New Brush Cutter

[MossRoad]

LOL. It'll happen. Every spring my pasture "grows" new rocks, and my brush cutter happily decapitates them and sends them flying a few hundred feet.

A friend of ours asked if I could brush cut their lot in a subdivision that they've owned for about 20 years. They were getting ready to build and wanted it knocked down. Weeds and small saplings about 6' tall. I told him no problem, but stay away from me. Wait by the road. Well, this is a guy that can't hold still. Always working. Gotta move. So I'm cutting along, not realizing he's no longer up by the road. I hit a rock a little larger than a baseball. It goes shooting up the lane right towards him. I see him going left and right and the rock is just flying along, skipping and changing directions. He runs behind my Suburban, and the rock shoots under it and goes across the road. Just missed him. Lucky it didn't take out him or my truck. He stayed back after that.

Then, throughout the next hour, I must have hit 3-4 actual baseballs, and half a dozen golf balls! Someone in the neighborhood was using his lot for practice, I guess. :laughing:

 

[cqaigy2]

You sure have a way with words, you had me zig zagging in my mind, trying to avoid that rock. :laughing:

 

[MossRoad]

He had some big eyes after that incident, too!

 

[ponytug]

ROTFLOL!!

I practically sprayed coffee all over my screen on that. The image of a rock bobbing and weaving along the road running him down still has me smiling.

Thanks for sharing. That is exactly why I don't mow when I can see other people.

All the best,

Peter

 

[joshlee]

Here it is, and it works well too. I bought the pieces from different places. The stump jumper I got on eBay, the bolts I got down the road at a farm supply retail store, and the blades I bought off of Rotary Cutter Supply.

 

[joshlee]

https://www.ebay.com/p/Replacement-...s73PggZiCZvuvJeh_bhu6D4aUDFeBkBYaAvaVEALw_wcB These are the bolts for 3/8 blades, which I should have bought instead of the 1/2 ones.

 

[woodlandfarms]

Very well done. So on the jumper / spindle. What is the third hole / pipe? I get the two blade holes by that third thing. Doesn’t it cause a balance issue? Also is the 1430 just a single spindle? My deck has 3

 

[joshlee]

I cut the reinforcement steel in the middle of the stump jumper out so that I could have the flat surface on the stump jumper for mounting it to the spindle/hub. For the picture I just layed that chunk of steel there. I balanced the stump jumper, but there is a small amount of wobble, and I think that the ring on the bottom of the deck is the issue, because one end of the ring is about 3/16 lower and is slightly catching the blade bolt heads when it痴 spinning.

Yeah, thanks man. Me Mowing along the highway made me do this project for safety issues.

 

[MossRoad]

Nice! :thumbsup:

 

[ponytug]

Great job! How did you get the five holes transferred?

So, how does it cut compared to the prior design? The blades look a lot heavier than the PT blades.

All the best, Peter

 

[joshlee]

Thanks. The job went fairly well. I done the hole layout, but found out I didn't need to. The machine shop I go to has a tool for making centrical hole patterns . I couldn't get the hub off of the spindle for laying out the holes, even with a really large 3 arm puller and a impact wrench. I know heating it is always an option, but heating up that spindle / seal wasn't worth doing. So, I used that stock drum with the five holes to make the hole layout.

The blades are heavier. They are 3/8" material, the same as the PT stock blades. Do you know if the PT blades are tempered? I took a file to one of them to test if it was tempered and it didn't seem like it. It was like filing mild steel. These new blades are definitely tempered.

The stump jumper is where the weight is. It's much heavier than the stock drum, so there is allot more mass swinging around there, for sure. As far as how it cuts compared to the stock set up, there is a difference. It has a different feel to it when your cutting. It takes out 1 1/2" trees no problem, and cuts down thick field grass like nothing.

That draft control is so nice when using this brush cutter. I can always tell a difference in the sound of the engine when I have the FEL in float mode while driving , and then when I knock it out of float and turn the draft on, the engine gains more power because there is no more resistance of pushing the caster wheels on the ground. And just how the brush cutter glides over the high spots, and gently lowers when it comes to low spots is awesome! All the weight of the brush cutter being on the front wheels for great traction, too!