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.