Ditch mower from bush hog?

[Maknwine]

Tks for reply. At present,I would need to use a hyd. motor that would be powered by the pto. I have to sell a too large JD 4010 before my wife will let me buy a mid size tractor with remotes. My only other tractor ,8n, of course has no hydraulics but its what I use to mow the alleys with.

Basically this mower will be a 3 point attachment with say a 42-48" cut on the leftside and same on the right side pulled directly behind tractor.

Poor drawing attached.

 

[Stampeder]

For years and years people of farms used sickle mowers to do the ditches. You can get them up to 9 feet in length and they are light compared to the ditch mowers shown here. Best of all if you look around you can pick these up pretty cheap. Dowse it in a ton of WD 40 and you'll free it up. The replacement parts for most all of them are still readily available. They work great for down slope mowing.

 

[J_J]

Tks for reply. At present,I would need to use a hyd. motor that would be powered by the pto. I have to sell a too large JD 4010 before my wife will let me buy a mid size tractor with remotes. My only other tractor ,8n, of course has no hydraulics but its what I use to mow the alleys with.

Basically this mower will be a 3 point attachment with say a 42-48" cut on the leftside and same on the right side pulled directly behind tractor.

Poor drawing attached.

Are you wanting to cut the slope on the berms, and the flat area? What is the width of the flat area. A 16 in hyd mower head would cut the berms, a flail might cut the wide area. You mentioned an 8n, is the base that wide, if so , the flail would work very well.

Someone in a post awhile back mentioned something about the need to keep the grape vine foliage down by using a hedge type trimmer. A boom mower could cut the berms and trim up the foliage on the grape vines.

If you take a look at the hyd driven flail mower on the Power-Trac website, can you envision a 6 ft flail mower or three bladed finish mower out front, with bat wing hyd 16 in mower decks. If you set up the bat wing mowers to float, you would drive up the the end of the row, lower the bat wing mowers in the float made, and run down the row until the end , raise the outside mowers and continue down the next row. Every thing out front driven by the hyd PTO pump. Are the rows set up similar to say a 16 in berm on either side, and say a 6 ft flat surface for the tractor to run? I believe it is doable if you build it correctly.

 

[Maknwine]

tryin to attach another attempt at a pic. Each row is 11 ft on center. Poles/vines at top of hill and center of alley at low spot. From low point to top of row is 5.5 ft. Presently have to take a trip down one side of row(left tire is in the low spot and right tire is up by the poles and vines. The ideal thing would be to have a bat wing that flexes right in the center so that tractor could ride in the middle of row staying away from upper berm.

 

[J_J]

OK, I understand a little better now. A PT with a 48 or 60 in mower sounds like it would fit in there pretty good. What is the slope angle?

 

[Maknwine]

Have been using a Bush Hog 5', Ford 930A 60", and Woods RM59 for some time now. The finish mowers do a great job and ideally I would like a mower that does a similar job except in just one pass cutting both sides. I use a micron herbaflex to keep the weeds down within the grapevine rows. So really a 48" cut will work fine. (48" on the left and 48" on the right).

The slope is approx. 18" from trough to peak.

I'm going to have to learn how to build this with hydraulic motors and such. I would think two blades for a 48" cut each side would be better than a single blade. But I'm not positive.

 

[J_J]

Have you tried cutting those berms with a 48 in ZTR?

Take a good look at the PT-425 with 48 finish and rough cut mowers and all the available attachments. It could probably do most anything you need in your grape orchard.

You could do the 48 in with two blades, side by side, if you used a cogged belt and aligned the blades 90 degrees from each other. Then you could overlap for say 47 or what ever blade width you want. The other way to use two blades side by side, would be to skew the deck so many degrees to eliminate the gap in between the blades.

 

[scott_vt]

For years and years people of farms used sickle mowers to do the ditches. You can get them up to 9 feet in length and they are light compared to the ditch mowers shown here. Best of all if you look around you can pick these up pretty cheap. Dowse it in a ton of WD 40 and you'll free it up. The replacement parts for most all of them are still readily available. They work great for down slope mowing.

Good Afternoon Stampeder,
Keep in mind that the older sicklebar mowers used a pitman arm and could only mow something slightly above or below horizontal. The newer bars have the wobble box, which enables you to really tilt that bar for inclines and grades !

 

[jmc]

Someone in a post awhile back mentioned something about the need to keep the grape vine foliage down by using a hedge type trimmer. A boom mower could cut the berms and trim up the foliage on the grape vines.

J J,

Does some company or did somebody make such an implement?

I always enjoy your pictures.

BTW, OP's slope is 16 degrees.

John

 

[J_J]

J J,

Does some company or did somebody make such an implement?

I always enjoy your pictures.

