Mowing Flail Mower HP

[rich1010220]

I have a YM1610D and currently use a 5' finish mower to cut my lawn and a 4' rotary mower to cut tall grass. I am looking at flail mowers since they can cut taller grass and still do a nice finish job. Anybody have expirence with flail mowers and will my 1610 handle a 6' flail or should I be looking for a smaller one?

Rich

 

[professor]

The recommended HP for a 6 foot flail mower is 30 HP minimum. Since your tractor is approx. 19HP it is far too small. Flail mowers are heavy and require a lot of HP.

 

[rich1010220]

Professor, thanks for the reply but I'm a little confused.
I currently use a Woods 60" finish mower which the Woods web site recommends 16-35 HP at a weight of 500 Lb.
Befco makes a 72" flail mower and recommends 15-40 HP at a weight of 528 Lb.
Based on the web sites a flail don't weight much more than the finish mower and since I have enough HP for the finish mower I should be able to turn the flail.
I know numbers lie sometimes so could you tell me what size flail you use on what HP tractor and how well it handles it?
If you don't use one, could someone else jump in here who uses a flail mower.

Rich

 

[professor]

I do not use a flail now however I did use one in the late sixties. I think it was a 5ft. pulled by a 1967 Ford 2000 rated at approx. 30HP. I did not cut tall grass very much but when I did it put a strain on the tractor. We have rocks and it seems that I was either changing or sharpening the hammers(flails) too often.

 

[heehaw]

i used a small, 4ft, flail mower a couple times, maybe i was doing something wrong, but it sure didn't cut tall grass as well as the finish mower did. the only advantage i could see was it didn't throw stuff near like the finish mower does.
heehaw

 

[EFC]

It is not as much of a power problem as it is a gear problem. PTO gears can only handle so much abuse. The larger the mower the more abuse they have to endure. When the mower shear pin is bigger and stronger than the PTO gears then you could do damage to the tractor. I know there are guys that run 6' implements on 4' implement tractors. That is why I have so much service work /w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif

 

[gerard]

My 27 hp kubtoa 2500 is rated for a 6 foot rotary cutter but only a 5 foot flail. (I looked at a 6 foot flail and it weighed in at 976lbs if memory serves which is just about what my 3 point is rated for). Seems like flails take a little more juice than a rotary!

 

[rich1010220]

Thanks for all the information. I think I'll stick with my 4ft rotary to cut the taller grass, besides can one ever have too many attachments for their tractor. Thanks again for all the great info.

Rich

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Back in the 1960s, we had a 4' Mott flail mower on a 12hp Massey Harris pony (gas tractor), and 12 horses could NOT power the flail thru tall grass. Tall grass will bog a flail mower quick unless you have sufficient horses to keep the flail shaft speed up.
A flail is nice for clipping about an inch of grass from a lawn, but if you don't have enough horses, cutting the wound grass off a flail shaft is time consuming.