Berta flail mower

[Gravely1961]

berta have a one-way ratchet inside? i want to use with a grillo g 110 and the pto direction actually reverses when the tractor is put into reverse.

It is the tractor, not the mower, that impedes mowing in reverse. I have a grillo 110g. The pto locks out reverse operation. Maybe mine is newer than yours. The knives will spin for a bit due to centrifugal force. Good luck. If you are in the us then Joel at earth tools can answer all your questions with confidence.

 

[Jens767]

Hi ppea

As I read your first post in this thread, I tried to look up the dimensions of the blades in my users manual, and was surprised to find that they are not mentioned at all!

I then went to my garage, and turned my Berta upside-down, and did my best to measure them myself:

Each blade is made of a 5 mm thick, 40 mm wide, and approximately 110 mm long piece of metal. The upper approx. 60 mm is straight and the rest angled, with the last 50 mm being sharpened. At the top is a 13 mm hole, and 2 blades are mounted "back-to-back" with a 12 mm bolt with a 19 mm head and self locking nut. The distance between the tips of 2 blades mounted back-to-back, is 90 mm.

They look a little bit like this:

Flail knives / blade, Y-blade for flail mower - Motorgeräte Fritzsch GmbH

The Berta flail mower is equipped with a free-wheel feature, so you should be able to use it with your Grillo G110 with no problems. The only difference to a BCS that I can think of, is that you are not able to mow when your tractor is driving in reverse of course, due to your Grillo-PTO rotating in the opposite direction when reversing.

Tracmaster in the UK has this informative page, where you can see a parts diagram with the knives, bolts and nuts on page 10-11. On page 12-13 you can see part of the drivetrain and a description of the parts:

Tracmaster | Flail Mower – Tracmaster Ltd

In the operating manual on the above mentioned page, there is a foto of the knives and bolts on page 6, and at the top of page 11, the free-wheel feature is mentioned.

I hope this helped a little?


Best regards

Jens

 

[ppea]

thank you jens!it seems much solid than dedicated flail mulcher.

 

[ppea]

the berta flail mower is the same for the bcs and the grillo?

 

[ppea]

75 or 85 model is recomendet for g110 honda gx 390 engine to mowing with 3 gear?

 

[WesKootenay]

75 or 85 model is recomendet for g110 honda gx 390 engine to mowing with 3 gear?

According to EarthTools: Flail Mowers - Berta, BCS, Bellon - Earth Tools Berta models 65 and 75 work with the G110, the 85 is for the G131?
I'm not familiar with the Grillo models.

My BCS732 has 2 gears. With the 26" Berta I can mow light stuff in 2nd but I have to use 1st for heavy thimble-berry canes.

 

[ppea]

I saw that it recommends, but I want to know an opinion from those who use the berta 85 with grillo g 110 or the bcs with the same engine.I oscillate between berta 75 and 85 and I don't know which would be better.

 

[ppea]

anyone?

 

[WesKootenay]

I saw that it recommends, but I want to know an opinion from those who use the berta 85 with grillo g 110 or the bcs with the same engine.I oscillate between berta 75 and 85 and I don't know which would be better.

There doesn't appear to be anyone on this forum with that setup. However, if you go back to the beginning of this post, Jens has a BCS740 and Code54 has an 853 - both similar to your G110. They both seem very happy with the 85.
I guess it all depends on what you want to flail.

 

[Jens767]

Hi again ppea

You are absolutely right about the Berta being a very solid/heavy-duty flail mower. I think that most of us will never be able to wear one down, but I am happy that I finally got one, and it is a real joy to work with it. I got a Berta snowthrower almost 9 years ago, and upon receiving it, I was very impressed by the way it was build. I therefore felt very confident that the flail mower would be of the same high quality - and I haven't been disappointed

To my knowledge, the mower is the same for most tractor brands, only the coupling vary. Sadly, the companies that manufacture 2-wheel tractors haven't been able/willing to agree on a common PTO-standard, making it almost impossible to swap implements between different brands

In the original Berta user and maintenance manual, there is a table with recommendations for minimum engine power versus working width:

By 65 cm (26'') working width, Berta recommend a minimum 8 hp engine, by 75 cm (30'') they recommend 10 hp, and finally for 85 cm (34'') they recommend 12-14 hp.

The above combinations are probably pretty good ballpark figures, but mowing isn't rocket science I think. Whether you will be able to mow in 3. gear or not, will depend more on what sort of crop you are mowing, how tall and dense it is, and on how much you overlap, than on the width of the mower. By design, a flail mower is a very power-hungry implement, as it takes a lot of power to keep the rotor rotating at high revolutions, and still have enough torque to not only cut the crop, but also to shred it.

Except for mowing your lawn perhaps, I wouldn't expect you to be able to use the 3. gear that often with any of the flail mowers. I only have 10 hours of experience with my Berta until now, but I did all my mowing in 1. gear. I think that you will be very impressed by any of the Berta flail mowers anyway! If you have a rather easy crop to mow, you will be more efficient with a wider mower of course. Should your tractor struggle with some tougher crops, you might be able to increase your overlap, and thereby reduce the load on the engine.

Depending on your wheel spacing, you want to make sure, that your wheels stay within the working width of the mower! With duals on my BCS 740, I have only 3 cm to spare on each side with the 85 cm Berta!

Finally - depending on the prices in your area - you might get "more mower" for your money by getting the bigger one! A quick look at the prices at Earth Tools for instance, shows that the Berta becomes cheeper per inch, the wider it gets.

You probably have guessed by now, what I would recommend?


Best regards

Jens