Hydraulic Powered Mower for 1.5 ton mini-ex

[D&Mmachine]

...As of now I'm researching and considering a smaller hydraulic powered Sabre Samurai cutter, which in essence is a sickle bar mower designed to fit on a loader bucket on a smaller tractor. There's a good amount of info on them here but here is a link to their site for those unfamiliar.

SABRE SAMURAI CUTTER | Cutthat.com - Your Cutting Edge Technology Expert [LINK REMOVED]

Looks like it may solve a lot of the potential issues with some of the others mowers. .

There is no perfect brush cutter for every job, and finding something economically feasible for your use secenario is going to be difficult (unless you don't mind keeping your mechanic hat ready). I'm not familiar with the new attachment you mention but that SABRE cutter certainly looks like it would do well maintaining rows of bushes/trees and would leave nice-looking cuts BUT I would be concerned about accidentally applying too much force onto the blade and bending the assembly. Not as versatile as a boom-mounted mower (mulching slopes/banks/re-treating debris on ground) so a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison but if it gets YOUR job done at YOUR price point then perhaps it is worth looking into or scheduling a demo if you are luck

As for errant debris: Ultimately it is up to operator skill and the location. Larger machinery of this type regularly works alongside roadside ROW doing vegetation management often without the need for flaggers and the ~800lb rotating ~4ft diameter disk at 1000RPM has a lot more kinetic energy than a mower blade. The biggest danger isn't necessarily piece of wood getting lobbed 100ft or more but if (and eventually when) the rotating blade catches something hidden in the bushes and flings it - then anything can happen. All observers should stay back at least 300ft regardless of mower used (and often more than that) and it is IMPERATIVE operator protection is required. Same goes for "drum" style shredders, they seem to direct most of their debris in a more controlled fashion without needing as much operator skill but I was as a USFS demo (300 ft back) observing one of those machines with 200 others and had a chunk of dense wood larger than a baseball wizz directly between my legs so fast you could barely see it. Just sayin'. Knowing the RPM of the cutting assembly and diameter of cutting assembly you can easily figure the tip speed of the teeth/blades in MPH if you would like make comparisons, or if you like math factor in the rotating mass and max Torque at rated pressure for the motor to get a "worst case" scenario" if that rotating mass trasferred all its energy into an object. That said, for you working in the the back 40 with small size stems it probably isn't much of an issue but should always be your #1 concern.

 

[Dave M7040]

Thanks for the continued input, that was some great info D&M. I'm learning a bit more as I continue to research this idea. My mini-ex does have an aux control switch to go from one way flow for a thumb to one way flow for a hammer or mower.

As of now I'm researching and considering a smaller hydraulic powered Sabre Samurai cutter, which in essence is a sickle bar mower designed to fit on a loader bucket on a smaller tractor. There's a good amount of info on them here but here is a link to their site for those unfamiliar.

SABRE SAMURAI CUTTER | Cutthat.com - Your Cutting Edge Technology Expert

Looks like it may solve a lot of the potential issues with some of the others mowers. It only needs 3 gpm to run properly to cut up to 1.5" material, which is about exactly as I'm looking for as it will primarily be used on grasses, weeds, and kudzu on steep slopes/roads in my mountain property/neighborhood. It may actually perform much better on kudzu as opposed to a rotary or flail mower where all the long vines wrap up on spindles and rotors very easily. The sickle bar setup will also alleviate a lot of the throw back and other safety concerns as well. I'm thinking that the low flow requirements would cancel out any overheating/taxing concerns of the hydraulics as well.

If I go this route I'd likely run it directly on the excavator bucket, only reversing the bucket on the excavator with the bucket facing out. Should give me good reach with the cutter and the entire unit only weighs 70lbs. So weight shouldn't be an issues as well. Probably ad a plate on the mounting bracket to allow to bolt the unit to bucket holes for the teeth as well.

Planning on touching base with them to run my scenario with them and get their take on it.

I have a Samurai Cutter which I use on my Kubota M7040.

I needed to add a pressure compensated flow control as the Kubota's GPM was too great.

You need to get the break-a-way mount or you will be frustrated by breaking bolts when you come up against something solid.

I use pieces of 1/4" plate where the Samurai mount attaches to the bucket to stiffen it up.

Dave M7040