Any one using the sicle bar mower?

[tmarch]

Looking at getting the sicle bar mower from Skid Steer Solutions and interested in any information from current users. I have some roads to mow and some grass that would make hay, so those would be the main uses along with maintaining my 5 acre outter yard.
THANKS!!!

 

[Spudgunner]

Looks like a way-cool attachment; however, on their webpage for this product they print, "Plug and play available for Bobcat 14 pin, John Deere 14 pin, New Holland 14 pin, ASV and Cat 8 Pin electrical connectors."

I'm thinking that unless you have a older 14-pin interface, you won't be pluggin-and-playin. My TC "D" only has the 7-pin CAN bus electrical interface out on the boom. The 14-pin and 7-pin electrical interfaces are fundamentally different and their is no "bridging" technology (converter) available AFAIK. Some TC's have both 7-pin and 14-pin interfaces. I believe Rip (frequent poster around these parts) has a TC configured as such.

Even if you don't have a 14-pin interface, fabricating your own controller should be pretty easy...or you can buy one from some place like Quick-Attach/Erskine and wire it in.

Good luck and let us know how it works. I've been thinking how great such an attachment would be.

Kevin

 

[Rara Avis]

Skid Steer Sickle Bar Mower
$7K is not the cheapest solution around...

 

[radman1]

Skid Steer Sickle Bar Mower
$7K is not the cheapest solution around...

Based on the pictures, the front visibility is about zero. I hope the sickle bar is designed to brakeaway. Hit any obstacle with the sickle and it is either bent or broke.

 

[tmarch]

Skid Steer Sickle Bar Mower
$7K is not the cheapest solution around...

Maybe I need to clarify a few things, I don't have a tractor, state law says I have to mow the sides of the public road that borders my land & I do have livestock so can use the hay.
A brush cutter may handle the tall grass, but a finish mower won't and I'm wasting the hay which I have buy at $100 a ton or more.

 

[MetroX]

If you want to use a financial argument to justify the purchase of a sickle bar mower for $7000 so you can recoup the grass cuttings, I hope you have a lot of roadside to mow!

OK, roughly 43264 square feet per acre, and roadside should yield about 1 ton per acre, unless you are cultivating / fertilizing the roadside also. Let's use the 1 ton /acre, you can adjust if you think it's warranted.

An 8 foot swath of roadside would need to extend 5408 feet to equal an acre, close to 1 mile. So, 1 ton of grass / hay per mile of roadside. $100 value to the hay, $7000 for the mower, plus fuel, wear & tear on the Toolcat, repairs, etc. You need to mow 700 miles of roadside to cover the mower attachment cost alone.

Now, if you have to mow it anyway, and need to buy SOMETHING to mow it, some of that cost is sunk (you gotta do something) so if the incremental cost of buying this particular mower attachment isn't too much more than the cost of the minimal mower you need to do the same job, maybe it makes sense.

Personally, if I had the money I'd buy it just because it's cool! I would love to chase down a neighbor with that sickle bar running at full speed next time I catch him throwing rocks at the horses...

Rich

 

[Rara Avis]

Maybe I need to clarify a few things, I don't have a tractor, state law says I have to mow the sides of the public road that borders my land & I do have livestock so can use the hay.
A brush cutter may handle the tall grass, but a finish mower won't and I'm wasting the hay which I have buy at $100 a ton or more.

Wow...in VT we have state contracts to mow the highway sides...and the mowers know which swales to leave...because some farmers will bale right to the road...

 

[radman1]

Sickle mower will not do well with any trash in the ditch or trees. Even small trees with break the sickle sections. I have mowed roadsides with tractor mounted sickle mowers. I just mow the road edge where there are no trees and little to no trash and leave the sickle raised up slighly. Depending on the roadside, there maybe more weeds than grass. I now use a batwing mower and I can do a much better job and it will mow down the trees, brush etc. I still don't mow the entire ditch, it is just too much hassel and ditches are too steep and rough where I live.

The law on mowing roadsides in NE may exist but who enforce it? I didn't know such a law existed but lots of stuff I don't know. I travel around rural NE a lot and don't see many mowed raodsides except highways. The state mows the highway areas and the gravel roads get little to no mowing.

 

[tmarch]

Most and I mean most of the roads here in extreme NW Nebraska are mowed, as far as this year I'll probably hire a neighbor or someone unless the county gets on me.
The way this thing works it looks like I could mow with good visbility and keep the cutter bar above the rocks and there isn't any trees that should pose a problem.
I was hopeing someone had 1 to get a report as to reliabilty and service, but it is a relatively new item so not many in use I suppose.

