Contract Flailing

[beppington]

I like the idea of a flail mower, and in fact I bought a Caroni and I'm happy with it for my personal usage. But I don't understand how you can make any kind of generalization that flail mowers somehow automatically have sharper blades than rotary mowers. I mean doesn't that depend on how one grinds the steel as opposed to what type of machine the steel is mounted on?

I suppose that's true. I'm going on 1) the Caroni's knives which are quite sharp, when new anyway, and 2) the blunt rotary cutter blades I've seen. I didn't know anybody bothered sharpening rotary cutter blades. Also, the flail mower knives I've seen are made from thinner steel than rotary cutter blades, so if the owner of either unit never sharpens the blades, naturally the flail blades/ knives would be sharper since they're thinner. Oh, also ... ... I suspect that flail mower owners are likely to sharpen their knives from time to time, since flails are closer to being a finish mower than rotary cutters, whereas I haven't really heard of rotary cutter owners sharpening theirs. There was at least one discussion on this site about it, but I don't think many people actually bother.

 

[clemsonfor]

About flail mowers in general,

When we had our Ford Jubilee with the 7 foot John Deere finish flail mower with a three row rotor we had no issues other than cleaning the radiator screen and knocking down overgrown 10 foot high pasture brush.

I can and will tell you I did not fail Business 101 in pursuit of my accounting degree.

Anyone dealing with contract mowing with a municipality is already behind the eight ball because of possible competition, bonding issues, umbrella liability costs, operator training time, hourly wages per operator, transit times between locations, required road sign postings warning the driver that mowing is occuring, required operator training to comply with state insurance issues, possible and evident vandalism, and overhead costs.

Comparing contract mowing to a package delivery service is an extremely poor comparison.

If you are saddled with bidding a per day cost of mowing this involves
governmental accounting dealing with a revenue stream that is shrinking and is suffering uneven revenue disbursments from the local or state treasury
which depends on quarterly payment from sales, fuel and income taxes as well as any available federal grant money which include many more issues not just the type of mower or the knive used including the actual municipality having limited funds to pay or pursue the task of mowing the right of way.


If the original poster is contract mowing with individuals the normal state of affairs involves a per acre charge annually which is what I must assume he is referring to as he has not stated otherwise.

Unless im to stupid to understand your senario, even it does not make sense to use a flail. It dont matter if your bidding per day or job, time is money. If we put your scenario togeather with a guy who does it for a living and his experience i can figure this out. It still will be cheaper with rotery cutters.

If said municipality can only afford 30 days of 5 guys mowing or 150 man days or 1200 man hours of mowing. They bid this out on a per hour basis with some standards of say has to meet X number of miles or something as a minimum. Anyway you have to buy a more expensive mower if using flail, per FWJ recomendations use a larger tractor say 20% larger so it costs more. Your breakeven point is going to be higher than the guy using rotery mowers and smaller tractors and he will still be able to cover more ground per hour than you thus bid cheaper as he is doing the work faster and can get on to the next job.

 

[bullwest]

Guys I don't want to start fight. But i wanna hear the the thruth. keep it going my friends>...

 

[leonz]

Guys I don't want to start fight. But I wanna hear the the truth. keep it going my friends>...

We need a bit more information if you do not mind;

Mowing type-
rural homeowners
municipalities
ditches
flat land
ditches and flat land /verges/medians


I want you to succeed, and I
do not want you to fail period.

If you can handle a 6 foot or larger flailmower
of the rear mounted flail mower you apparently
have no need for a boom mounted rotary mower
or a wing mower per specs.

The idea is to have creature comforts like an
upgraded seat and a fender radio if you are
using a prime mover without a cabin as you will
be much more able to mow for longer periods
without any discomfort from leg cramps and
sore thighs as the upgraded seat will have
much more lower body support and reduce
poor circulation in the lower legs.


The nice thing about a good flail mower or rear mounted
snow caster is that you wil lose no trade in value as you
can use it on the new upgraded tractor.

If you are dealing with heavy brush a rotary cutter will
leave your client with a heavy layer of residue that will be
left to rot and not compost/ dissolve quickly.

A flail mower will allow you to go over the area a
second time if needed to shred the material again where
a rotary cutter will simply bat the material around to no end.

If they are using a flailmower in your area there is areason for that,
wherein the forward discharge allows even safer mowing with regard to
automobile traffic as any object encountered will be thrown forward away
from any rear approaching automobile on that specific lane.

A flail mower will not allow any object to be thrown as easily as a rotary cutter
as the knives will inmpact the object and fold back, any object that is impacted
will stay within the mower hood and drop back down.

MY friend Island Tractor hit a concrete or steel post with his Caroni and he
removed the post by rolling the post out, I dont remember if he had any broken
knives after this incident.


One of the folks recently posted how he hit a tire with his rotary cutter and it sailed
into the cab of a passing tractor trailer with a lot of damage.

Iron horses forever example is his very first mowing job where he hit a bolt with the
rotary cutter and it became airborne and sailed all the way into an exterior wall then
the interior wall of a distant home. Fortunately there were no injuries.

