Just for the sake of knowing more about these machines and your piece of mind:
You do not want to grease the heck out of these machines. 4-6 pumps every 6 or so hours of mowing is all you need unless you plant on mowing for longer periods of time as they are selaed on one side and you need to prevent blowing out the seal in the inboard side.
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IF your worried about price The smallest Del Morino Mounted Flail mower from EA or the Peruzzo boom mounted mower(from Iowa Farm Equipment) will give you more flexibility simply because of thier range of motion and increased potential for income from mowing contracting work.
The Peruzzo Girafetta and its bigger brothers have cast hammer flails and have a stronger knife versus the Delmorino Orchard and Vineyard mowers that have the very heavy heat treated side slicer knives both of which provide a very good mowing result.
Please keep in mind that many good used John Deere 25A, 290, 390 model flail mowers come up for sale and they are an excellent option for your needs as well as they will let you mow right down to 2 inches in height with little trouble.
Many equipment resellers also place excess new and used equipment up for sale on tractor house and auction time.
It may be much more beneficial to invest in a used 25A, 290 or 390 for now to get used to these fine flail mowers and go from there; and if you decide to add a second implement a small boom mounted unit from Del Morino or Peruzzo it will let you have a more versatile implement for your use and for a potentional second source of income from mowing.
AND these fine implements will out last your current mule and also work very well if you decide to trade in the current mule and go to a larger engine and frame size/implement carrier.
I am not trying to cloud the issue I just want you to be an informed consumer of information.
Thanks leonz for the welcome perspective. I've enjoyed reading your experiences with various flails in this thread and some of the others where you also posted.
I'm trying to avoid older iron in this particular purchase if possible. I know that the types of problems presented by DocDryden (great JD flail you found there, sir!) just downthread from my post are all fixable, but they are more than I want to tackle at present. At the moment, I need to find something I can hook up and run with.
Regarding size, this flail will be used to clear and then maintain about 5-6 acres (depending on how the tractor behaves on the steeper ground) that has not been consistently mowed or grazed since 2014. I actually have a 32" Del Morino rotary brush mower and a 31" Palladino flail mower for my BCS, but there's never enough time required to clear even a portion of this ground with these little units. I need a bigger flail that I can hook-up once or twice a year and go to town. Mowing for others for $$$ is conceivable, but not a big priority. With my little Palladino, I have learned to temper my greasing to (hopefully) the right amount, though I wish that the manufacturers designed the seals to allow for grease to bleed to a visible location when one adds just enough.
The budget, size, and age requirements for my situation pretty much limit me to Caroni, Del Morino, or
Woodmaxx. If the Chinese steel and bearings of the
Woodmaxx are really inferior, then I'll go with one of the Italian models. However, the photos, features, and yes, marketing of the
Woodmaxx look far superior relative to the costs. The ability to get a hydraulic-side-shift model ready to go for ~$300 more (vs Agri-Supply's model of 'for $1,000 we'll eventually send you a bolt-on hyd kit but no instructions'), the easy-access hatch for knife maintenance, the supposedly automatic belt tensioning, the slip-clutch PTO shaft included, etc. are all compelling advantages, IF the flail otherwise performs as expected.
Before making any decision though, I want to hear from owners of each model. Posts here at TBN by owners of the Caroni make me confident that ordering their TM1900BSC from Agri Supply could be a workable solution, if a little less feature-rich than
Woodmaxx. The 6' Del Morino does not seem to offer a whole lot of advantage compared to either, and the more I read the more I think that a 7' flail is too large for the L-39, which is rated as 30 HP at the PTO.
Thanks & keep the replies coming!
-otus