BTW, OP's slope is 16 degrees.

John

Yes. I will see if I can find the manufacturer.

Power-Trac builds most of their own equipment.

I am thinking, that the small boom mower can be articulated to do just about anything, such as flat ground mowing, slope mowing, if tilted vertical, could trim trees/vines along of right of way, or run down the top of the grape vine, and level it off and trim it as much as desired. Now as to whether a single operator could manage this is uncertain. However if the second person could operate the boom only and the driver keeping a straight line, I think the both of you would be able to trim and maintain those grape vines, and grounds.

Hedge Trimmer --- Danelander

Farm equipment,Bubco Home

Farm equipment,Bubco Home

http://www.skidsteersolutions.com/Skid_Steer_Sickle_Bar_Mower_p/sb-84.htm

 

[kthompson]

I have need of a ditch mower. The tractor in question is a Kioti DK35 Cab model. It has rear remotes. Hydraulics are the run of the mill loader set up with joystick.
I was looking around on ebay to see whats out there and saw something like this:

Well if that isn't a Bush hog offset with hydraulic drive/control I'm a monkey's uncle. Well, maybe I'm a monkey's uncle anyway, but that looks like something pretty straightforward to cobble up from off the shelf parts.
Has anyone made one of these things or am I about to waste a lot of time on a bad design?

You can find a good bit of mowers on this general design out there. Have never seen this exact design but don't over look they are placing hyd reservoir and other counter weight at left end which helps to offset the mower itself. Also mower is probably of lighter weight metal than their 3 pth models. You also don't have tail wheel and 3 pth mount or as heavy gearbox on it all reducing it's weight. Having said all that there can still be a LOT of weight on the right lift arm and right rear wheel. I would not want over a 4 foot cutter on one of these unless you have a very heavy tractor. But I have used Hardee Cutter with 5 foot cutter on a about a 6,000 to 7,000 tractor with good front weights and been fine. SLOW is the most important word. There are boom flail mowers that require even less tractor weight. That pivot wheel would be a problem in wet ditches I think. If you can keep it on dry firm ground would be neat to keep your cutter same height and some load off of tractor.

 

[Roger2561]

I have been following this project for awhile due to the fact I find it very interesting. Seeing that weight is an issue, and that I'm no metalurgist, other than cost, why not try to fabricate something using aluminum in place of steel? Would there be structural issues to consider? I do not know, that's why I ask. Thanks, all. I really enjoy this forum. Roger

 

[J_J]

Vineyard Equipment Sales - Crane Cutters

http://www.collardaustralia.com/index.php

 

[Maknwine]

I dont know if you can see the slope from these pics but maybe just a little. If not, there free to view.

 

[Flatheadyoungin]

i just happened to see this on fleabay and thought of this thread.....

Maschio Mdl 160 70" Ditch Bank Flail Mower, Hedge Mower - eBay (item 350170425876 end time May-24-09 19:42:55 PDT)

 

[aczlan]

Looks like you need one of these with and 84" version of the deck from this mower

I dont know if Deere offers those together, but it would get both sides in one pass.

If your rows were a foot farther apart (and you won the lottery) Woods, Befco and others make a "Turf Batwing" that might do the trick, it has a 5' center deck and 2 4' wings, for a 12' cut. The college I went to had a pair of them and they do a great job, however they are supposed to cost ~$15k
Here is a thread on them: http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachments/97024-any-opinions-befco-batwing-finish.html

Edit: I ran across the BushHog TD1100 which seems to be a 11' 3 deck finish mower... might be worth looking at if the V in between the rows is flat enough.
Tractorhouse has a few for sale: http://www.tractorhouse.com/listing...d=1134&Manu=BUSH+HOG&Mdltxt=TD1100&mdlx=exact

Aaron Z

 

[Maknwine]

Hey thks for the post. If only that middle was a little flatter and the mower a little narrower.

 

[jmc]

Vineyard Equipment Sales - Crane Cutters

Collard Vine Trimmers and Vine Leaf Removers, Australia

Thanks J J. I don't know how you come up with this stuff!

John

 

[BgMac]

I just built and tested an adapter to a 4ft. BigBee rotory cutter for my 27hp 790 John Deere and it works great. The adapter mounts on the 3 pt hitch and uses direct drive. The mower is attached 6" from the outside of the right rear wheel. I have the tractor tires filled and weight in the front.

Works great.

 

[aczlan]

I just built and tested an adapter to a 4ft. BigBee rotory cutter for my 27hp 790 John Deere and it works great. The adapter mounts on the 3 pt hitch and uses direct drive. The mower is attached 6" from the outside of the right rear wheel. I have the tractor tires filled and weight in the front.

Pictures?

Aaron Z