Hybrid Rotary Cutter Proof of Concept

[Renze]

In Europe we use pasture toppers to cut and spread the uneaten grass after grazing.
Van Wamel makes an offset mower for more than 40 years, which makes the blade of the middle rotor suck the tire track up:

And it handles heavy grass quite well. Just no brush.

Here is a product presentation of a Belgian brand: So excuse the poor English pronunciation, though it shows the underside:

Bush hogs virtually dont exist here, its a pasture topper, or a flail mower here.

 

[dadohead]

Yes! The Van Wamel offset mower is the same as I built. Woods did it years ago too with their D080 offset version. It just didn't exist sized for a small, low powered tractor.

 

[Gregster613]

Yes, I had wings welded on. The stock Fred Cain 3' blades I started with were very low lift... just a small 'tip up' for a wing. Initial testing proved the concept very quickly as the tire tracks were back-swept nicely. The forward-sweep region (usually the weakest part of the cut) was pretty bad. As I mentioned before, the front blade was handing off all of its discharge to the rear and completely disturbing the cut as well.

Ring baffles came first. They separated the chambers and got the material flowing efficiently. The rings also add lift. The cut improved but the forward-sweep was still weak (right side of each blade on my CCW mower). The guy I used at Deere is now retired but still welded the wings onto my blades. The cut improved significantly.... a forward-sweep stripe is still present though.

After living with the mower though, there was NO CHANCE of ever going back to the single spindle... I wanted best cutting/safest blade for the long run. I contacted Haven Steel, maker of the Fred Caiin blades (and every other swing blade made) and had them make new blades. They are sized like the Fred Cain blade with a wing profile following our best JD blade... that's what I'm currently running.

In taller grass, a forward-sweep stripe is still there. It is a "hump" shape, not the ragged/uncut stripe my Frontier would produce if you cut full width. It is acceptable to me though. This is 20" cut to 4":

View attachment 3752433

I'm finding that the job goes so much faster now that I'm mowing more often. The look improves as well.

I know you said you were old and "stuck" in your ways but.... I think that if every other time you cut - you went in the opposite direction - you wouldn't have those slight humps at all!! Leave everything the same just go the other way to cut every other time.