Flail Mower Let's talk flail mowers

[leonz]

AS long as you keep up with mowing the clippings will be very small.
AND as long as you go over the longer clippings again they will rot
and dissolve quickly.

The slide slicer knives and the side slicer knive count is key to reducing
clippings to dust/compost quickly AND you can mow when its wet too.

The flail mower with the side slicer knives have excellent suction to life the
clippings up and cut through them again to make them much smaller
which will let them dissolve back into the sod.

 

[IslandTractor]

Well after thinking it over I'm gonna go look at the Ford. Cheap way to see if I like it anyway

Buy it if it is in halfway decent condition. Put new blades on it, grease it up and use it to learn flail mowing techniques. Then you can decide if you want to upgrade and you'll have a better sense of whether the extra for the Balco is worth it. If you buy the Ford for $500 and invest another $100 in new blades and bolts, you should easily be able to recoup that on CL.

 

[Thomabear]

Scoop knives are also a great option for obtaining a finish cut. I'm running the scoop knives on a Vrisimo 160 and the cut is unbelievable. They aren't quite as aggressive as the side slicer knives but they will easily handle 1" saplings. Initially this season I cut 3 foot tall rye grass and it layed out the clippings evenly across the mower in the direction of the cut. Followup cuttings have been like lawn.

 

[KRBrouwer]

I did exactly what you are considering. I got rid of my finish mower and bushog, and replaced it with a Caroni with the "B" rotor. I would not go back, the flail spins easier than the finish mower, creates less dust, and is much more compact, and for the orchard that I have for a yard, the flail cut look just as good. Also in this part of NC we have a lot of rock that seems to migrate up each year, so the flail does not throw rocks like the other mowers.

Ken

 

[leonz]

Hello ken,

Thanks for the kind words about flail mowers.

leon

 

[nova3930]

Buy it if it is in halfway decent condition. Put new blades on it, grease it up and use it to learn flail mowing techniques. Then you can decide if you want to upgrade and you'll have a better sense of whether the extra for the Balco is worth it. If you buy the Ford for $500 and invest another $100 in new blades and bolts, you should easily be able to recoup that on CL.

I went and looked and it was in pretty good mechanical shape so I snagged it. I think I'm the first guy with a flail mower and no tractor lol. Pictures to come.

 

[mjstef]

Why are center mount flail mowers so hard to find? Everything i am finding new and used are offset to the right and wont cover tire tracks unless you go huge. I need a 74-82" CENTER MOUNT like this one. Unfortunately this one is 1,600 miles away.

 

[mjstef]

And i would REALLY like to find one with Gauge Wheels like this due to our rocky conditions....

 

[DaNag]

Been a while since I posted the note below, but I just got around to doing a complete conversion to Flailmaster clevises and blades on my Caroni 1900. After busting a few more Caroni clevises mulching up some thicker/rougher stuff, I just wasn't willing to keep spending the ridiculous money on the Agri Supply Caroni parts.

Changes/observations from when I mocked up the parts earlier:

- Grinding is necessary, but relatively little - and even after doing so, the Flailmaster clevis is still more substantial than the Caroni/Agri Supply clevis. I initially didn't think it would be necessary, as the lone clevis I modified swung without interference. Turns out - it's extremely close, and the tabs on the drum are not very uniform. Some of the tabs are slightly narrower than others, so the clevises wouldn't swing completely free on all of them. Taking off 1/6" or so per side made the modified clevises swing freely on all the tabs.

- My neighbor who has years more experience than I with such things suggested another change. He looked at some of the legs that remained from the broken clevises and suggested relieving the blade holes with a conical grinder head. His point being, that the edges of the blade holes are quite sharp and the material is hardened, and he could see where the sharp corners had worked their way through the Caroni clevises. While the Flailmaster clevises are far beefier, I still relieved all the top edges of the blade holes to hopefully reduce this effect.

- Rather than using a bolt/nut to squeeze the Flailmaster clevises together to fit between the drum tabs, a good sized vice did the trick very quickly. Basically, just squeeze the ears together until you can just get a blade to slide over them.

The whole conversion took a couple hours. I've about 2 hours mowing since doing so, all seems fine - works as well as before. I've got a job next week that will have me mowing some heavier brush and will report back on how these hold up.

As an aside...I've got over 20 used original Caroni clevises that are certainly serviceable. If anyone is interested in them, I'll let them go far cheaper than new...

Having busted several clevises on my Caroni 1900 recently during an initial lot clearing, I discovered the sticker shock of buying parts from Agri Supply for this implement. Querying here for options resulted in the sad news known to many of you - nobody seems to have found an alternative for the ridiculously priced $7 metric clevis. That didn't sit well with me...

I may have found a solution. I say "may", as I've not actually tried it yet - but once I've used up the last of my four spare metric clevises from Agri Supply, I'll give it a try and report back if nobody else has given it a whirl.

I got the idea from Island Tractor's post, wherein he gave the info on cheaper blades from Flailmaster.com. I picked up a bunch of those, and they do indeed work fine. However, he also mentioned an SAE clevis - Flailmaster part #M-100761. This clevis is too wide to fit between the ears of the Caroni drum. However...I was able to easily tweak it to fit. Pic:

I simply took one of the M10x80mm bolts and a nut, and pressed the SAE clevis together. It deformed as I expected, such that the ears are no longer perfectly parallel - but that doesn't seem to matter. The assembly shown above still moves easily on the stock M10x80mm bolt, swinging back and forth with no interference. The clevis modification takes all of a minute or so.

Some caveats:

- You'll likely want to replace all of your metric clevises if you go this route - not just the broken ones. This SAE clevis is indeed beefier than the metric one, and weighs more. I'd be concerned about proper balance mixing them up.

- The entire assembly is just a tad longer than stock - perhaps 1/8".

Here's a breakdown of current pricing from Agri Supply vs. the sources I used for the entire assembly:

Agri Supply

Clevis: 6.99
2 x Blades@ 3.49: 6.98
M10x80mm Bolt: 3.49
M10 Nylock nut: 1.49
Total: $18.95

Elsewhere

Clevis M-100761: $2.80 (flailmaster.com)
2 x M-108381 blades@$1.54: 3.08 (flailmaster.com)
M10x80mm Bolt: 0.46 (nutty.com)
M10 Nylock nut: 0.13 (nutty.com)
Total: $6.47

Yup...almost 1/3 the price. And, based on the sturdier appearance of the SAE clevis - my guess is, the cheaper assembly will hold up to more abuse.

Again - untested, but looks promising.

 

[Arc weld]

You don't need to bag the clippings. They put nutrients back in the soil. Consider on a golf course that the only clippings that are normally picked up is on greens. Everything else is left where it falls. Most of the better rotary mowers are also designed to mulch the clippings and leave them behind. The idea that picking up the clippings is better for your lawn is a wives tale. If your grass was tall, picking them up will make it look better is all. Even when the county cuts the medians and ditches, the clippings disappear pretty fast.