Flail Mower Let's talk flail mowers

[spo307]

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7 foot Alamo flail mower I refurbished

 

[IslandTractor]

Beautiful job refurbishing the Alamo!

 

[Big Bri]

yes thats a top notch job you did, what do you pull it with?

 

[mlitt12345]

Just ordered TM1900BSC - 75 Caroni Flail Mower, it was $100.00 cheaper on shipping by call-in order. Looking forward to using it, I have 17 acres to take care of which about 7 acres is pasture. I will be using a Mahindra 4110 4wd 40hp to run the flail mower. Looks like it does up to 1" saplings and overgrowth, do you all find this to be true? Can it do bigger stuff? My current bushog does up to 2" stuff but doesnt chew it up good just leaves a sharp stalk (tire getter) usually and leaves the rest in chunks on the ground. Thanks......Mike

 

[IslandTractor]

You will not even notice 1 inch stuff going throught the mower. I cut that going forwards. Two inch material it handles well but it will make a racket. I usually back into two inch material and cut it again on the way out. I use a 41hp tractor to mow about 15 acres of fields and to reclaim additional fields from 15 year overgrown material so that sounds essentially like what you are doing.

 

[JohnnyW]

Thanks to everyone for all the information. I am looking at the coroni. I think it will fit my needs.

 

[IslandTractor]

My current bushog does up to 2" stuff but doesnt chew it up good just leaves a sharp stalk (tire getter) usually and leaves the rest in chunks on the ground.

That is one of the biggest advantages of a flail over a bush hog. The flail mulches what it cuts while the bush hog just fractures wood until it flies out from underneath the cutter or the cutter moves past it. That can leave 3-6 inch stumps intact with sharp edges standing up after mowing. A bush hog will also routinely shoot out 6-18 inch chunks of branches which lay around in a field slowly decomposing. If you set a flail to cut low and don't travel too fast the mower leaves almost undetectable "stumps" of brush with a single pass which are far less likely to hurt tires etc. A flail will rarely eject a partially mulched piece of wood. If a flail does not cut a piece of brush completely it typically will denude the whole bush and leave just an intact long stem still attached to the root (you can see one in the middle of the first photo at the edge of the uncut area). These are uncut because the mower pushes them to the ground but they are easily identified and cut with another pass.

 

[mlitt12345]

My Caroni TM1900 arrived today...........looks well built and can't wait to try it out.....here is a few pics.....Mike

 

[IslandTractor]

My Caroni TM1900 arrived today...........looks well built and can't wait to try it out.....here is a few pics.....Mike

Haven't seen one that clean in a while. Don't be upset when the gearbox vent cap burps a few ounces of oil after heating up. It's just like a two month old kid that burps up a bit of dinner on a regular basis. You can either let it burp up all the excess (it doesn't need as much oil as the dipstick suggests) or you can put a riser extension on the vent cap which some of us have done. Do a search in this thread if you want to do that as you need a very specific metric sized extender that you will not find in Home Depot or Tractor Supply. Easy to get by UPS from a place in Maryland for about ten bucks. Details are buried in this thread somewhere.

 

[spo307]

yes thats a top notch job you did, what do you pull it with?

KUBOTA L4400

 

[Nuru]

Good looking unit and good pic

 

[greasemonkeyok]

If you want to rough cut an area that has a lot of rocks on the surface - is there a set up on a flail mower that will be more tolerant of hitting hard objects?

Haven't mowed in 20+ years because the rocks are large enough that in the past you had to use a large shield to run a bush hog, and the blade edges are pretty well gone when you finish. Rocks are sandstone, not particularly hard, but large enough to scare the beegebbers out of you when you hit one. (Sandstone outcrop of a major fault for the geologically inclined.)

 

[IslandTractor]

If you want to rough cut an area that has a lot of rocks on the surface - is there a set up on a flail mower that will be more tolerant of hitting hard objects?

