What the heck is that?

[Farmwithjunk]

What a Flail mower is ( I haven't seen one in person but evidently they are expensive and don't work very well and start a lot of arguments on forums)

You left out one VERY important "feature"....Apparently a lot of flail mowers end up in the hands of people who aren't real good at being teased. (Which makes them PERFECT targets for being teased )

 

[leonz]

If anyone wants to chime in, thought it might be interesting to know what attachments or anything else to do with tractors have you seen on TBN that you either never have heard of before or just plain dont know what the heck it is. There will be many for me I'm sure but here are two right off the bat.
1. What is a flail mower, never heard of it til perusing the ol pages of TBN
2. The quick hitch. We have had these on the loader, makes swapping from forks to bucket easy and quick, but have never heard of such a thing for 3 point hook up. Might need to check into that.

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About your questions with regard to flailmowers

A flailmower utilises what is referred to
as the Verticut Method of mowing and dethatching
fine grasses, brush mowing, forestry mowing and
brush shredding for land clearing purposes.


There are several types of of flail mower designs
which employ several knive types for thier intended
purpose.

The dethatching knife blade which is a flat blade
used for overseeding and removing heavy dead thatch
which is decaying grass clippings which choke good turf
and other types of sod ground.


The grass mowing knive blade used for the verticut method of
mowing consists of several defferent designs and blade types.

1. The Y blade grass slicer which is offered in 2 types of mountings-
consisting of either a round stamped hole for mounting on the Flail Mower
Rotor which restricts the knives movement and maintains a 45 degree
knive angle which is overapped by the knive row behind it which overlaps
the cutting width to mow all the grass, or a grass slicer that has a
punched slotted grass slicer knive mounting which allows the knive edge
to become and airfoil and acheive a horizontal slicing edge which slices
the grass blade at speeds exceeding 200 miles per hour on some models
which slice a very tiny bit of grass blade while mowing creating much less
shock damage to the individual grass blade than a rotary mower
achieves due to the rotary mowers tearing of grass blade while cutting
turf grasses and mowing hay ground to the sod after seasonal hay
harvest to eliminate winter kill damage of hay grasses.


a. The Y blade is offered in a short or long grass slicer
with various thicknesses and knive lengths.

b. The hardened Y Blade which is heat treated
or coated with a grade of carbide that coats
the cutting edge surface increasing its life
span in use. The hardened Y blade comes in
various lengths. The Y blade can employ a
full lengh cutting edge along the blade length
or a blade length which is only the length of
the stamped/bent knive edge.

b1. The hardened Grass slicer Y blade may also employ
a shackle mounting in a two row flail mower rotor.



c. The Scoop Knive Grass Slicer which is a general
purpose knive which can be used for mowing
grasses and or light brush. The scoop knive employs
several mounting/rotor types for several different shredding
duties and conditions.

1. the very wide scoop knive used for crop shredding
which is used for:

a. post harvest Cotton stubble
b. pre-harvest Potato vines
c. post harvest Sugar Cane stubble
d. post harvest grass shredding to the actual sod height
which is used in practice to prevent winter kill damage
and sod diseases from insects.


d. The Hardened Scoop Hammer Knive which is a hardened steel stamping
with a scoop edge which is a dual purpose knive for brush and sod mowing.
The scoop hammer knive employs a Flail Mower Rotor which consists of either
a full width knive mounting in one or two rows of knive employing a laced knive
configuration permitting a full overlap of knive edge surfaces for the cutting purpose
for the mower width


e. The light scoop knive which employs a shackle mounting to attach it to the
Flail Mower Rotor assembly.


f. The Hammer Knive which is employed in forestry mowing orchard mowing of prunings
and light land clearing duties. The Hammer knive may have a flat hammer edge or not
depending upon the manufacturers design.


The forestry flail head mower employs a flail rotor that uses a welded rong attached to the
rotor wiht flat edges which shatter the trees and brush or a rotor which has carbide mining
bits installed to destroy brush and trees in land clearing operations and right of way
maintenance for utilities and railroads.

Thse forestry flailmowers are either hydraulic driven implements or belt driven using the flail
rotor mass and weight as a flywheel weight to aid in land clearing.


A flailmowers design is extremely effective in preventing damage to property and injury or
death to pedestrians as any object the flailmower rotor encounters stays within the flail mowers
hood or jams it and stops the mower entirely preventing the object from being ejected and striking
something or someone causing injury death to persons or property damage.

A flailmower employed in mowing highway shoulders and medians uses the forward rotation in mowing service
which prevents any posssibility of an object that may be struck being thrown to the rear and impacting a on coming automobile. This is especilly true of the boom mounted flail heads which are used to mow brush and trees
down that are encroaching upon guide rails along highways and city streets.

Flail mower use in the European is the prevaling method of mowing roadsides and areas of pedestrian traffic due to the mowers inherent safety features with the act of mowing fully sheilded from pedestrians and animals while in use and the very low noise level to comply with mandated decible requirements for mobile machinery used for mowing.

Increasingly robotic flailmowers are being used for dangerous high angled slopes and banks where rubber tired tractors are unable to maintain traction and the angle of attack is too great for mowing vehicle ascent unless winch is used as in the case of the "Spyder" brand of robotic rotary mowers which employ three rotary mower blades, and a belt and mechanical for wheel drive system. The winch for the spyder mower is an optional item for Spyder mower


I have enclosed two images of a Simon Tullet Roboflail tracked flailmower for your use.



_________________________________________________________________
Once you go flail you never go back:thumbsup::licking::drool:

 

[jonyyuma]

My Flail mower was a Belly mower on a 1950 cub tractor. What a pain in the keester from sharpening the 120 blades under it. On top of that, if you reversed the tractor or stopped quickly, the blades all seemed to hit each other under it and messed up the cutting edges.Reminds me I still have bucket of blades for my dad's old Ford flail mower?That mower cut like a golf course lawn.

 

[Farmwithjunk]

I had 3 VERY high end flails essentially loaned to me to demonstrate in a commercial application, with no time limit on their use. ( I DO NOT like to slam products by name, especially when this brand is ALSO a major player in the rotary mower industry, and one that I still deal with) My plan WAS to use their alleged "advanatages" when marketing my business. I sent 'em back after a few weeks with a "thanks but no thanks" note attached. Too slow and unproductive, too expensive to maintain, too inefficient compared to a GOOD rotary cutter. That doesn't even take in to account the disproportionately high cost per foot regarding initial purchase price. Then there's the issue of HP requirements being considerably higher on a "per foot/per acre/per hour" basis, which in turn jacks the cost of operation up even further. And also worth considering, I was given an estimated life expectancy on these mowers that was about half of what we KNOW we'll get from the rotary cutters I use now. Most of the "claims" (sales propaganda) made as to their advantages were not the least bit evident when put to the test along side rotary mowers (of substantially lower cost). Their use, when figured in to job bids, made my business non competitive. Then there was the issue of ridiculously slow operating speeds keeping my crews in harms way longer. They created a lot of down time due to maintenance issues. That, and their slow ground speed requirements left my crews exposed to risk when compared to the much more productive rotary cutters. (We mow highway right-of-ways...operation and MOST repairs have to be done in high risk environments) There was little to no noticeable difference in overall performance, which was already MORE than satisfactory with a well maintained rotary cutter.

I'm not so blind as to become enamoured with something to the point I can't see the liabilities as they play out in REAL WORLD use. Blow 'em up all you like, when pu to the test SIDE BY SIDE with a GOOD rotary cutter, flails come out on the short end far more often than not....