double action vs single action sickle bars?

freedomlives · Mar 1, 2017

I got to the point last summer where I'm sick of the Czech Vari system I have for mowing. It has a 120cm single action sickle bar, which is fine, the bar/teeth are German ESM. But the tractor itself crawls along-- it has only one speed, and that speed is slow enough that someone who has to walk with a walker would be perfectly comfortable using it! But this also means that it takes a long time to get the mowing done, and then to come back with the hayrake over all of it at the same slow speed!
Two years ago I got a Goldoni two wheel tractor, 12HP diesel, with powered trailer. But the mistake I made is that it doesn't have handlebars that fold back to be used with attachments like mowers, hayrakes, etc. And the powered trailer is great, it is the kind with a steering wheel, but this also means that to remove the trailer and use the rotary plow or rotovator I'm looking at more than an hour to swap bowden cables and things around.
Thus, I find the perfect companion to my Goldoni, one of the same model type, though with a 12HP gasoline engine. The one I found has a snow blower (which if there are more repeats of this winter, I wouldn't mind having!) and a rotovator, which I don't really need. It doesn't have a sickle bar attachment with it though.
So I've been looking in the Italian classifieds, and there are some sickle bars alone people are selling for about 300€, though if it isn't for my model of Goldoni, I'll need an adapter, which I've found several in Slovenia (!), which is another 100€, plus shipping. Or, since I'll be driving down to Italy anyway to pick up the Goldoni, I found in the vicinity more people selling complete walk behind sickle bar mowers, with of course multiple speeds, etc.
One, for 600€ has the double-action sickle bar. Another, for 750€ has a presumably single-action sickle bar and a belt hay rake.
The other thing I can do is just make an adapter for the sickle bar I have, as well as hay rake. But the drive on the sickle bar I have is not, I think, as good as the oil bath ones on the Italians.

This is long winded like most of my posts-- the main thing I wonder is-- just how great of an improvement are double action sickle bars over single action ones? Is the vibration really knocked down a lot?

Maine Hills · Mar 2, 2017

We have a BCS tractor with a 13 HP Honda gas engine and oil bath dual action sickle bar mower and I've never noticed any vibration from the mower. If I carefully tried to feel vibration it is probably there but the overall vibration level seems to be the same with the mower engaged as with it not engaged. No experience with a single action sickle bar mower though.

farmerboybill · Mar 8, 2017

Yes, the difference between a single action mower and a duplex mower is considerable. The vibration comes from throwing the weight of the bar side-to-side 500ish times per minute (at full throttle, it would be 990 strokes per minute, but you run a sickle at an idle or just above). The duplex mower counteracts this by throwing the guards the opposite direction at the same time. You still get vibration, but not nearly as much. This also allows you to run a few more rpms on the engine, increasing your ground speed. This all adds complication (cost) to the machine. If you're going to mow 5 acres in a day four times a year, the advantage is definite. If you just want to trim a fencerow a couple times a year, the added cost is going to be hard to justify.

Maine Hills · Mar 9, 2017

The BCS website has an interesting discussion of the differences between the single and duplex sickle bar mowers. BCS America

sweettractors · Mar 9, 2017

freedomlives said:
I got to the point last summer where I'm sick of the Czech Vari system I have for mowing. It has a 120cm single action sickle bar, which is fine, the bar/teeth are German ESM. But the tractor itself crawls along-- it has only one speed, and that speed is slow enough that someone who has to walk with a walker would be perfectly comfortable using it! But this also means that it takes a long time to get the mowing done, and then to come back with the hayrake over all of it at the same slow speed!
Two years ago I got a Goldoni two wheel tractor, 12HP diesel, with powered trailer. But the mistake I made is that it doesn't have handlebars that fold back to be used with attachments like mowers, hayrakes, etc. And the powered trailer is great, it is the kind with a steering wheel, but this also means that to remove the trailer and use the rotary plow or rotovator I'm looking at more than an hour to swap bowden cables and things around.
Thus, I find the perfect companion to my Goldoni, one of the same model type, though with a 12HP gasoline engine. The one I found has a snow blower (which if there are more repeats of this winter, I wouldn't mind having!) and a rotovator, which I don't really need. It doesn't have a sickle bar attachment with it though.
So I've been looking in the Italian classifieds, and there are some sickle bars alone people are selling for about 300€, though if it isn't for my model of Goldoni, I'll need an adapter, which I've found several in Slovenia (!), which is another 100€, plus shipping. Or, since I'll be driving down to Italy anyway to pick up the Goldoni, I found in the vicinity more people selling complete walk behind sickle bar mowers, with of course multiple speeds, etc.
One, for 600€ has the double-action sickle bar. Another, for 750€ has a presumably single-action sickle bar and a belt hay rake.
The other thing I can do is just make an adapter for the sickle bar I have, as well as hay rake. But the drive on the sickle bar I have is not, I think, as good as the oil bath ones on the Italians.

This is long winded like most of my posts-- the main thing I wonder is-- just how great of an improvement are double action sickle bars over single action ones? Is the vibration really knocked down a lot?

The double action will be faster and also allow for mowing when the hay to be cut is wet from rain or dew. The double action mowers have very close tolerances and are not suited to trimming areas where you have woody plants, rocks, etc. Ken Sweet

freedomlives · Mar 15, 2017

Well, I thought I'd found a Goldoni with a double action cutter bar. But it seems the owner was trying to convey in German that he had a spare knife for the mower, and it is just a single action, 4 1/2 foot wide. Actually, I probably just should have walked away, but it was 8PM when I got there driving across Austria, so I bought the thing. It is hard for me to say if the guy was purposefully lying to me, ignorant or there was just a communication problem, but also when I asked him whether it was a vier-takt oder zwei-takt motor, he told me it was a four stroke, and he also claimed it had a differential, though there was limited space in his garage to drive it much. Well, instead it has a Rotax 2-stroke motor and just some mechanism to unlock the axle of the wheels for turning, supposedly. He gave me the owners manuals after we'd loaded it into the van and I paid, and I didn't look at them until the next day.
Anyway, it will go faster than my old machine and cut wider, so it ought to be an improvement this summer, and then after that we'll see.