 

[masalser]

tmarch,

I own one of the sickle mowers from Skid Steer Solutions. We are located in Washington State and use it mostly in a near vertical position to mow the edges of horse riding paths. We've owned it since 2005 and have been very happy with its operation. I have broken my share of sickle teeth and guard sections, but they are not very expensive to replace and they were broken from fairly abusive mowing where I was cutting branches up to about 1.5" in diameter. The sickle bar cutter portion of the unit is made by Kosch (Kosch Company), and I buy all of my spare parts directly from them at very reasonable prices. The unit does have a breakaway system to protect the sickle, but be aware that the breakaway doesn't work very well when the unit is in a near vertical position. I bent the bar once catching it on a tree but was able to straighten it out.

 

[tmarch]

Thank you very much for the reply. I'm somewhat familiar with the Kosch mower as we've used them on tractors. I haven't purchased it yet, but the information is appeciated.

 

[LBrown59]

Wow...in VT we have state contracts to mow the highway sides...and the mowers know which swales to leave...because some farmers will bale right to the road...

Here it is the responsibility of the highway departments to mow and maintain ther right aways not the property owners.

 

[tmarch]

UPDATE:
I bought the mower after some research.
OBSERVATIONS:
1:Very well built, works as well as can be expected, have to remember it's not a lawn mower, this thing is designed to mow hay. Wife isn't impressed with the quality of cut for the outer "yard".
2:Takes some getting used to, tilt and such are sometimes hard to control on hills for a close cut.
3:Owners manual is a bit short and assembly can be a problem. I called the customer service rep several times. Not bad since I'm not mechanically inclined. A unit from a local dealer that was set up would have been nice.
4:I'm NOT impressed with the bar raising assembly that requires a 14 pin connector or a "hot connection". I don't have the 14 pin connection and actually rarely need to raise the bar so not a huge deal, (certainly not over $700.00 worth from my local dealer). I will do some modifications to allow manual raise, or simple switch.
All in all the unit is what I expected and after mowing 10 acres of wet grass did as I expected. Much easier to watch to cutter bar out front than with a trail mower.

 

[flusher]

Looking at getting the sicle bar mower from Skid Steer Solutions and interested in any information from current users. I have some roads to mow and some grass that would make hay, so those would be the main uses along with maintaining my 5 acre outter yard.
THANKS!!!

Wow, $7K+ for a skid steer sicklebar mower. Talk about the high price spread.

Last year I bought a 1951 Farmall Super A tractor with a 7-ft mid-mount sicklebar mower for $1300.

The mower bar raises and lowers hydraulically. This Super A has a geniune 3pt hitch.

This tractor was use by CalTrans to mow weeds along the highways in Lassen County East of my place.

Unless you really, really, really want that particular sicklebar, I'd advise looking for other, less expensive sicklebars, considering you have only 5 acres and associated roadside ditches to take care of (my place is 10 acres of flat pasture with 1/4 mile of fenceline along the roads).

 

[Spudgunner]

UPDATE:
...
4:I'm NOT impressed with the bar raising assembly that requires a 14 pin connector or a "hot connection". I don't have the 14 pin connection and actually rarely need to raise the bar so not a huge deal, (certainly not over $700.00 worth from my local dealer). I will do some modifications to allow manual raise, or simple switch.
All in all the unit is what I expected and after mowing 10 acres of wet grass did as I expected. Much easier to watch to cutter bar out front than with a trail mower.

If you have the 7-pin attachment control at the front of your TC you might can use that in concert with the rocker switches to the rear of the joystick. Your Bobcat dealer can order the mating connector for you. My BC tech looked this up for me awhile ago when I was going to adapt a Q-A snowblower (14-pin) to my TC.

-or-

If you don't have the attachment control electrical stuff you can still have a "factory" look by purchasing an Eaton rocker switch identical to the one that Bobcat used in the TC. You can get them from Newark Electronics and stick one in the dash where the existing switch hole covers are covered with plastic "blanks". One of the wires going to the Fwd/Park/Rev lever on the steering column is "switched 12v" in case you need that. (Personally, I hate "tapping" an existing line where it requires removal of insulation and soldering.)

 

[tmarch]

After some thought I think I can simply buy a cigarette lighter plug and connect that to the cord included to supply 12 volts to raise the bar.

BTW the 5 acres I mowed is a small part of my 1640 acres and 5+ miles of road to maintain.

Nothing wrong with flushers tractor and mower but in my hills it'd be pretty easy to roll that. The toolcat is better adapted for handling those.