IslandTractor
Super Star Member
- Joined
- Sep 15, 2005
- Messages
- 15,802
- Location
- Prudence Island, RI
- Tractor
- 2007 Kioti DK40se HST, Woods BH
With regard to my metal frame incident with the Caroni flail, here are a few more photos. I don't think the frame was laying on the ground but was partially buried. The mower must have caught a section sticking out of the ground then ripped the whole frame out from under the turf and immediately wrapped it around the mower drum. Obviously it stalled the tractor. I got off to check and cringed when I saw this quite substantial though rusty length of angle iron disappearing into the mower. I disingaged the PTO, restarted and lifted the 3pt to have a look. I saw the metal twisted around the drum but no damage to the mower. Put my gloves on and started yanking on the angle iron while counter rotating the drum with my other hand and after a 5 minute battle got the metal off. That was it. It has mowed just fine since.
I've also shredded into confetti what I think was an old rusty car fender, chewed up half of several car tires (smelly process) and even backed into and took a few whacks at an old gas station pump laying in the weeds
before I could stop. No problem.
On reflection I am not that surprised that the mower seems to survive these incidents without harm. After all highway departments use big flails to mow medians and curb strips and they undoubtedly hit all manner of heavy junk. What did pleasantly surprise me were that 1) the Caroni flail despite costing much less than half of what the "highway" flails cost seems to stand up to at least moderate abuse with no trouble and 2) that the cut is substantially better than what you get with a bush hog rotary style cutter. When I used a rotary cutter to chop up brush, the land would be covered with 3-6 inch size sticks and chunks of debris. With the flail that is all mulched into something the size you might get out of a chipper/shredder. For mowing a pasture and possibly anything less fussy than a golf green or a prim suburban lawn it does a great job. I should be clear that I have the TM1900 which has the heavier duty style blades/hammers so the TL style with double the number of lighter weight blades probably is less robust but would give an even better cut. Finally (3), I don't have to worry about slinging rocks and sticks at houses or pedestrians. I have also come to appreciate the substantially shorter length of the mower which means less scalping and also makes manuvering and storage much easier.
I don't know why "moderate duty" flails are not more commonly used except that only Caroni, an Italian company with what appears to be only one distributor in the US, sells them for prices that are directly comparable to the cost of a decent finish mower. Most flails cost two or three times what a finish mower does. For moderate duty bush hogging and pasture cutting I prefer this to a my Bush Hog rotary cutter and I don't have any need for a finish mower any longer.
I've also shredded into confetti what I think was an old rusty car fender, chewed up half of several car tires (smelly process) and even backed into and took a few whacks at an old gas station pump laying in the weeds
before I could stop. No problem. On reflection I am not that surprised that the mower seems to survive these incidents without harm. After all highway departments use big flails to mow medians and curb strips and they undoubtedly hit all manner of heavy junk. What did pleasantly surprise me were that 1) the Caroni flail despite costing much less than half of what the "highway" flails cost seems to stand up to at least moderate abuse with no trouble and 2) that the cut is substantially better than what you get with a bush hog rotary style cutter. When I used a rotary cutter to chop up brush, the land would be covered with 3-6 inch size sticks and chunks of debris. With the flail that is all mulched into something the size you might get out of a chipper/shredder. For mowing a pasture and possibly anything less fussy than a golf green or a prim suburban lawn it does a great job. I should be clear that I have the TM1900 which has the heavier duty style blades/hammers so the TL style with double the number of lighter weight blades probably is less robust but would give an even better cut. Finally (3), I don't have to worry about slinging rocks and sticks at houses or pedestrians. I have also come to appreciate the substantially shorter length of the mower which means less scalping and also makes manuvering and storage much easier.
I don't know why "moderate duty" flails are not more commonly used except that only Caroni, an Italian company with what appears to be only one distributor in the US, sells them for prices that are directly comparable to the cost of a decent finish mower. Most flails cost two or three times what a finish mower does. For moderate duty bush hogging and pasture cutting I prefer this to a my Bush Hog rotary cutter and I don't have any need for a finish mower any longer.
