Compact Tractors are Designed All Wrong

[Anonymous Poster]

Theres a good reason why a brush mowert is on the back of a tractor. Its so you an see the stumps and holes when your in tall grass. The power company here has a TV140 bi directional tractor ive operated befor with a Brown Brush cutter mounted on the rear. when in that mode your high enough to look over but sometimes thats not even enough.

 

[Mosey]

After a year or so of more experience, I still would like to see a better design for our uses. A few days ago I mowed a field of tall grass (5' timothy) with some brush and small trees starting to come up using my rotary cutter. Once again, I have rows of grass that didn't get mowed because the tractor tires mashed it down first, so now it's starting to stand back up and makes it look like my mower needs the blades sharpened, even though they're sharp. There are many times when a mower, both a finish mower and a rotary cutter, needs to be on the front of the tractor. I re-read my statement from about a year ago and still agree with what I said, which is "a smaller version of the New Holland TV140 would be the way to go." I guess some type of quick hitch would also be better than the 3pt.

Also, after hanging around at TBN for a while, I can see there are lots of folks like me that have a need to offset a mower to be able to mow over ditches and the edge of a lake. So, some sort of mower design that would allow this would be useful. But, it would have to be less expensive than the heavy duty side mount mowers the road commission uses.

 

[MikePA]

<font color="blue"> Once again, I have rows of grass that didn't get mowed because the tractor tires mashed it down first... </font>
Thinking out loud here since I am not a mower engineer, /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

The 'problem' with a rotary cutter is the blade design, might also be an issue with the deck design. It's a flat blade with no 'wing' on the trailing edge. I was under the impression that the 'wing' on the blade, in combination with the design of the deck, creates a vacuum or a turbulence under the deck that lifts the grass, including the grass that was flattened by the front wheels, before the blade cuts the grass. Although, I'm not sure there's enough vacuum under any deck to lift up flattened 5 foot tall timothy. /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

Mossroad has some good videos on his web site of the front mounted mower on his PowerTrac.

 

[JATO_RaT]

Actually, my mower came with the option for three different lift abilities. low, medium and high. High lift blades will indeed pull the grasses up as well as loose material like sand. They recommend high lift when you need to really lift the grass and don't have sand that will also be disturbed. I have medium lift blades and experience none of the tire mashing problems mentioned. Mower is a Landpride 84" RFM, I also have an 80" offset brush mower from Woods, Rat...

 

[MikePA]

<font color="blue"> Mower is a Landpride 84" RFM </font>
That's the key, a finish mower. Mosey was using a rotary cutter.

 

[JATO_RaT]

"Once again, I have rows of grass that didn't get mowed because the tractor tires mashed it down first, so now it's starting to stand back up and makes it look like my mower needs the blades sharpened, even though they're sharp. There are many times when a mower, both a <font color="blue"> </font> finish mower <font color="blue"> </font> and a rotary cutter, needs to be on the front of the tractor. "


If my finish mower were on the front, you would then see the grass pushed down from the tractor. Not that it matters for me, but I also think about the amount of dust that I occasionally stir up. I'll plan on keeping everything hooked up on the back.

 

[Mosey]

Rat - "If my finish mower were on the front, you would then see the grass pushed down from the tractor."

True, but at least it would be cut, so when it stands back up again it would not be noticed.

Mike - Good point about the suction. My finish mower has lots of that, and the rotary cutter has some. But, the suction doesn't work nearly as good when the mower is at a higher cut height, since the air is not contained under the deck. Last year I mowed at a lower height, but then the grass clumped up really bad and left big windrows. So, this time I mowed it higher and got much less clumping and windrows, but have more uncut grass. Maybe what I need is one of the paddle type wheels like they have on a combine to stand the grass back up again before it gets to the mower. I'd get a few double takes with that I bet! /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

 

[JATO_RaT]

With my mower set fairly high, I still have a decent amount of lift, it may be a combination of my blades, my grass and the design of the mower deck. I have not experienced the problem your having. There are times my grass is 2 feet high. I think I mow about 4". Rat

 

[Mosey]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( With my mower set fairly high, I still have a decent amount of lift, it may be a combination of my blades, my grass and the design of the mower deck. I have not experienced the problem your having. There are times my grass is 2 feet high. I think I mow about 4". Rat )</font>

Are you talking about your finish mower? If so, I agree, my LandPride finish mower is not a problem. But, I don't mow 5' grass with it - I use the KingKutter rotary cutter for that.

 

[JATO_RaT]

Yeah Mosey, I was talking about the finish mower. I could definitely see a problem mowing 5' grass/weeds with a rear mount and having the tractor mash the weeds down. I really never have an issue like that here. I was kinda addressing the whole "compact tractors are designed all wrong" heading here. I have very few things on my tractor that I would like to have changed. It's been a really great setup. Rat.