FEL Mounted Brush Mower / Trimmer

[Hilbilly]

what do you plan to cut with this?

Mainly grass and light brush that grows along the sides of our driveway and the trails we have on the property. Also for trimming back branches and small treees that grow over our fence lines. We live in the mountains and our driveway is cut into the side hill, with some flat sections. The slope of the bank on the high side varies all along the driveway, which is the reason I need to have a hydraulic tilt. That allows me to adjust the side tilt angle on the fly, to suit the ground slope.

 

[searcyfarms]

sounds like it should work i jsut wouldnt get too ambitious with heavier stuff, spinning hydraulic motors dont maintain speed well and will be even worse with a light center - however its quicker to spin back up if its lighter, you will find the sweet spot and learn much using it, they do throw stuff EVERYWHERE so be aware of that and damaging your tractor with bigger chunks - have fun with it and be careful, its easy to get things off center and roll over which might even be more precarious in your area/situation

 

[JWR]

sounds like it should work i jsut wouldnt get too ambitious with heavier stuff, spinning hydraulic motors dont maintain speed well and will be even worse with a light center - however its quicker to spin back up if its lighter, you will find the sweet spot and learn much using it, they do throw stuff EVERYWHERE so be aware of that and damaging your tractor with bigger chunks - have fun with it and be careful, its easy to get things off center and roll over which might even be more precarious in your area/situation

I will defer to Hillbilly to answer for his configuration, but he has a heavier center (if you mean the blade carrier) than the commercially built units like the Lane Shark because he is using a modified Landpride bush hog for the cutter which has a stump jumper center (shown in post #7 pictures.) He is also using a much more robust pump driving the hydraulic motor than Lane Shark, TB-One or others that depend on the tractor pump. My Lane Shark DOES maintain speed very well, is robust, and does not slow down/bog down a lot like the other much heavier units that I got rid of. His won't need to 'spin back up' other than when he purposely shuts it down because he has lots of overkill in hydraulic drive. The heaviest stuff i cut with the Lane Shark on the FEL is 2" overhanging limbs along meadows and fence rows. It does well and does not bog down (not that you couldn't bog it down if you were careless or nuts and attacked big heavy limbs or tight clusters of them.)

None of the 3 types of cutters I used throw stuff everywhere (anyway not toward the tractor at least) & as I said that was a pleasant surprise for me. Hillbilly's is homebrew and I wait with interest to hear his reports. I'm betting they will be good.

 

[Hilbilly]

I took it for another test drive this afternoon and tried to take videos of the operation to show the hydraulic tilt function. Apparently I am not the best at operating a Gopro clone and the first video didn't take. The recorder shut down. This is not the first time this has happened and probably not the last . The 2nd video turned out but by then the hard work was done. The second one doesn't involve as much tilt manipulation as the first one but it does show how it works. I will provide a link as soon as it uploads. I started uploading a 5 minute video to Youtube 2 1/2 hrs ago and it's only 38% done. Maybe it's my satellite internet connection or something I am doing but this is nuts.

 

[searcyfarms]

it takes a long time to upload videos unless you have substantial internet upload speed - most satellite is 1 meg or less - my dsl is only 768K so its worse but doesnt hve the latency satellite does - frustrating for sure

have fun mowing !!!

 

[Hilbilly]

OK after almost 4 hrs the Youtube upload is done but the video quality has been lost. I thought the reason it was taking so long was because of the higher quality resolution I used when recording and having satellite connection. Apparently the quality didn't transfer through but here it is. If I knew it was going to take this long I would have made sure I got a better video that showed how this works.

 

[JWR]

Fantastic. No debris pounding your tractor or threatening your body, brush being cut, nice flexibility with the cutting angle, all looking awfully good for an early outing !

How about an updated picture or two on how & where you added the cylinder for the angle adjustments?

By the way: have you checked to prevent the Landpride from dumping lubricant through the vent, etc. ? Maybe it does not have an open-to-the-air vent? I'm sure it is not designed/intended to operate on it's side or large angles for extended periods of time. Overfill it to get good lubrication maybe ?

 

[Hilbilly]

Fantastic. No debris pounding your tractor or threatening your body, brush being cut, nice flexibility with the cutting angle, all looking awfully good for an early outing !

How about an updated picture or two on how & where you added the cylinder for the angle adjustments?

By the way: have you checked to prevent the Landpride from dumping lubricant through the vent, etc. ? Maybe it does not have an open-to-the-air vent? I'm sure it is not designed/intended to operate on it's side or large angles for extended periods of time. Overfill it to get good lubrication maybe ?

Nice catch!! I never thought about the gear box not being designed for vertical use. I will check that out tomorrow and thanks very much for that. You may have saved me from a costly repair and/or just added something else I need to attend to.

I believe I'm going through the same learning process the Lane Shark guys went through in order to develop their product. They started out with a FREE brush mower and played around with different configurations until they got it right. I don't have the experience and knowledge they have but I'm getting close to having what I want. Plus the satisfaction and enjoyment of having made it myself.

I will get some pics of the hydraulic cylinder setup and post them here. Pretty simple but I may make some changes to improve it.

 

[JWR]

Among the various impressive and interesting features of your rig is horizontal mounting rails with some bolts as big "set screws" allowing right/left position changes when desired. That may just be part of your developmental process and not necessarily in the final product but seems useful.

 

[Hilbilly]

Here are a couple of pics of the hydraulic cylinder setup.


