Flail Mower Let's talk flail mowers

IslandTractor · Feb 12, 2015

hunt4570 said:
So do you use yours commercially? seems from your posts you probably do, which means you put lots of hours on yours. Me... mine would most likely be used a few times a year on my own place (unless I found a mowing job or something, I'm kind of retired with some time on my hands ). My point I guess is if you use yours commercially and its held up this well, an occaisional use one might last forever.. Also your name is Island Tractor (yes I saw your location) but the two guys that posted after you were both from Hawaii.. how weird is that?

I don't use mine "commercially" but I do a lot of volunteer cutting at a conservancy farm and on other conservancy land. I actually don't use the flail on my own property. Too hard to maneuver the DK40 around bushes etc or get close to the house.

Yes the island connection of posters is a bit odd. Even more is that I used to live in Hawaii and know the areas where the several TBN owners live. Even weirder is that 3/3 of the TBNers in Hawaii I know of all have flails!

newbury · Feb 12, 2015

Any idea what this would be worth?

I believe it's the 90" model.
It's on a local auction.
It's a new holland 918H

hunt4570 · Feb 13, 2015

So I finally got a hold of the guy with the 77" alamo flail mower, SHD88. It has 184 blades and he says he thinks its a finish type mower, I'm wondering how it would do on brush??
Opinions?

Parkanzky · Feb 13, 2015

hunt4570 said:
So I finally got a hold of the guy with the 77" alamo flail mower, SHD88. It has 184 blades and he says he thinks its a finish type mower, I'm wondering how it would do on brush??
Opinions?

My Value Leader has the "grass blades" and all I use it in is brush. It takes a couple passes to mulch up really thick stuff, but it does a nice job. Somebody on here who has used both types can give you a real comparison, but the knives definitely work in the brush for me.

hunt4570 · Feb 13, 2015

Parkanzky said:
My Value Leader has the "grass blades" and all I use it in is brush. It takes a couple passes to mulch up really thick stuff, but it does a nice job. Somebody on here who has used both types can give you a real comparison, but the knives definitely work in the brush for me.

Thanks.. and like you said, hope to hear from somebody who has used both..

rgr33 · Feb 13, 2015

I use.the fine cut blades on my Mott, to cut old cane prunings in my vineyard, as well as mowing the cover crop planted between rows. It chops up the cuttings finer than the spade bits on my other flail, a Value leader, which I use in the woods.
Very happy with the results, blades don't seem to wear or break any more than usual.
Each cutting/mowing in the vineyard is about 14,000 lineal feet of constant heavy woody cane cutting. I think that Alamo is a quality machine, and you will not regret it if that's the way you choose to go.

IslandTractor · Feb 13, 2015

I would be a bit cautious using fine cut blades/rotor for true bush hogging. No question it will work on cane prunings, corn stalks and even small branches or saplings, but true bush hogging involves cutting and hitting things that you might not have intended to. Hitting a stump or rock with a rough cut mower is par for the course and most rough cut knives actually swivel on a clevis so that there are two levels of flexibility to allow the knives to "get out of the way" once striking an uncuttable object. The clevis itself can move backwards and the knife can both move backwards and sideways. A finish mower rotor typically has the blades attach directly to the rotor and there is very little if any lateral movement possible. That plus the fact that finish knives are generally thinner makes me wary of using a finish flail for bush hogging. I wouldn't hesitate to use a finish flail to cut a known pasture with high grass and a few smaller branches or saplings but I'd be loath to back a finish mower into a thick area with ??? under the visible layer of grass etc.

hunt4570 · Feb 13, 2015

My concern is the number of blades.. the Caroni has 56, not sure how many on the Value leader, but the Alamo has 184... that seems like a HUGE difference!

IslandTractor · Feb 13, 2015

hunt4570 said:
My concern is the number of blades.. the Caroni has 56, not sure how many on the Value leader, but the Alamo has 184... that seems like a HUGE difference!

That is simply because it is a fine cut. Fine cuts always have more knives. It insures a perfectly smooth cut. A rough cut rotor is not optimized to cut every last blade of grass cleanly and typically uses heavier but less numerous blades. It really isn't the number of blades that is as important but rather the gauge, weight and mounting system.