Flail mower vs. rotary cutter

[aczlan]

Yes I remember suggesting the HINIKER Flail Shredders to him but his existing power/fleet was not not large enough in frame and horsepower size for the 15 foot Hiniker flail shredder in the 540 or 1,000 RPM gearbox rating.

Soooo he would be burning significantly more fuel per acre to make the extra horsepower needed to run a flail versus his current rotary cutter?

I believe I also mentioned a much smaller crop shredder in combination with the larger ones would have served him well as the more difficult area to be mowed at all hours and they could be mowed with the smaller crop shredder first and the larger areas could have been mowed with the larger crop shredder at 2 inches in mowing height after the narrower more difficult areas were mowed at the 2 inch mowing height.

So he would need two tractors to do what he currently does with one?

Municipalities are famous for forcing contractors doing mowing maintenance with unrealistic bid offerings to in the end undercut each other as the municipality limits the ability of the contractor to make a "small profit" with their minimum cost per acre or square foot and the mowing contractors under bid each other as a matter doing business for a lot of reasons.

The municipalities are looking out for their taxpayers wallets in reducing costs where possible.

Hourly or weekly wages and insurance costs and a catastrophic machinery failure will eat any potential profit per acre in any case as well as a lawsuit from the loss of a cutter blade being ejected from a rotary cutter would as well where the verticut method of mowing and shredding reduces that liability to a non issue as everything stays under the mowing shroud until it falls to the ground.

As I recall, he said that they have never had a rock get ejected and hit a car or land in the road. He also said that the bigger issue they have had liability wise is idiots running off the road and hitting their parked mowers or tractors.
He also talked with his insurance company and his insurance company charged the same price for him to mow with rotary mowers as with flail mowers. So as far as the insurance company is concerned, the rotary mower is not any more dangerous than a flail mower.

The INO 2 and 3 section flail shredders are an even better match to his conditions as they will also bring down fully mature corn and sunflower crops that were left for green manure crops. The INO brand of flail mowers and other representative brands are also used by municipalities in Europe for mowing flood control barriers and highway mowing using 2 ,3 and 4 mower configurations with a front mounted flail mower driven off the crankshaft of the row crop tractor.

That's all well and good, but if he were to buy one, can he get replacement parts today or tomorrow if something breaks?
If just the tractor breaks, can he get a loaner tractor from the dealer to swap the mowers over to?
From what I recall, he had looked over it pretty thoroughly trying to provide a way to differentiate himself from his competition without pricing himself out of the market, but he couldn't make it work.

Aaron Z

 

[leonz]

Soooo he would be burning significantly more fuel per acre to make the extra horsepower needed to run a flail versus his current rotary cutter?

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That may be the case yes, but he will cover more ground per hour with the flail shredder operating at optimum speed for the conditions and he could lift the right or left side mower to get around culverts and underpass pillars as needed still using the wide front mounted flail mower in a our mower configuration.
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So he would need two tractors to do what he currently does with one?



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If he had a fold up INO flail mower with four mowers he could do everything with one tractor as needed and rent a another one in the event of a break down if they are available and use the rear 3 mower set to mow.
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The municipalities are looking out for their taxpayers wallets in reducing costs where possible.




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Governmental accounting is a fantasy land of quarterly revenue disbursements from the municipalities treasury to each operating department in municipal government to pay salaries, pension liabilities, and many other expenses. The persons making these decisions have to deal with budgets shortfalls buying revenue bonds back from the purchaser, paying interest on revenue bonds if used as well as selling bonds for what ever major projects that are needed by the municipality to maintain it and the potential lack of adequate funding every quarter.
They are not looking out for anyone let alone the tax payer so the tax payer is a non issue, they are strictly dependent on the revenue from taxation and any state and federal funding that they may qualify for.

The operating departments in municipalities of all types are parasites of the manager that operates the municipal treasury and they live off what is transferred into their quarterly operating sub budgets by the treasurer of the municipality.
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As I recall, he said that they have never had a rock get ejected and hit a car or land in the road. He also said that the bigger issue they have had liability wise is idiots running off the road and hitting their parked mowers or tractors.
He also talked with his insurance company and his insurance company charged the same price for him to mow with rotary mowers as with flail mowers. So as far as the insurance company is concerned, the rotary mower is not any more dangerous than a flail mower.






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Never SAY Never. There have been incidents where rotary cutter blades have been dislodged and ejected as well as objects ejected from the Impact of a rotary cutter blade throwing them hundreds of feet.

Iron Horses example in Australia while clearing land and hitting a bolt sticking out of the ground is essentially a bible and gospel verse of mowing impact damage of which there are many that have also resulted in permanent injury or death of a pedestrian and property damage.
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That's all well and good, but if he were to buy one, can he get replacement parts today or tomorrow if something breaks?
If just the tractor breaks, can he get a loaner tractor from the dealer to swap the mowers over to?
From what I recall, he had looked over it pretty thoroughly trying to provide a way to differentiate himself from his competition without pricing himself out of the market, but he couldn't make it work.

Aaron Z

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The Ino has and Hiniker have,

Comer high horsepower gearboxes the last time I checked, all roller bearings are metric, All V belts are metric first, hydraulic cylinders come in SAE common sizes, Ag tires are common sizes, The scoop knives for an INO flail shredder are a common size and type.

The Komtek folks have representation here in the United States so parts are available and a flail mower using hardened knives can be mounted on both three point hitches of the largest unit to allow fast mowing in forward and reverse or to mow at a higher height and then the 2 inch height of the final cut.


A stocking distributor of these machines would have a complete inventory of these parts.


It all comes down to the low bidder and having a strong machine of high horsepower in the beginning pays dividends in the end.

 

[kthompson]

I have and use both rotary cutter and flail mower. I have never really used flail for anything but boom mower, other than mowed yard once. Did not like it for that. Have used rotary cutter on ditch bank mower and for that or boom mower to me the flail cutter is better option, unless you are really running heavy tractor. With my boom mower with flail cutter head on it can cut rather large limbs and trees (say 6 inches maybe little more unless oak then about 4 inches is about it) that would be difficult with rotary mower. Have never run bat wing mower but for my use have not notice hp need for the flail being higher than rotary mower. Do know of broken rotary blades "flying" over a house. No doubt broken flail mower cutter is also dangerous but the ones I have had and used not near as heavy as a rotary cutter blade.