Yes but the explanation is a little counter intuitive. Flails can have either "knives" (1/16-1/18 inch hardened steel bent L shapes) or "hammers" (cast or forged steel and much heavier than knives). For hitting rocks, the knives actually do better as their momentum is less and they bounce back rather than trying to drive through the rocks. There are also different mounting systems and the best for hitting debris is the type that has the knives mounted to a shackle which is then mounted to the mower. That gives the knife two pivot points (at the shackle and at the mount) which helps get it out of harms way.

If you hit a lot of rocks you will get less life from a set of knives but you won't damage anything (other than occasionally losing a shackle and knives). Replacements end up costing about 5-10 bucks per station (two knives, a shackle and bolt) so it is neither extremely expensive nor cheap to replace these things given there are usually about 25-30 sets on a flail.

I hit a fair number of rocks (granite usually) and I just got around to replacing about a quarter of my knives at the end of my third summer. Knives that are not lost (due to broken shackles which does happen) can also just be reversed for extra cutting life.

I only have personal experience with the Caroni TM1900 but most other flail companies make similiar rough cut flail types. Just make sure you don't get a finish flail (lots of knives and not on shackles).

 

[greasemonkeyok]

Thank you, that makes sense.

Around here, the highway right-of-way mowers appear to have the knife on a chain, but I haven't looked closely enough to verify that. Could be on a shackle.

We have used a six-foot bush hog in the past, but you have to carry a bag of shear pins, wear body armor, and make sure no-one is within 1/8th of a mile.

On another line of thought, I have considered welding teeth on the stump-jumper and grinding some of the low-lying rocks down to below cutting depth. Those are the ones that send your blood pressure through the roof.

 

[dcyrilc]

Thank you, that makes sense.

Around here, the highway right-of-way mowers appear to have the knife on a chain, but I haven't looked closely enough to verify that. Could be on a shackle.

We have used a six-foot bush hog in the past, but you have to carry a bag of shear pins, wear body armor, and make sure no-one is within 1/8th of a mile.

On another line of thought, I have considered welding teeth on the stump-jumper and grinding some of the low-lying rocks down to below cutting depth. Those are the ones that send your blood pressure through the roof.

I've watched them change ours at the shop. We use the knives on a shackle.

 

[IslandTractor]

On another line of thought, I have considered welding teeth on the stump-jumper and grinding some of the low-lying rocks down to below cutting depth. Those are the ones that send your blood pressure through the roof.

Be careful. This is what I yanked out of the ground when I decided to pull up a "little" rock that I kept hitting with the mower.

 

[spo307]

the appearence of a chain on flail mowers are clevis ( shackle looking ) with either a bolt and nylon locking nut or a clevis pin with a cotter pin .i have changed out many of theses. easy to do my alamo 88 has 42 sets of blades, i think ?lol

 

[IslandTractor]

the appearence of a chain on flail mowers are clevis ( shackle looking ) with either a bolt and nylon locking nut or a clevis pin with a cotter pin .i have changed out many of theses. easy to do my alamo 88 has 42 sets of blades, i think ?lol

Yep, I mistakenly called them shackles (old sailor) but the industry term is clevis. Mine has bolt and nylon locking nut.

When I change my knives, about half the time I decide the clevis needs changing too and I always use a new bolt and lock nut.

 

[DirtHauler]

I have two customers fields that I mow every year with my Caroni flail that are very rocky (seems I'm the only fool who'll do it!). I carry spare clevises, bolts/nuts and blades just in case. I have broken clevises in the past on these fields and have had to search for missing blades afterwards. I wouldn't dare use a rotary in these conditions. The other great thing about a flail is they tend to find things that you never knew were there! But they also do a nice job.
Notice the "little" rock peeking out of the grass to the left of my tractor?

 

[Nuru]

DirtHauler, thanks for the pics. I have a 74" flail mower (BETST), and I have kind run out of things to do with it as my County won't let me clear some additional brush for expanding my lawn. I think i am gonna keep it though because I may get permission to clear and area and the flail would be a major tool during that operation.