Rotary Cutter Let's get to bottom of this! Brush hogging in reverse..

[TripleR]

I have been doing the same for about 35 years and I haven't torn a mower up yet. Now that I have the L5030HTC it is even better, can really ease that mower into a lot of heavy growth. No way will I use my tractor to run over things to protect the mower. Mower parts are a lot cheaper than tractor parts. I have a cousin that is in the equipment repair business and I see a lot of examples of how using the tractor to "size" things for the mower that don't turn out too good for the tractor. Only way I would run over it first is using tractors like a friend has for mowing right of ways. He has full skid plates and cages on his tractors and even then he sometimes has issues because things get up in the engine compartment.

I use a M8540 HDC with a Woods DS1260 pull type cutter and a L5030 HSTC with a Land Pride RCR2672. I put a hydraulic top link on the 5030 and often use it to lift the back up the cutter up to angle in to the really heavy stuff then lower it. It is also really handy mowing levies and backing into and over ditches.

I do sometimes drive through the heavy stuff tractor first and have the torn boots to prove it and a couple other things. By going "nose first", I have been able to get out of some washouts with my FEL.

 

[leonz]

AH so you were attacking an old standard necked acetylene bottle?

I agree a little acetylene, sawdust and acetone will make for a bad
day unless you are using a smoke wrench at 12 P.S.I.



___________________________________________________________________
Once you go flail you never go back:thumbsup::licking::drool:

 

[Arkaybee]

If you are bush-hogging rough land, having a good number of small trees and saplings, going forward and then backwards to complete the cutting of the trees and saplings, then the tractor really needs a belly-plate or whatever they are called to prevent broken and slivered sapling trunks from springing up through the floor area and stabbing the operator. OUCH.

Seriously, it happens and I have seen such accidents at a large medical center where the tractor operator was speared through the GROIN AND THIGH by a sharp, splintered sapling about three inches in diameter and it was not an awful and gruesome sight. Skillful surgeons saved the day and successfully removed the offending object.
But still there was great trauma.

Seems like this would happen more easily backing up after cutting going forward since the tree would be lying forward and could avoid the cutter going backward and spring up after the cutter had passed over it. Whatever the explanation it can happen in either direction, sadly.

Equip that tractor for the danger. HTH

Arkaybee

 

[electrarc]

I brush hog going backwards a lot. My drivers position rotated to face the rear. When I am cutting an area for the first time I carry the mower higher and go slow.

This link shows me cutting with the mower going backwards.

Ferrari Cobram 65 Rs Tractor HD - YouTube

Cheers

 

[grtscout]

I shorten my center link and set my wheel to hold the rear of the mower deck higher then the front, seems to work for me when I am in unchartered territory