Deck mounted weedeater

gates · Oct 10, 2005

Does anyone have any experience with the weed eaters that mount to the side of the mower deck. You can mow and weed eat at the same time.

Ron

LBrown59 · Oct 10, 2005

( Does anyone have any experience with the weed eaters that mount to the side of the mower deck. You can mow and weed eat at the same time.

Ron )

What are you talking about?

Cliff_Johns · Oct 10, 2005

( Does anyone have any experience with the weed eaters that mount to the side of the mower deck. You can mow and weed eat at the same time. )

I think mounting a goat to the side of your mower would be against the law.

But to answer your question: no, I haven't heard of that, although I would love to see a photo .

Cliff

LBrown59 · Oct 10, 2005

Where can i find them to look at one?

gates · Oct 11, 2005

Lbrown,

There are two manufacturers, Peco & 4m. They are for all intent and purpose an electric weed eater that mounts to the side of your mower deck. The Peco unit is a little primative and costs ~$400. The 4m unit is more refined, but the refinement comes with a cost, ~$850. The question with both units is what effect it will have on the mowers electric system. I have heard stories both positive and negative, no pun intended. 4m has came out with a hydraulic unit that is driven off of a stack pulley on your deck. They claim you can ride as fast as you want , no matter how tall the grass and not stop the trimmer. This alleviates the electric issue but obviously at a cost,~$1800.
My curiousity is two fold. I not only have 3 miles of vinyl 3 rail fence to maintain but Iam considering becoming a dealer for the 4m units. It is a large investment to become a dealer. I have done extensive research with the design and construction. Know I am trying to find someone, not refered by the manufacturer, who has hands on research . There is a vast cross section of people, from all over, on this forum.I would think that someone would have some input. If you have any questions please feel free to ask, I can probably save you a lot of time.

Ron

LBrown59 · Oct 11, 2005

( Does anyone have any experience with the weed eaters that mount to the side of the mower deck. You can mow and weed eat at the same time.
Ron )
=============
Just got off the webb sites of both.
Found they both have the same shortcoming as the swisher, fence hog, tow behinds, offset mowers and everything else everything else I've looked at.
That is they all have to short of a reach out from the host vehicle.
There is no way I could trim along and across my 2 to 4 foot wide ditches with any of them.

JN4310 · Oct 11, 2005

Here's what I used, until I sold the tractor. It required removing the deck, but on this little mower that was no big deal. It worked incredibly well. When I get time I'm going to adapt it to my X595, but I wish I would have kept the LX266 just for trimming.

JN4310 · Oct 11, 2005

Here's another pic. It clipped on to the mower deck mounting points and was raised and lowered by the mower deck lift lever. It pivots out of the way of fence posts. At about half throttle, this thing was absolutely unstoppable. The string life was really good as well.

gates · Oct 11, 2005

JN4310,
That looks like it would work great for me. I am looking for a trimmer for 3 rail fencing. Did you fabricate that entire asembly or did you piece meal it together. If the latter, if you do not mind, what parts did you use to build it.

Ron

Lbrown59,
IMO it sounds like you need a small sickle bar to reach into those gulleys. They come in all different lenghts and can operate at different angles.

Ron

JN4310 · Oct 11, 2005

The spindle and its housing are from an Ariens walk behind big wheel trimmer. I took the engine off and ran a longer belt over to the mower deck drive clutch. I fabricated the mounting frame that mounts it to the mower deck attachment points.

It worked really well, except that in the initial configuration (in those pictures) all the weight was on one side and it tended to droop. The mower deck lift didn't have enough lift height to raise it up over really uneven ground. I solved that by extending a weight bracket off to the other side and hanging one or two JD suitcase weights (42 lbs) on it. That not only balanced it out so I got full lift height, but made a billy goat out of the little tractor. The thing would cling to the side of my saddle trail ditch and never slip or spin the tires. Really amazing.