Iron horse called the dealer he bought the rotary cutter from and told him to come back
and get it and bring him a flailmower for his tractor and he has excellent pictures
that show his work.

To avoid issues with hidden junk he has a landscape rake mounted on the front
or under the body to catch anything before it can cause any damage to the tractor.

The more knives you have the finer the cut, but you seem to need the Caroni 2 row B
rotor for what you want to do.

If you buy the hydraulic side shift kit now you wil always have it or you can order it later
(if you buy it now you will save on frieght costs).


Two more examples of rotary cutter fatalities come to mine where a mower in kentucky?
threw a blade and kiled a woman in her home and last week we had a link to an accident
where a negro woman who moved out of Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina to start a new life in
Texas was hit by a chunk of field rock that was hit by a rotary cutter where it went through the
front windshield glanced off one of her relatives and caused a massive head trauma that killed her.

These links are here in the forum and easily found.


I would check with the folks that are using the flails locally and ask them what type of knive
they are using and decide from there as they bought the flailmower and knive type strictly with
regard to the conditions encountered.

You may be able to use a scoop knive configuaration with hanging shackles successfully as well
but only you can decide this with your conditions.

The nice thing about a flailmower is you can mow in circles and overlap and reshred any material
that is left quickly and it will be gone in a couple of days whre brush that is cut with a rotary cutter
stays for a long time and can harbor insects and rats.

 

[JoeinTX]

Dear God, Leon, I don't understand your infatuation with the flail. Let's count the red flags, eh?

1-"I want you to succeed, and I
do not want you to fail period.

If you can handle a 6 foot or larger flailmower
of the rear mounted flail mower you apparently
have no need for a boom mounted rotary mower
or a wing mower per specs.

The idea is to have creature comforts like an
upgraded seat and a fender radio if you are
using a prime mover without a cabin as you will
be much more able to mow for longer periods
without any discomfort from leg cramps and
sore thighs as the upgraded seat will have
much more lower body support and reduce
poor circulation in the lower legs....."


HUH.....?


2-"The nice thing about a good flail mower or rear mounted
snow caster is that you wil loose no trade in value as you
can use it on the new upgraded tractor..."

Again...............HUH?

3-"A flail mower will allow you to go over the area a
second time if needed to shred the material again where
a rotary cutter will simply bat the material around to no end..."

I guess there's a law in your state that prevents rotary cutters from recovering already cut ground? I recover cut ground ALL OF THE TIME with a rotary and they do exactly that. They lift, disturb, re-cut, and pulverize material into finer and finer amounts with each pass. Do they turn it into sawdust? No. They aren't tillers.

4-"To avoid issues with hidden junk he has a landscape rake mounted on the front or under the body to catch anything before it can cause any damage to the tractor..."

A landscape rake? Mounted to the.....loader? Frame? Of the tractor, right? So, to get a flail to really work well, I need to fabricate a specialized mount on my tractor for a flimsy rake to catch all of the "rough" stuff before it can find it's way into the flail and damage it? Correct?

You, Leon, are either drunk or insane. Maybe both.

You've offered a series of poor suggestions, flimsy excuses, extra modifications that cost extra money and time, and some pretty poor grammar...........to try to make a flail seem "okay" next to rotary for the vast majority of owners' needs.

Your post above is now, in all sincere honesty, the single dumbest bit of drivel I've ever seen on this site. Including newbs. You should be ashamed.

Please, Leon, stop while you're behind.....

 

[jake98]

If you run this conversation over for a second pass, you can probably chop it into finer pieces..

 

[LoneCowboy]

I commercially mow with multiple tractors
and just like everyone else except a few rich cities around here EVERYONE runs rotary cutters. (private, big guys, little guys, city, county, state, school districts, everyone)

cost to purchase
unknown conditions (we mow most places twice, in a year)
rocks, trash, etc

You need the very biggest and baddest rotary cutter in whatever brand you like. Not the HD homeowner, not the commercial model, you need whatever they call "extreme duty"

in Woods it's a BB7200XX (6' extreme duty rotary cutter), about 5 grand.

In Bushhog I believe it's a 406 (could be wrong, don't run bushhogs), I bet the cost to purchase is similar.

You can pay upfront, or you can pay over time, but you will pay.

It's all about acres per hour and thus cost per hour. Nobody cares what your equipment is, they just want it cut and they want it cut for X price.

 

[leonz]

Dear God, Leon, I don't understand your infatuation with the flail. Let's count the red flags, eh?

1-"I want you to succeed, and I
do not want you to fail period.

If you can handle a 6 foot or larger flailmower
of the rear mounted flail mower you apparently
have no need for a boom mounted rotary mower
or a wing mower per specs.

The idea is to have creature comforts like an
upgraded seat and a fender radio if you are
using a prime mover without a cabin as you will
be much more able to mow for longer periods
without any discomfort from leg cramps and
sore thighs as the upgraded seat will have
much more lower body support and reduce
poor circulation in the lower legs....."


