Flail Mower Recommendations

[JethroB]

My original belts lasted only a few hours regardless of proper tension and adjustment turning into an overcooked gooey mess, they were just crappy belts. I hit my local NAPA and swapped out to Kevlar belts that I have yet to re-adjust after numerous hours of use over the last year even after several inspections.

I over greased the belt pulley bearing once early on. Rookie mistake. That and tilling the dirt way too much. Made my own gooey mess. Replaced with 3 regular Gates belts. Couldn’t find or see any mention of being Kevlar belts though.

 

[leonz]

Hello and good afternoon scootr,

I want to welcome you as the newest resident member of the "Flail Mower Nations" from the Golden State.

The scraper bar is ment to keep the roller clean of any wet grass or mud. You can keep it tight by investing
in 2 fine thread bolts and fine thread nylock nuts.

 

[diesel85]

Yes, like leonz says, you need that to keep the roller clean from debris. He's got a good suggestion with the bolts and nuts.

 

[Beeenvenue]

Yes, like leonz says, you need that to keep the roller clean from debris. He's got a good suggestion with the bolts and nuts.

I had to take mine off. No matter how unadjusted it the wet clay would lock up the roller and the flail would skid along on it, so off it came. When I have to cut in wet stuff now sometimes the roller builds up but at least it keeps rolling

 

[BeeJay42]

I have a MF-285 - 82 HP with 71 HP at the PTO reportedly. I have recently purchased the family farm from the trust and need to do LOADS of clearing. 26 tillable acres and about 60 in brush or heavy woods. Unbelievable amounts of blackberry bushes and loads of small trees. Most areas are unreachable due to the large amount of scrub.

I would like a flail mower that is at least 6 feet wide and probably less than 7. As I am currently working on a project two days drive from the farm, I only make it back about 3 times per year for a week or two each time.

I want a machine that can handle up to 2 inch of a various types trees and tall weeds. Ones larger than that I will cut down and chip. Need a dependable machine as I don't have time to mess around with getting parts, etc.

Also need a good chipper / shredder that will handle up to 5 inch limbs. I understand from the review this means a 8 inch rated chipper as no logs are typically straight and easy to feed.
I appreciate reading these posts and am tossing back and forth on the six or seven dependable looking machines.

 

[leonz]

Hello BeeJay42,

Candidly; with your needs, I am afraid a 7 foot flail shredder
with cast hammer knives will not be heavy enough to do
your clearing.

Backing over this type of brush trying to mow it even with a
mower in the rear invites heavy brush being driven into a
radiator or coolant hoses.

What you require for this is work a FECON Forestry Mulcher.

This machine will be able to mulch the trees and heavy brush in
one pass below the ground level so you never have to deal with
them again and shred everything the first time.

Renting a FECON self propelled track drive mulcher will let you
work in comfort for very long periods and at night then refuel
and grease the machine as needed.

Renting a forestry mower which is a heavy rotary cutter mounted
on a timber skidder loader is an option, but anything hit by the
forestry mower can and will travel hundreds of yards simply due
to the speed of the forestry mowers rotary blades.

Added to this if there are persons, animals or residences nearby
people can be killed or impaled by the projectiles ejected by the mower.
There are many instances of this occurring with rotary cutters.

The 60 acres of scrub you mention in your writing is not very much in
total acreage to deal with. especially since it is new growth on crop land.

You could break it up into 15 acre blocks to do the land clearing using a
forestry mulcher to clear it economically for you.

You will need to plan your shredding work working from the center of
each 15 acre block and working in a spiral pattern to save time and
fuel as backing up and turning around to do the next pass will take
much more time when clearing.

You will be able to overlap and shred the thicker brush again needed.

Using the forestry mulcher will be faster and easier as they are designed
to do this and it will be able to chip up entire trees that you break up and
push down with the mulching head while driving over them.

You will have no need for a PTO powered wood chipper when you are running
the forestry mulcher.

Limbs the size you mention are too large for PTO powered mulchers and
require a motorized wood chipper with a hydraulic loading arm.

Again I must empathize that the self propelled forestry mulcher will do all of
this for you in one pass.

Please understand I am not trying to spend your money; I only want you to
have zero problems as using your Massey Ferguson 285 row crop utility tractor
as it is not ment for this type of work even with a flail shredder.

Once you have the 60 acres of scrub shredded and mowed down
with the forestry mulcher you will be able to buy the right flail crop shredder
to maintain it.

The one time rental cost of a self propelled mulcher can be added to the value of
the 86 acres of land as a maintenance cost to make it tillable again.

You will find that it will take less time to clear the land than you think using a
forestry mulcher of the right width.

I only wish to help you, not get in your way.

A one time rental of a forestry mulcher will save you hundreds of hours of manual labor
as clearing brush with a small machine is very intensive expensive work as the small
flail crop shredder mowers will break as they are not ment for this work.
The cost of repairs for damage from heavy brush can and will be expensive.

If you can rent a self propelled forestry mulcher for 7 days you may have this 60 acre
block of scrub land cleared to your satisfaction and mulching all the weed trees below
the ground as you encounter them and the land will be tillable this year.


Leon

Edited for proper grammar, punctuation mistakes and sentence structure 2/26/23.

 

[BeeJay42]

I have looked at the forestry mulchers, but $14,000 per week with a cap on the hours it can run per day would take a lot of money. There are guys who charge less than that for coming out and doing it for me. No reason for me to spend that type of money. It would do a better job and I would like to have a month with one of those, but that is not reasonable.

 

[leonz]

How many distributors of forestry mulchers did you contact for rental prices??

The only other would be to have the job bid out with a logger that does land clearing
as a side job or I would rent a dozer for a week and go over every inch of scrub land
breaking everything off at ground level and hiring a big chipper with a grapple or
tub grinder to come in and break it all up after you have it piled in a few spots.

If you invest in a flail mower for your Massey Ferguson 285 and a wood chipper you will not
be able to manage it and your flail mower will be damaged.

 

[DieselBound]

I have a MF-285 - 82 HP with 71 HP at the PTO reportedly. I have recently purchased the family farm from the trust and need to do LOADS of clearing. 26 tillable acres and about 60 in brush or heavy woods. Unbelievable amounts of blackberry bushes and loads of small trees. Most areas are unreachable due to the large amount of scrub.

I would like a flail mower that is at least 6 feet wide and probably less than 7. As I am currently working on a project two days drive from the farm, I only make it back about 3 times per year for a week or two each time.

I want a machine that can handle up to 2 inch of a various types trees and tall weeds. Ones larger than that I will cut down and chip. Need a dependable machine as I don't have time to mess around with getting parts, etc.

Also need a good chipper / shredder that will handle up to 5 inch limbs. I understand from the review this means a 8 inch rated chipper as no logs are typically straight and easy to feed.
I appreciate reading these posts and am tossing back and forth on the six or seven dependable looking machines.

Brush hog (or rent a skidsteer with one)*. You can get ones that can tackle 4"+ material: and with your tractor's power you should be able to run it all day eating up stuff this size. Kind of two issues in the long-run: 1) Initial clearing; 2) Maintenance. If you buy something you can also sell it when no longer required: think of it as leasing (similar to renting equipment except that you place your own time constraints on use).

* Contrary to what some might say, there are brush hogs that are more than capable (some really wicked ones). Expect to see a [new] price tag of around $5k.

 

[professorialtype]

I would avoid Nova Tractor as a company if customer service is important to you. They were helpful as can be when I was researching which mower to buy. After receiving a mower with several missing pieces and no manual, I've emailed three times, left four or five voice mail messages and tried to connect through their website. Three weeks has now elapsed and I have heard a peep.