I sold the tractor, but am now going to adapt the trimmer to my X595, using hydraulic lift and the front PTO to drive it. I've got 1200 feet of fence, 1200 feet of ditch and about 2000 feet of pond and wetland edges to trim, so it really comes in handy.

gates · Oct 12, 2005

JN4310,
Thats impressive, nothing like some home brew engineering.
I have ~3miles of vinyl 3 rail fence that is currently being maintained with hand held weed eaters. You know you did some weed eating when you go through 3 gallons of gas to trim the fence line! Your back really appreciates it as well!
For all of the above reasons I am in search of a better solution. I have looked into the tow behind 3 pt units. I need something more compact and easy to maneuver. That brought me to the Peco & 4M. Know, looking at your device, you got me thinking. I have a 175 Deere lawn tractor that I could convert. This would also not tie up the zero turn. I dont have a head unit though. I am going to look into that. Possibly purchase the head parts only.

How does your unit respond around the posts. I assume that the platic disk on top was a product of many revisions. What is the width of the cut or the lenght of string on the head.

Ron

LBrown59 · Oct 12, 2005

JN4310,
I dont have a head unit though. I am going to look into that. Possibly purchase the head parts only. 

Power the head with it's own engine and you can change it from tractor to tractor either as a tow behind or attached or back and forth from one or the other.
Have you thought of using a string trimmer head and motor and eliminating the long curved or straight shaft?

I have a plan in mind for building something like this that solves the shortcoming of having to short of a reach by using and expandable / adjustable longer arm rather that a fixed short one like this and all the other similar devices I've seen have.
It would be universal as it could be mounted to or towed by any tow or host vehicle.
You could even attach it to a FEL or back hoe bucket or MMM or most any other implement.
It could even be used as a tow behind; or as an offset towed or attached.
Like the others it would trim around things such as fences trees etc. But unlike the others it would also trim along and over ditches.

I'm not leaning towards something like a boom mower as the hydraulics required greatly limits the number of host vehicles it could be used on as well as the number of ways it could be attached and or towed.

Now if only I had a welder and could weld I'd make an attempt to implement the plan.

LBrown59 · Oct 12, 2005

( JN4310,
That looks like it would work great for me. I am looking for a trimmer for 3 rail fencing. Did you fabricate that entire asembly or did you piece meal it together. If the latter, if you do not mind, what parts did you use to build it.)
 `````````````` 
FRONT WEED EATER

JN4310 · Oct 13, 2005

3 miles of fence!! I think I'd shoot myself first...although this thing would definately do it.

The Ariens head is 22" diameter. It uses two doubled .155" cutting strings, which gives four cutting ends. They last alot longer than the strings in the bump heads of smaller hand held units, even trimming against wooden fence posts and cutting thru fire ant hills. There is no spool, you just thread two 18" long pieces thru holes in the spindle. I carry a couple of spares in my pocket in case I need to change them. It really wouldn't be hard to make your own spindle. I used the Ariens since I already had it, but I didn't like using it on uneven ground.

The plastic disk is a sheet of HDPM plastic from a kitchen cutting board. I originally had a metal loop which deformed too easily. The plastic works very well.

My original iteration of this mounted it with its original engine off a 3 point hitch. That didn't work well at all because when you turned away from the fence, the trimmer swung into it. I am probably going to mount it to the front of my X595, but I really think the mid mount location is the easiest to use, and the visibility is great.

Good luck with your project. Let me know if there is any way I can help.

John

gates · Oct 16, 2005

Jn4310,
Is the plastic guide adjustable. What happens as the string wears down. The guide would keep the triming from being done at the preset distance because the string is shorter. Thanks for the info.

Ron

LBrown59 · Oct 16, 2005

( Jn4310,
Is the plastic guide adjustable.
 *** What happens as the string wears down. The guide would keep the triming from being done at the preset distance because the string is shorter. Thanks for the info.

Ron )

 *** I wouldn't think that would be any different than the Swisher and the other 4 commercial made fence trimmers.

JN4310 · Oct 18, 2005

The strings stick out about 1/2 inch past the plastic disk when they are new. They wear very slowly, but even when they are shorter than the edge of the disk, they still seem to trim flush against fence posts and the like. I'm not really sure why, but string wear hasn't been an issue. Maybe with four ends, they create enough wind to pull weeds away from the post??