You are right about the rails to move the mower further out and the intention is to get it away from the cab more, when the mower is used in a vertical position. That would be useful when trimming branches along the fence line and keep flying branches away from the cab. I got the idea from the Limb Ninja.

 

[kthompson]

hillbilly, at least on the tractors have used with rear remotes you, they operate as to control as fel valves do. As has been pointed out you can have different options in the valve such as auto off where the valve kicks back to neutral when you push it fully either way or float or it locks in place when fully pushed either way. May be skipping others but the operation of the rear remotes again you can operate your cylinder either wide open or very slowly and stop any where in you want the cylinder to stop. IF THERE IS REAR REMOTES THAT OPERATE ANY DIFFERENT NOT AWAY OF THEM.

You will not large hoses, 3/8 or even 1/4 inch may be large enough.

 

[lennyzx11]

With this from Titan, (I did have to modify mine for quick hitch), you could use it on the rear.

 

[goeduck]

With this from Titan, (I did have to modify mine for quick hitch), you could use it on the rear.
View attachment 618457View attachment 618456View attachment 618455

Very creative. Quick hitch, then adapter, then bucket, then clamp on forks!

 

[JWR]

Yeah, it looks like the horiz tubes are much like the Ninja. Just mumbling to myself now with the new pictures (good pics to show the angle adjuster) -- that single vertical tube may tend to get bent if you hit stuff with the cutter. I feel a brace coming on.

 

[goeduck]

Yeah, it looks like the horiz tubes are much like the Ninja. Just mumbling to myself now with the new pictures (good pics to show the angle adjuster) -- that single vertical tube may tend to get bent if you hit stuff with the cutter. I feel a brace coming on.

Me too. Great ingenuity but hitting something unseen is going to bend things. Fantastic work :thumbsup:

 

[Hilbilly]

With this from Titan, (I did have to modify mine for quick hitch), you could use it on the rear.
View attachment 618457View attachment 618456View attachment 618455

Great idea. I already have a 6' 3PTH brush mower, so no need to mount this one on the back. Plus I cut off all the 3PTH stuff to make this lighter. It's odd that I went the opposite route and made an adapter to mount my 3PTH stuff on the front of the tractor.

Yeah, it looks like the horiz tubes are much like the Ninja. Just mumbling to myself now with the new pictures (good pics to show the angle adjuster) -- that single vertical tube may tend to get bent if you hit stuff with the cutter. I feel a brace coming on.

After my first runs with this thing and having the tubes pushed out from the framework by about 18", I could see the flex in the tubes and initially thought I was going to have to remove them and go with a beefier system. However after a little thought I decided this might be a good thing because if/when I hit something solid the tubes will get bent and not something more expensive to repair, like the FEL. Replacing the tubes will be relatively easy and cheap. Time will tell if this is an issue but for now I will use it as is. The only thing I am struggling with is the snappy movement when the mower is in the horizontal position and the hydraulic cylinder is use to lift it. The initial movement is too snappy for my liking. I can see that it's due to the geometry of the cylinder and mower deck pivot locations. I tried to use flow control valves to slow things down but the ones I bought didn't do anything and I will be taking those back.

 

[Hilbilly]

Well I've got about 5hrs of use on this now and here is what I have discovered so far.

1) This thing is great. I can sit in an AC cab and get more work done in an hour than I could in a day with my pole saw and trimmer.
2) The flexible tubing has not been an issue yet and I have hit some small stumps with it. I go slow and can react to it when I see it happen. Well so far anyways.
3) The upturned blades are OK but tend to throw things up. I have decided I will make my own flat blades from spring steel, if I can't find a reasonably priced set elsewhere.
4) When operating this in the vertical position, it would be better to have the blades rotating clockwise. This may not be an issue with flat blades but I can resolve this by running the mower with clockwise rotation (with flat blades) or by mounting it on the other side of the framework.
5) The snappy hydraulic tilt can be reduced by turning the engine rpm's down when making adjustments. I love the hydraulic tilt function and use it a lot.

In the video I posted above, it looks like the mower isn't cutting in some places but it is. I have more videos now that show how well this works and might post a better one if I can figure out how to edit and reduce the file size.

 

[JWR]

Excellent report. You can probably insert a flow limiting orifice in-line of almost any sort that limits flow to your tilt cylinder to minimize the nuisance or inconvenience. May not matter.

My guess is you can buy straight blades that are double-edged and somewhat heavier than the stock Landpride blades without great expense. If you go with homemade spring steel you almost have to heat and unbrittle the end in order to drill a hole, then worry about balance, then figure out sharpening, ... for my 2 cents I'd go with commercial blades.

For all practical purposes you are already home with the project and can tie a ribbon around it.

 

[LouNY]

Nice unit, looks like it is working decent for you.
I have thought about something similar.

As far as using the 3rd function instead of a diverter I have always thought that the diverter would be better as you can control the flow rate using your existing valve and not have full flow slamming things around.

 

[Xfaxman]

Well I've got about 5hrs of use on this now and here is what I have discovered so far.

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3) The upturned blades are OK but tend to throw things up. I have decided I will make my own flat blades from spring steel, if I can't find a reasonably priced set elsewhere.
4) When operating this in the vertical position, it would be better to have the blades rotating clockwise. This may not be an issue with flat blades but I can resolve this by running the mower with clockwise rotation (with flat blades) or by mounting it on the other side of the framework.
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The blades on our hydraulic powered brush hog are flat and sharp on both edges to cut in either rotation.

Check the ones made for skid steers.