HUH.....?


2-"The nice thing about a good flail mower or rear mounted
snow caster is that you wil loose no trade in value as you
can use it on the new upgraded tractor..."

Again...............HUH?


Simply put the flailmower will retain its value for a longer period of time and the newer tractor will have no problem powering the flail mower













3-"A flail mower will allow you to go over the area a
second time if needed to shred the material again where
a rotary cutter will simply bat the material around to no end..."


"This has been my experience with rotary cutters"



I guess there's a law in your state that prevents rotary cutters from recovering already cut ground? I recover cut ground ALL OF THE TIME with a rotary and they do exactly that. They lift, disturb, re-cut, and pulverize material into finer and finer amounts with each pass. Do they turn it into sawdust? No. They aren't tillers.


If your bush mower has no wind tunnel design to create suction how can you effectly shred brush?







4-"To avoid issues with hidden junk he has a landscape rake mounted on the front or under the body to catch anything before it can cause any damage to the tractor..."

A landscape rake? Mounted to the.....loader? Frame? Of the tractor, right? So, to get a flail to really work well, I need to fabricate a specialized mount on my tractor for a flimsy rake to catch all of the "rough" stuff before it can find it's way into the flail and damage it? Correct?



"No you dont need a lanscape rake to make a flail mower work well,
I was just explaining one members application which prevents damage to his tractor due to his mowing conditons "




You, Leon, are either drunk or insane. Maybe both.





If you feel the need to insult me directly or indirectly, because of my opinion why even bother? Perhaps you should request that I be removed from the forum?



You've offered a series of poor suggestions, flimsy excuses, extra modifications that cost extra money and time, and some pretty poor grammar...........to try to make a flail seem "okay" next to rotary for the vast majority of owners' needs.


A rotary cutter accident needs to only happen once to cause a life changing moment for an operator or a victim that is impacted by a projectile strike from a rotary cutter The recent example in the State of Texas is a textbook case of same.



A flail needs no extra modifications to make it work well, a rotary cutter should have a rubber flap over the entrance to the mower and impact absorbing chains or a rubber flap over the discharge if it is not enclosed in my opinion.






I will tell that to my cousins daughter who is living with the result of a blade strike of rotary lawn mower.




We have had the same excellent flailmower for 30 years with normal maintenance and wheel and bearing changes.


A flailmower is not a poor suggestion with the simple examination of ones possible liability from blade strike of a foreign object or the loss of a brush blade which in the past has caused damage and death.


With regard to extra cost and time; a heavy flail mower is designed to keep all the material it encounters within the mower hood reducing the possibility of its ejection to a bare minimum.




With regard to MY poor suggestions, flail mowers are a safer mower to use around pedestrians and automobiles because of the verticut method of brush cutting as any objects impacted will stay within the mower hood when impacted by the knives or hammers.



My sentence formation may be a bit rough when I am tired but I generally clean up my bad spelling as a rule.



I hardly think reducing ones liability from impact damage to almost zero due to a blade striking an object that may or has become airborrne due to the impact would take precidence.


Let me ask you this; Are you really alright with the simple fact that rotary cutters will impact objects and cause them to become missles and in many instances having killed people in the recent past because of the impact and throwing the object is perfectly fine?? I would hate to be your insurance agent.



Your post above is now, in all sincere honesty, the single dumbest bit of drivel I've ever seen on this site. Including newbs. You should be ashamed.

Please, Leon, stop while you're behind.....

Perhaps if you only think my comments are drivel you should avoid reading them???

Looking at the number of flail mowers used in Europe and required to be used in European mowing regulations I hardly think I am behind, and I can only hope we improve.


I am only ASHAMED when I annually read of the numerous accidents caused by rotary cutters and their aftermath; the recent accident in Kentucky involving a rotary cutter being used by a local highway department which killed a woman still gives me the chills.

 

[IslandTractor]

While I agreed with FWJ regarding the economics of flail vs rotary cutters in contract mowing, Leonz makes a very valid point on safety. If the individuals ordering and putting mowing contracts out for bid placed a higher value on safety the flails would be competitive. Rotary mowers are rarely seen near inhabited areas in Europe. If the cheapest bid/method is acceptable then flails lose. Regulations have a lot to do with it. we have lots of open space where rotary mowers are fine but it seems only a fear of lawsuits controls rotary use near dwellings and traffic in the USA. I know TBNers generally rail against Gummit regulation but they do set the standards and determine what the level playing field is for mowing contractors safety standards.

Here is an analogous situation: With fewer safety regulations, Mexican truckers could easily outbid DOT regulated US truckers. Same principle.

 

[beppington]

Here's my comparison:

Cutting speed: Rotary
Cost to buy equipment: Rotary
Cost to maintain the equipment: Rotary
Cost to operate: Rotary
Durability of the equipment: Rotary
Safety: Flail
Quality of cut: Flail

So, the rotary wins 5 to 2 in these categories, & the 2 categories the flail wins don't appear to be high priority for these contractors' customers.

^ EDITED