trees.

You get the flail / get out of the way motion if you hit something solid, but should absolutely shred everything it lays into.

They are supposed to give a very nice cut, on fairly rough terrain.

For the business, I think the advantage will be it will not have the "mass" of the bushhog when doing folks overgrown yards, when I hit something solid with the bush hog, it is flying hopefully the design of the flail makes it a bit less dangerous.

I am not really sure if it is worth it, but at $200 to start (I am figuring a couple hundred for new flails) I thought it worth trying.

 

[Eagleview]

Top buy . What is the direction of rotation of the drum ? It looks like it turns the same direction as the tyres . What is the method of belt tension ? Is the idler spring loaded or manually adjusted and then fixed ? Thank's .

 

[pennwalk]

I think that is a grass mower, maybe a Mott. The flail mowers for rough stuff have different knives. Some have thingys called hammers.

Chris

 

[Flatheadyoungin]

Flailmaster.com ......great to deal with!

Send them some pics for a positive id......they had exploded views for my super heavy duty 88" Mott/Alamo...........they emailed them to me....

Mine's almost ready to put back together......just need time to get back to it...

My gear box is a Comer brand and your is a little flatter looking than mine.....

Great deal.......I think mine was $300 or so........but I need a driveshaft for mine...

 

[allen in texas]

alan - how does a flail mower compare with a normal bush hog for cleaning up weeds; grass; etc.....other than being shorter? I'm trying to understand the benefits / differences. THX

I wrote an entire side by side thread about the difference between a rotary and a flail.

it was titled, "A third attempt to post a thread about my flail"

right now, it's on page two.

By the way, I another ALLEN, just spelt differnt.

 

[AlanB]

So, I drained the water / grease out of the gearbox and contemplated if it is supposed to be greased or gear oiled, decided to go with 80/90 mostly on the basis of that is what was handy.

Greased the fittings, cleaned some stuff up, got the driveshaft off etc. looked at the flails and said hmmmm..

The driveshaft only had about 3" of engagement, did not make me real comfortable, but I went ahead with it, I am going to go look in the driveshaft pile this afternoon I think and see if I can find a longer half that I need.

It uses a 1" square shaft, and if I am looking at it right, they weld an adapter on the pipe on the larger piece of tubing, so my thought is that you just get a longer solid shaft side, as it is really only engaging / driving in about 4" of tube anyway. I want a little extra insertion so that as I change heights etc, I insure that I have a full engagement of the drive shaft.

Ironhorse.

The drum turns the direction of the wheels, or I would describe it as "forward" rotation.

The belt is tensioned with a large spring, pulling on the idler which is on a pivot.

There is not shear pin on my driveshaft, and I am assuming that they are counting on the belt slipping / failing to act as a precaution to the driveline.

So I ran it yesterday and mowed about an acre.

It mowed pretty well, there is a harmonic about 520 PTO RPM that scared me for a second as I transitioned through. Firing off this old equipment does excite me at times.

It mowed the field pretty well, It would change pitch as you whacked sticks etc. but for the most part left them lying on the ground. Occassionlly on humps etc. it acted as a high speed rototiller and did its best to level out the dirt.

So, when you look back and it crosses your mind that you really should build a gaurd for that belt, then you realize you are going to mow close to the York rake,,, then you look forward to make sure you dont hit the trees,,,,, then you look back to steer away from the york rake just as you drive the belt into the york rake.........

And you take some big chunks out of the belt with the top mount of the York Rake

Well, it still works, but in the course of about an hour I did exactly what I was worried about doing Sometimes I am just an idiot, but if all it cost me was a belt I am allright.

So too Champy, here are my thoughts.

Things it did,

It is shorter. Even though I still managed to hit stuff, I just cannot seem to get my hop going on the front end like a Sherco

It did mow the big pile of leaves and reduce their mass down substantially (probably the biggest use I wanted it for) without slinging out the big wood chunks such as stumps etc. that get mixed in there.

It did a nice job on the field, chops the stuff up pretty fine, and left the sticks lying instead of launching them at my neigbors, which is a good bad thing depending on which neighbor

When I intentionally mowed over some logs that would have caused some problems with the bush hog, it just kind of "flails" at it, and basicly does nothing till you get it too clear.

It cannot replace the bush hog for what I do with ours. Where I back into or drive forward into a thicket etc. clearing this property and mow down 1 to 2" trees the flail would just flail at them and not really do anything. I think some folks out there are mowing grass with a bush hog saying a flail would replace it and it would, but I think different folks are using the hog differently.

All in all, I am pretty happy with what I got, the price I got it for, and that it will complement what we do. It will be another one of those things that will hang around mostly unused, but there will be a couple times a year where I will hook it up and have exactly the right tool for the job, which is a feeling I really like. I do need to spend a bit more time $ and effort on it, but so far, so good.