Rotary Cutter Stupid question: Proper way to use rotory cutter

[Baby Grand]

I tore a rod end boot going into the "bush" front first. My mistake - had the FEL too high. Lil sucker cost $26 and was a real pain to replace - trying to slip greasy retaining ring over greasy rubber boot with greasy hands. Someone here bolted sections of tire tread to his front axle/steering gear to work as shields - have to copy that trick myself.

Usually I try to back into rough areas, but I always try to do a careful recon (on foot) first. Never know what you'll find under that mat of multiflora rose - they seem to love growing out of old engine blocks.

If you're hogging in close quaters - near large, fixed objects like stone walls, boulders, ledge, or trees over 3" diameter I highly recommend wearing some sort of hard hat with face/eye protection. On a few occaisions I've had big chunks of "stuff" ricochet off of a nearby "fixed object" and nearly hit me.

Happy shredding,

Jim

 

[Mock1]

A note on rotary cutters, lessons learned. A guy I work with had children
( all grown up now) that loved to golf. He set out one day to mow their rather
neglected lawn with a riding lawn mower. He had finished about half of it
with few problems, other than where to drop the empty beer cans so
he didn't run over them. On his next pass he nailed a golf ball which
ricocheted off a retaining wall then pounded him in the side of the head.
He said that he did see stars and that it was all he could do to not fall off the tractor. If I learned one thing from that story, I now wear ARMOUR if I don't know what's being cut.

 

[mustangsallysdad]

I know how to use it to knock down brush and such. But I want to clear out some light trees (less than 1" thick) in my woods area, to make a path. Should I reverse the cutter as best I can through there? OR, should I bolt on my belly mower, put it at its highest setting and drive strait over them, allowing the 3pt rotary cutter to get them last? I dont want to do any damage to the machine.

Thanks for the responses....

My suggestion, if you could afford it right now...get a tooth bar! I just cleaned out a half acre locust grove (nothing over 2 1/2") in about an hour, roots and all...the ground was damp and it made for easy work...used the bucket and tooth bar to push all of the debris into a pile for burning later. Back dragged over it with the bucket in float and it came out perfect...today I'll pick up a few rocks and then seed, fertilize and straw. A little seat time and very little manual labor. By the way, I've only got a 23 HP tractor and it wasn't even a chore for it.