Flail Mower Let's talk flail mowers

[Steppenwolfe]

My Kubota dealer will secretly tell you Sicma mowers are one of the best. Even though he doesn't sell them. Go figure.

 

[IslandTractor]

My Kubota dealer will secretly tell you Sicma mowers are one of the best. Even though he doesn't sell them. Go figure.

If I recall correctly, Kioti mowers and ?tillers used to be made by Sicma. I wouldn't be surprised if Kubota had a similar rebadging arrangement.

 

[Treeslayer]

Well I spent about a week on and off and have read this entire thread. Great info here. Just joined up and my first post. Anyhow, I have an old Mathews Co. flail mower, I think it is a model 7200FM, pretty heavy bulilt old flail. Bought if for $250 last year from a guy who bought it from a local municipality auction. It has probably mowed thousands of acres of grass, at least it looks like it has. When I got it I greased it up, made sure all the knives were there, checked the belt and all the nuts and bolts and hooked her up to the Kioti and promptly mowed 10 acres of overgrown field with stuff taller than the hood of my Kioti DK40 - mulched it right down to about 4" high. Tractor did great only seemed to grunt a little in the really thick tall stuff. Couldn,t believe what this old flail chowed down and laid out the back as mulch. Mowed the field about 4 more times that year, worked great. The only problem I have is the dang rear roller likes to fall off. The bolts for the bearing brackets like to work loose and the it falls out. Another time I had one of the roller bearings come apart/disentegrate and the roller fell of again. Luckily this happened when I was just about done with the field and I just picked the roller up with the grapple and ambled on home. Anyway, the knives and the d shaped hangers they hang from seem a bit hard to find for this MC flail. The knives are well used and almost look like bananas as they have appear to have been worn or sharpened so many times. I called flailmaster and montage and they were not familiar with MC flails and did not have anything for me. I had to find an MC dealer and go through them and bought about 50 knives and 25 hangers. I think this flail has about 188 knives in 4 rows on a fairly big rotor. The MC knives were not cheap - about $2.50 per as I remember. I saw on this lengthy thread that there is a feller that has and MC lawn genie and I think that may have the same knives. Anyone know any other place to get knives for this old flail? The other question I have is that it looks like the knives are about 3 3/8" long about 1 1/4 inch wide. I notice in the flail master catalogue that many flails us knives that are about 3" long. Could I use some other knife other than the MC knives if I did them all so that everything balances?

 

[whirly]

... it looks like the knives are about 3 3/8" long about 1 1/4 inch wide. I notice in the flail master catalogue that many flails us knives that are about 3" long. Could I use some other knife other than the MC knives if I did them all so that everything balances?

I wouldn't mix the MC knives with knives with a different length/width/weight. However, if you are going to change out all of the knives, check the diameter of the mounting holes of the old and new knives. If you can make them fit, they will work. If the knives are shorter, you will need to either lengthen your top link or lower your roller or both to get the right cut height. Longer knives may run into case clearance problems .... or not.

 

[leonz]

About your Mathews Company Finish Flail Mower,

Are your knives the type that have two tapered cutting edges which
narrow to a 1/2 inch width at the base of the side slicer???

Does your knife also have a slotted mounting hole one inch long and one
half an inch wide with a with a 180 degree curve like race track on both
ends????


You need to use the same knives for this flail mower to maintain it balance.

You also need to use blue loctite to keep the rear roller bolts and nuts in place
that is why the bearings failed on you the last time.

As long as you take take of the mower the knives will last you for many, many years.
I replaced the bad ones I had in 1992 so no worries there.

The more often you mow the faster the job will be and you will keep the
brush down to a minimum.


As long as you have a source for the knives and spare parts your mower will work
for a very very long time. My Mathews Company Lawn Genie is almost 35 years
old and runs like new.


If you can upload some pictures of the flail mower rotor in good light that will
help me to help you.


Be sure you measure the side slicers together with the cutting edges opposing each other and from the very very top of the knive measuring to the base of the two knives My knives are 3 inches long and one inch wide exactly.

The Mathews knives were designed to have a longer cutting edge to allow them to last longer during the mowing season and to also allow a better cut if they impact an object while still maintaining a good cut.

If I may ask, who is your Mathews dealer??

 

[Treeslayer]

Thanks Leonz and Whirly. Leonz I obtained knives and hangers from Tricounty Equip in Williamston Mi. Used the old flail for about an hour and a half today did good. I will try to post some pics if I can figger out how to do that

 

[Treeslayer]

Whoops, installed some new knives and hangers, looked at the box they came in - got them from D & G equipment in Williamston MI not Tri County. Sorry bout that, mixing up dealers have used both from time to time

 

[Treeslayer]

Going to try to post some pics of the old MC flail. Im no genius when it comes to tech so I hope this works!

