sickle bar mowers love them or hate them?

[4570Man]

I use one to mow around a pretty good sized pond about twice a year. I break it almost every time. I could probably do it faster with a string trimmer.

 

[CADplans]

My sickle mower,,, (and bush hog, and tiller)

My results

WHO needs an exercise machine,,, when you have these! :cool2:

 

[Gordon Gould]

Sorry to hear about your sicklebar grief super55. I like my sicklebar. I couldn't mow a lot of places with out one. I do replace guard teeth and knives once in a while but it is just routine maintenance. The thing I don't enjoy is mounting it on the tractor and getting it set right. Seems to take me more time than it should.





gg

 

[4570Man]

Sorry to hear about your sicklebar grief super55. I like my sicklebar. I couldn't mow a lot of places with out one. I do replace guard teeth and knives once in a while but it is just routine maintenance. The thing I don't enjoy is mounting it on the tractor and getting it set right. Seems to take me more time than it should. <img src="http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=479869"/> <img src="http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=479868"/> gg

Are those current pictures, or were they taken last year?

 

[countrybumpkin]

I love my caseIH 1300, use it all the time along the drive and ponds, also the road sides. Cut a few acres now and then with it also.

 

[Gordon Gould]

Are those current pictures, or were they taken last year?

Last year. I like to mow after a frost kills all the ferns so I can see better



gg

 

[4570Man]

Last year. I like to mow after a frost kills all the ferns so I can see better <img src="http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=479872"/> gg

I like to mow after the bees are dead.

 

[Farmer495]

Whats your thoughts on sickle mowers. My experience is only based on about 20 feet of mowing before I had a catastrophic failure of an old MF 41 3 point sickle mower.

I obviously bought the thing used but it was in great shape for it age other than the drive belt. Put a new belt on lubed, up all the joints, ran a rasp file on the knives to give it a new edge and checked to make sure none of the knives were binding or had excessive clearance. Everything was good to go so I thought but boy was I in for a surprise.

So I went to go start my perimeter swipe. Mowing a winter wheat/fescue type field. I decide to try and start slow since this is the trial run. End up getting hay bound up between the bars and hear the belt starting to squeal. Shut her down clean out the bar and decide that maybe I was going to slow and instead of laying the hay down I was dropping it down on the bar and it was clogging the sickle. Attempt #2 I decide to kick the speed up just a tad. Make it about another 10 feet and then notice the PTO is spinning but the bar is not cycling. After inspection, I noticed I blew out the cast housing that has a connecting rod to the sickle bar. Tried to weld it but being cast metal the weld didn't hold and immediately broke again which I figured it most likely wouldn't.

Needless to say my experience with the sickle type mower wasn't a pleasant one. I know a lot of people use them on here and have very good success with them but my experience was less than desirable. Fortunately I didn't spend a lot of money on it. I've decided to start putting money away for a small drum mower next year. A drum mower from what I seen on youtube vids seems to be a lot more forgiving and a lot less maintenance than a sickle.

Sickle bars work good when everything is new, trouble is most are worn out and old. Nowadays a sickle bar is what you use until you can get something better.

Have a MF 41 here, bought new and mowed hay for years. It's still going, but was replaced with a disc mower. Will not part with the 41, still too handy for field edges and ditch banks.

 

[vsteel]

I never got used to all that shaking.
Jim

You must not have ever driven a Owatonna Model 80 Windrower. I think riding a paint shaker is smoother.

 

[flusher]

Sickle bars work good when everything is new, trouble is most are worn out and old. Nowadays a sickle bar is what you use until you can get something better.

Have a MF 41 here, bought new and mowed hay for years. It's still going, but was replaced with a disc mower. Will not part with the 41, still too handy for field edges and ditch banks.

Right on. I bought a MF31 sicklebar (7 ft cut) at auction for $650. Put another $250 in parts to get it working. Used it to mow weeds and Kanota oat crops. It never cut perfectly and clogged frequently. I rebuilt the cutter bar twice with only mediocre results. If I were into serious haying (my field is only 7 acres), I would have bought a drum mower.