Hello again to the Group after some 6 years from my previous posts. Here's a little more about Dandle Fail Mowers, at
least in the History Department. I found an Obit notice for Harold Dandl, he spent some 40 years or so in the Farm
equipment and manufacturing business around Northern California, Chico. It appears Dandl was in operation for at
least some 20 years or so, wrapping up in the mid late 1990's with Harold. Other Dandle postings suggest the company
was sold around 97 when Harold retired... unconfirmed by me but one would hope he had a great retirement.
I've become a bit of a default expert with Dandl fail mowers... there are at least three different widths/models/
types that I know about... and own a few.
The cutters or blades... were available for a time a Tractor Supply, but they seem to be sluggish to want to
restock anything quickly... The cutters are the duck foot type, get the better quality cutters with a ceramic
coating, don't be cheap there... you'll know the difference in quality soon enough. I buy my cutters on line
now, from King Cutters... Email me direct if you need their contact information. The "D-rings" are fairly
common, even the Deere Dealer in my area has them. If you buy a flail missing the cutters, rings and rods,
that' s a fairly common find and relatively easy to obtain. The D-ring holding rods are common steel and
held in with clevis pins that need to be slightly bent and secured with a cotter pin (or equivalent).
Dandl flail mowers are some of the best ever made... you won't be sorry refurbishing a dead
unit. You will need a serious amount of horse power, min 70 if you have the monster long
unit. You can probably use a smaller HP tractor with a 6 to 8 foot wide mower, but you will have to go
slow. And, the triple wide belt is 62 inches, getting more expensive every year. I used to burn them
up in high grass, trying to go fast, but calm down and keep them tight, you'll be fine.
I saw a different post asking about an individual one per cutter/knife & d-ring possibly being a Dandl
unit, which I don't believe it was. However (comma), that mounting scheme was used by RFS flail
mowers. RFS in the two incarnations that I know about, was located just south Winters California. The
company was doing well, sold and the new owner was reported to be less people friendly and the
company went away after a time.
One other thing regarding the cutters on the Dandl flail mowers... keep the "duct foot" type, don't mess around with
other types of blade shapes. When you have the duck foot cutters properly installed, driving down an orchard row o
equivalent... leaves behind a near golf putting green type of clean surface. It really is amazing how the cutters will
cut, mulch and clean down to nearly (and below if you adjust it as such) level. I have also compared the Dandle flail
operation to a high end Howard Rotovator... and they are two different things, both amazing, but quite different in
intent. The Howard Rotivator is more of a tiller type operation, the flail a flush mower.
That's about it for now... maybe see you in another 6 years down the road if I learn anything new
worth sharing.
cheers,
skipp025 at ya hoo dot com