 

[Treeslayer]

You can see some of the old knives and some that I have changed out mainly because the d or p shaped hangers were bent or really worn. It would be quite a project to change all of the knives and hangers

Here some pics of the roller and bearing brackets. It is pretty bunged up looks like someone took a plasma cutter to one side. Mover came with a pile of old spare parts including some bearings and bearing brackets. I had to jury rig this up after the last bearing blew. Seems to work.

 

[IslandTractor]

Going to try to post some pics of the old MC flail.

Looks to be in pretty good condition. Looks like it is set up for brush rather than finish mowing but I guess that depends on the total number of knives too. The clevis mount will make using it for brush safer.

If you weigh and measure those knives, I'm pretty sure Flailmaster will have something equivalent should you ever have trouble finding replacements.

 

[IslandTractor]

Looks to be in pretty good condition. Looks like it is set up for brush rather than finish mowing but I guess that depends on the total number of knives too. The clevis mount will make using it for brush safer. If you weigh and measure those knives, I'm pretty sure Flailmaster will have something equivalent should you ever have trouble finding replacements.

Correction. I just looked at my Caroni rough cut knives, they are slotted rather than having just a simple hole for mounting. That allows the clevis to pass through but also means that when the knife strikes an object it can slide up. Maybe the MC mower is a finish set up after all.

 

[whirly]

It looks like Flail Master's clevis blades come in the correct size and there are 4 gauges you can choose from:

 

[aginn]

I found a never used but previously owned Best flail and decided that I could try it for the money being asked.
Well, it wasn't a bargain even at a bargain price. The manufacturer left a circlip off of a shaft in the gearbox. The first heavy grass I went through encouraged a gear to walk across another which clipped the last 1/8 inch of the teeth off. I did manage to fix it to where it would work. But it could have easily been it's first and last use. Never again.....

From here on out I'll be buying the higher quality(also higher cost) implements. It will be cheaper in the long run. USA made if possible. Or at least made in a country with SOME manufacturing standards.

Sour grapes? Nope. Just dealing with the new reality in todays marketplace.

 

[IslandTractor]

IIRC, there aren't any U.S. made gearboxes in the under 80hp category so even a U.S. made flail will have a Chinese gearbox these days.

And Chinese are not the only ones who screw up. A friend had his 6month old Harley puke up it's transmission because someone used a wrong size nut during assembly.

Sorry about your experience though. With any luck the injured gearbox will outlive us all.

 

[Treeslayer]

Thanks Whirly. I have looked at Flailmasters cataloque also and noticed that many knives were about 3" long and just a bit wider than the MC knives, and at $.74 considerably cheaper making me wonder if I could use them instead. I' m not sure the elongated hole would work or not since the hanger isn't quite as roomy as a good sized clevis and may bang into the mounting bracket if the knife hit something. I will probably just stick with the old knives and replace as necessary as I mainly just use it to rough cut fields once a month or so and the cut doesn't have to be perfect. Really like the flail better than my rotary cutter/bush hog as one field is close to a subdivision.

Hey Island Tractor how do like yer Kioti DK40? I've got one too and it has performed great so far. I see you have a grapple as well - don't know what I would do without mine!

 

[IslandTractor]

Hey Island Tractor how do like yer Kioti DK40? I've got one too and it has performed great so far. I see you have a grapple as well - don't know what I would do without mine!

Love the DK40. No nonsense, totally reliable and the FEL is a beast. Grapple spends more time on loader than any other implement too.

 

[MidTn Mark]

Well...newest member reporting in. Phoenix TE 79 showed up today. That's the good news. Bad news is freakin non-stop rain for the last week and forecast for the next week as well... I could probably get the truck and trailer out but getting it back in would be a circus. So, I wait...

Mark

 

[MidTn Mark]

Well...newest member reporting in. Phoenix TE 79 showed up today. That's the good news. Bad news is freakin non-stop rain for the last week and forecast for the next week as well... I could probably get the truck and trailer out but getting it back in would be a circus. So, I wait...

Mark

 

[GManBart]

Well...newest member reporting in. Phoenix TE 79 showed up today. That's the good news. Bad news is freakin non-stop rain for the last week and forecast for the next week as well... I could probably get the truck and trailer out but getting it back in would be a circus. So, I wait...

Mark

How long ago did you order yours? I ordered an 87" on 4/29 but haven't heard anything yet.

 

[MidTn Mark]

I ordered on 5/2. But... I slipped them $50 to put me in line ahead of you...

Just kidding of course. Not sure if they are clearing out the 79's and then moving to the 87's or what. I do know that they turned mine around in 1 day so they are cranking them out pretty quickly

Mark