sweeper

[RalphVa]

Makes more sense to use a mulching mower. Then you won't have anything to sweep.

Ralph

 

[Molerj]

Hi Ralph, Yeah the mulching mower will work fine but if you let the grass get a little too high the muching blades will make quite a mess & you will still need to sweep up the clippings. That said, I bought gator mulching blades for my 72" deck on my JD 955 & am anxious to see how they work. I've used mulching blades on smaller tractors but not on this one.

 

[bontai_Joe]

Here is a link to the current manufacturer of Parker lawn sweepers.

http://www.ketchum-hurricane.com/parker-lawnsweep.htm

 

[Glenn9643]

Jim,
I didn't get nearly the deal you did on your Agri-Fab, but I did buy one a few weeks ago for $199.00. My step father has a 42" Craftsman that he's been happy with, and that started my interest. I went to Sears to buy one, but couldn't find anyone working in that area to sell me one. I asked a worker in the adjoining area and he said he would be with me in a moment. After about five minutes waiting while he talked on the phone (sounded like to his girlfriend) I got mad and left. I started looking elsewhere and noticed the $100 difference in the Craftsman and the Agri-Fab and tried to see if I could find any way to justify the additional expense for the Craftsman but could not. They are very similar, and I am happy to have an extra hundred to spend on something else! I'm pulling mine behind a JD 455 and it works great on leaves. If I get too aggressive with pinestraw it'll choke so I've found that I need to take a lighter pass there.

 

[sgoldste01]

Here is a link to the current manufacturer of Parker lawn sweepers.

ketchum-hurricane.com - ketchum hurricane Resources and Information. This website is for sale!

I know this is an old thread, but I wanted to update the link to the manufacturer of Parker sweepers:

Parker Lawn Care Products

I'm picking up a lightly used Parker Suburbanite SU8336 model (which seems to be a discontinued product). It's a recent model, judging from the red color and overall condition of everything. $180 for a unit that commonly sold for $900 or more. I've heard of people getting them used for less, but probably not in the condition of this one. Looking forward to giving it a spin this weekend!

Anyway, I used the above web site to download the owner's manual, which the seller couldn't provide.

 

[Carl in CT]

I have a 42" Craftsman sweeper I bought at least 10 years ago. It's far from perfect but it beats the heck out of raking and at $200 brand new it was a heck of a lot cheaper than the bagging system for my Toro/Wheelhorse tractor. It has not been that well cared for either :ashamed:, spending many winters outside under the pine trees since I ran out of room in the shed. Even still it works, not much rust, no rips in the bag, never broke down. I just make sure the bag is empty and I tip it up when I park it and it seems to protect itself from a lot of the elements that way. The pine trees definitely help keep some rain/snow off of it too.Tarps just make it a nice home for mice so I skipped the tarp cover idea.

I get heavy clippings in the spring and the sweeper does a pretty good job. Uneven ground can give it fits if you are on a crown so the wheels aren't holding as much weight as the brushes, they tend to lock and drag instead of spin and sweep. I typically will cut the whole yard once and by the time I'm done the clippings in the first part have dried a bit. That way when I go back to blow them into windrows some of them get chopped up and go away and the rest are easier to pick up and dump. I don't have a lot of leaves to deal with but it picks them up OK for the few I do have. I have a friend who uses his sweeper with a rear discharge mower deck so he can do it all at once.

I'm all for paying more for quality but for the amount of sweeping I do I could not justify spending much more than $200 and surprisingly the Craftsman sweeper has held up well. By the way, I just got a new Simplicity Conquest tractor and it left no clippings despite the grass being really, really high. So food for thought, a top notch mower with sharp blades will reduce clippings a lot in the first place.

 

[sgoldste01]

I know this is an old thread, but I wanted to update the link to the manufacturer of Parker sweepers:

Parker Lawn Care Products

I'm picking up a lightly used Parker Suburbanite SU8336 model (which seems to be a discontinued product). It's a recent model, judging from the red color and overall condition of everything. $180 for a unit that commonly sold for $900 or more. I've heard of people getting them used for less, but probably not in the condition of this one. Looking forward to giving it a spin this weekend!

Anyway, I used the above web site to download the owner's manual, which the seller couldn't provide.

I stand corrected; the Parker Suburbanite SU8336 is still a current product. They have it listed under "Turf Sweepers" rather than "Lawn Sweepers", because of the extra large basket capacity.

Parker Lawn Care Products

I had to get clever in terms of how I store this monster in my garage. I store the basket separately from the main machine, and figured out a way to lean the main machine against the wall so that it doesn't take up much floor space.

I used the sweeper last weekend for the first time. This was after my first mowing of the season, because we've been getting almost constant rain here for the past 1.5 weeks. So the grass was LONG and THICK. I know you're not supposed to take off nearly as much grass as I removed in one cutting, but the forecast was for constant rain for the next week, so I cut it short while I had the chance. :confused2: Besides, I wanted to give this sweeper a workout to see what it could do.

It took me a little while to figure out what height setting was most effective, but I got there. Because the clippings were so long, I had to reduce the tractor's forward travel speed a bit or it seemed like the sweeper would get overwhelmed with the volume of clippings and would end up dragging its wheels rather than spinning the wheels and brushes (and this was with the sweeper set at its maximum height). But once I figured out the best combination of travel speed and sweeper height, everything worked very well.

A good purchase for $180, if you ask me! :thumbsup: