Flail Mower Let's talk flail mowers

[Molalla1]

On this mower do the flails turn to opposite direction compared to one with the pulleys on the other end of the gearbox?

Opposite direction of the rear wheels . . .

 

[LandofCheese]

thank you all for the quick responses my little LS tractor with its 18.5 pto hp isn't exactly a power house, but it runs most things alright. at the time i bought the tractor i had a 4 acre lot that it was perfect for. Now i have that and a 12 acre lot... i need to look into a bigger tractor in the future soon. i'm using it to mow a field that has been planted with beans every year but now this year since i am working on developing the land for residential use it is a field of weeds that i need to mow down once a month.

The rpm idea is a good one, the motor can definitely rev higher so i will see how that works. also this is just for general field cutting atm, so i'm not looking for a perfect cut or anything just wanna get things taken care of. i've only tested it mowing a few short times on an overgrown lot here in town by where i'm currently renting and it didn't bog down the tractor, just didn't cut worth a darn. so before i take it out in the field with 2.5 foot high grass/weeds i want to make sure it will actually preform.

I will try a blade sharpening, some higher rpm's and make some adjustments and see what happens, still not sure about that gearbox though without a vent though.... :confused3:

D2Cat the pulley's all turn clockwise if you look at them like this the flails go the same direction as the tractor rolling forward. should it be going the the way?

 

[leonz]

Re: Let's talk flail mowers.

thank you all for the quick responses my little LS tractor with its 18.5 pto hp isn't exactly a power house, but it runs most things alright. at the time i bought the tractor i had a 4 acre lot that it was perfect for. Now i have that and a 12 acre lot... i need to look into a bigger tractor in the future soon. i'm using it to mow a field that has been planted with beans every year but now this year since i am working on developing the land for residential use it is a field of weeds that i need to mow down once a month.

The rpm idea is a good one, the motor can definitely rev higher so i will see how that works. also this is just for general field cutting atm, so i'm not looking for a perfect cut or anything just wanna get things taken care of. i've only tested it mowing a few short times on an overgrown lot here in town by where i'm currently renting and it didn't bog down the tractor, just didn't cut worth a darn. so before i take it out in the field with 2.5 foot high grass/weeds i want to make sure it will actually preform.

I will try a blade sharpening, some higher rpm's and make some adjustments and see what happens, still not sure about that gearbox though without a vent though.... :confused3:

D2Cat the pulley's all turn clockwise if you look at them like this View attachment 610203 the flails go the same direction as the tractor rolling forward. should it be going the the way?

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Good evening LandofCheese,

I wish to welcome you as the newest member of the "Flail Mower Nations".
You do not need a bigger mule for mowing. The mule you have is fine for the job.
I used an IHC cub lowboy with a 5 foot belly mower to mow 12 acres when I was in junior high school.
If you mow in a spiral pattern you will save fuel and time and you will not have to stop, back up and turn around.

Is there any reason you cannot mow 3 or 4 acres at a time at a 2 inch height??
The thing is your going to spend more time mowing if you reduce the number
of times you mow per season and a bigger mule will be dealing with the same issues.

You should lower the mowers cutting height one position to improve the mowers ability
to shred the brush on the first pass. as it will make it easier to recut the material and it will
dissolve that much faster back in to the sod.

If the knives are butter knife dull that is the only time you want to sharpen them.

Your flail mower is set up to discharge forward as you mow. I know this because your flail mower
has a second stub shaft to allow it to be used with clockwise rotation of the flail mower rotor as
you face the left side of the flail mower. You can mow in reverse and improve the mowing finish
if you wish to do that.

 

[Fallon]

thank you all for the quick responses my little LS tractor with its 18.5 pto hp isn't exactly a power house, but it runs most things alright. at the time i bought the tractor i had a 4 acre lot that it was perfect for. Now i have that and a 12 acre lot... i need to look into a bigger tractor in the future soon. i'm using it to mow a field that has been planted with beans every year but now this year since i am working on developing the land for residential use it is a field of weeds that i need to mow down once a month.

The rpm idea is a good one, the motor can definitely rev higher so i will see how that works. also this is just for general field cutting atm, so i'm not looking for a perfect cut or anything just wanna get things taken care of. i've only tested it mowing a few short times on an overgrown lot here in town by where i'm currently renting and it didn't bog down the tractor, just didn't cut worth a darn. so before i take it out in the field with 2.5 foot high grass/weeds i want to make sure it will actually preform.

I will try a blade sharpening, some higher rpm's and make some adjustments and see what happens, still not sure about that gearbox though without a vent though.... :confused3:

D2Cat the pulley's all turn clockwise if you look at them like this View attachment 610203 the flails go the same direction as the tractor rolling forward. should it be going the the way?

Additional engine RPM will net minimal extra PTO RPM. Generally PTOs spin at about 25% engine speed, so an extra 100-200rpm is 25-50rpm on the PTO. I do tend to run mine at full throttle vs PTO RPM though.

1000rpm PTOs are on machines over 75hp or so. They have different splines on the shaft so you cant hook them up to the wrong impliment/tractor. If you double the RPM you can half the torque, so it makes for a cheaper lighter easier to hook up PTO shaft. Some greymarket import machines had the ability to shift between PTO speeds 540/700/1000 or something like that. They arent common & not the target market for heavy flails. It is possible somebody put a 540 splines PTO on a 1000 rpm gearbox input though.

There is probably a vent on there somewhere otherwise the seals would blow out when it heated up. Sometimes just a hole in the fill port bolt.

Highway mowers sometimes mow with the tire rotation. It helps them bounce over trash. Most other flails & all consumer ones rotate opposite the tire rotation. Whenever I mow backward neither of my flails cuts worth beans. Not sure if that's because of the flail rotation or simply the roller pushing grass down though.

 

[TheFarmerInAdell]

LandofCheese,

It looks like you have the 1000 PTO gearbox on that unit. I looked at 2 other J60's listed on tractor house, 1 with 1000 PTO, 1 with 540 PTO and yours looks like the 1000 PTO unit.

1000 PTO: https://www.tractorhouse.com/listings/farm-equipment/for-sale/31749375/mott-j60
540 PTO: https://www.tractorhouse.com/listings/farm-equipment/for-sale/28565787/mott-j60

Even if you had the 540 PTO you have fine cut blades on there. They need to be sharper than the course cut blades as they don't have as much weight to power through the thicker stuff. Going slow and multiple passes would help with that, but only if you're spinning it at the correct speed. There should be about 4 shaft rotations to 1 PTO rotation if I remember right.

Where in the Land of Cheese are you located? I'm near Sheboygan.

 

[LandofCheese]

Thank you for the welcome, a little more info on why i'm concerned about it being a 1000 PTO speed unit, when i picked the unit up the owner had a IH284 which to my knowledge has both a 540 and a 1000 pto setting. me being stupid didn't think to ask about the pto speed the unit was used on, and now the owner has passed so my window has closed on that bit of info.

the knives are dull! so i will sharpen

i work 12-16 hours a day in teh construction industry and we have gotten so much rain this spring that it has been hard to get into the field, so things are much overgrown, i would LIKE to get in more often to maintain as i have planted 1500 trees as a fence/windbreak this spring and they need all the help they can get! so i'm being realistic, but breaking up the area isn't a bad idea at all!

i'm going to check out the pto to shaft rotation tomorrow since its raining and report back.

and i'm located in the fox valley area!

 

[leonz]

Hello and good morning LandofCheese,

If his mule was like the other grey market mules with that option it was/is a matter of flipping a lever to switch between the PTO speeds.

Since you have a 540 PTO on your mule and the power take off shaft is 540 Its still a 540 PTO so no worries there.

NOW as to the side slicer knives you have, they are the thin grass knives for your mower.
Plan on having the swear jar close by and at least one hundred bolts and nuts and a big
bottle of blue Loctite.

I would rather see you take half cuts for now and do your mowing that way as you should plan on purchasing
heavier hardened knives for your beautiful flail mower.

You will be able to leave the mower on the ground and create the pressure gradient/suction needed to allow the
flail mower knives to work well as long as you mow slowly.

Is there someone you trust that can mow for you while you are working to play catch up with the mower and knock it down?


You have to be very, very, very, careful when dry grinding them or if you have access to a table belt sander with a
fine grit paper that will work in a pinch. I much prefer using a low speed wet well grinder and set the angle on the
tool rest at 37 degrees and cool grind away.

Now as far as mowing goes you can mow in reverse and then drive forward in half cuts and still obtain good mowing job so do
not get discouraged. as long as you reach 2,200 RPM on the flail mower rotor when mowing you will be able to mow well.

You must remember to clean the chaff screen on the radiator of the mule as it will plug quickly if the brush is dry.

Changing the flail mowers rotation to discharge to the rear is a winter project as it will take time to do.



Happy mowing

 

[Reg]

Unless I get into mowing HEAVY stuff and mowing it FAST the 1,000 RPM output of my Kukje tractor works just fine.
There is a generality about small diesels that they work really NICELY at about 60% speed of their max HP output.
Using the 1,000 output and running the engine at ~54% of the RPM at which the tach indicates for 540 PTO works fine for me.
Quieter, smoother, and I have enough gears to get whatever travel speed I want at about 1400 RPM.

 

[hunt4570]

Hello and good morning LandofCheese,

If his mule was like the other grey market mules with that option it was/is a matter of flipping a lever to switch between the PTO speeds.

Since you have a 540 PTO on your mule and the power take off shaft is 540 Its still a 540 PTO so no worries there.

Happy mowing

That PTO shaft is easily changeable so its not a guarantee its a 540 gearbox. Maybe some worries there still.

 

[TheFarmerInAdell]

I'm fairly confident that his mower has the 1000 PTO gearbox on it

His mower: small square gearbox.

1000 PTO: small square gearbox.

540 PTO: large round gearbox.

The size of the gearbox tells me that there isn't enough room for the large ring required to get a 4:1 ratio, only enough room for a 2:1 ratio.

LandofCheese, go to flailmaster and get new blades if you are keeping the mower (if it's truely a 1000 PTO I'd pass it on...). It will take just as much time and you will have fresh blades. Your blades would be on page "2" of their catalog. I believe you need MH-293 blades. Wouldn't hurt to get new nuts and bolts and maybe even clips and rings, depending on their condition. You will need to call your order in as they don't have their online store up and running yet.

Flailmaster catalog: http://flailmaster.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Flailmaster_Catalog.pdf

 

[Xfaxman]

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D2Cat the pulley's all turn clockwise if you look at them like this View attachment 610203 the flails go the same direction as the tractor rolling forward.--------------------

Right, clockwise looking from the right side. Anytime there is an idler pulley it will be on the slack side of the belt, especially if it is spring loaded.

 

[LandofCheese]

alright so I've got some more info with one turn of the pto shaft the shaft with the knives turns about 2.3 revolutions, so its looking like i have a 1000 PTO speed gearbox if my math works out right :mur:

Io I either need a tractor with 1K pto speed or I need to sell the unit and get something else to mow with pretty quick.... man i was so looking forward to using a flail mower too.... is there something that can be done with pulley sizes? or am i just making mroe work than its worth?

 

[TheFarmerInAdell]

I wouldn't mess with the pulley sizes. You likely won't have room for the drive pulley to go as big as you need it to go, and the rotor pulley is already pretty small. Plus you're going to put extra stress on the gearbox that wasn't meant for it. With the low HP you have it shouldn't be a problem, but if you sell it to someone with more power they can destroy that gearbox pretty quick. If you're willing to invest in this one you could call Flailmaster, they sell the 540 gearbox, but you would also need the lift frame to mount the 540 gearbox to, and you might need other driveline parts to go with it. You're probably better cutting your losses and buying something else.

Right now is a bad time to try to find a used flail. If you want you can check craigslist and tractorhouse. Be prepared to take a drive, though. I had to drive down past Chicago to get mine. Too bad I just sold my 5' and 6' to get an 88".

 

[def38]

Thank you for the welcome, a little more info on why i'm concerned about it being a 1000 PTO speed unit, when i picked the unit up the owner had a IH284 which to my knowledge has both a 540 and a 1000 pto setting. me being stupid didn't think to ask about the pto speed the unit was used on, and now the owner has passed so my window has closed on that bit of info.

the knives are dull! so i will sharpen View attachment 610299View attachment 610300

i would LIKE to get in more often to maintain as i have planted 1500 trees as a fence/windbreak this spring and they need all the help they can get!

What kind of trees did you plant? How log did it take you to plant the 1500?

 

[Fallon]

I wouldn't mess with the pulley sizes. You likely won't have room for the drive pulley to go as big as you need it to go, and the rotor pulley is already pretty small. Plus you're going to put extra stress on the gearbox that wasn't meant for it. With the low HP you have it shouldn't be a problem, but if you sell it to someone with more power they can destroy that gearbox pretty quick. If you're willing to invest in this one you could call Flailmaster, they sell the 540 gearbox, but you would also need the lift frame to mount the 540 gearbox to, and you might need other driveline parts to go with it. You're probably better cutting your losses and buying something else.

Right now is a bad time to try to find a used flail. If you want you can check craigslist and tractorhouse. Be prepared to take a drive, though. I had to drive down past Chicago to get mine. Too bad I just sold my 5' and 6' to get an 88".

I concur, I wouldn't mess with it unless you really wanted a project & had corresponding fab skills.

As far as a "bad time" do you mean the time of year? I've seen a dozen, 20 flails tops for sale in Colorado in the past 4ish years on Craigslist. I own one & at least half of the rest have been huge crop shredders. So ya, spring & early summer is the worst time to buy a mower, but it's never a good time to find a used flail.

 

[TheFarmerInAdell]

This time of year is especially bad for finding used ones. They are out there, just a few of them right now. And anything reasonably priced is typically snatched up right away this time of year. If you look late fall through early spring you can find stuff. This area you can find used stuff more than other areas it seems. There's a place in Michigan that seems to carry a line-up of used flails on tractorhouse.

 

[PatMcD]

I went with the FM-7 blades. I was talking to someone who used to work on these mowers, and he said the lighter blades do better against rocks because they bounce off easier and don't get damaged. They're also thinner so when they do become dull they're sharper than the thicker blades when dull. I had the "extreme service" blades on my Ford 917 for helping clear brush, but this time I went with the FM-7 because I have a brush saw and it will be a one-time deal clearing the rest of the brush. I'd stick with the clevis pin and cotter pin. If the threads get damaged you will need to replace the nut and bold. The clevis pin can be reused with a new cotter pin which is cheap. It took me about 1-1/2 hours to remove and about 2-1/2 hours to install the new blades, only because I needed to straighten some lugs that got bent in. If you use the clevis pin I have some advice: There is a small hole on the sides of the mower that line up with the clevis pin holes in the lugs. Use that and push the pin in from the outside to give easier access to the cotter pin.

My extreme service blades did well against the rocks, so I'm sure you'll be fine with those. I considered the forged blades but something steered me away from them. I can't remember what steered me away, but I remember there was a reason I didn't get them. My new FM-7 blades did great against the tall grass yesterday. I don't regret getting them over the thicker ones and saving some money.

I had a long conversation with the fine folks at Flailmaster the other day. They said almost the opposite on the size of blades and rocks; the heavier blades will hold up much better. I went all-out and got the heavy forged blades at $1.98 each, so I paid $100 more than the FM7's for a set of 100. We'll see what happens next time I mow. I also went with the bolts and nuts ($.87 per set). It took half of forever to get the cotter pins out of the old set, no way in **** I'm going through that again. New ones went on in a flash. I'm not too afraid of the threads getting damaged; impact guns are a wonderful thing.

 

[JWR]

Ok, I am blown away. This HAS TO BE the longest thread in TBN history ! I guess I will add my post to the pile.

How can i identify and find out exactly what mower i have ? Pictures below. Bought at auction. Most people say it is an Alamo. Sticker on one end does say "Alamo Group" but seems to have been added. No idea what year. The nameplate in picture below has been scratched and beat up so bad I cannot tell anything from it. It has been thru several wars with much welding repair, etc. but works quite well. I replaced a belt and a few bolts, replaced the tubular shim in the slip clutch, etc. and added gear lube. Broke off a few flails and a local Deere dealer who services Alamo had matching ones in stock. It cuts a 7.5 ft swath. The big roller has hex shafts on each end resting in ball bearings.

Can anyone shed light on the brand, model, year, etc. ?

 

[whirly]

If you zoom in on your fantastic high bit image of the daya plate, you can see it was built in Italy and the model probably is a T280 ... 280CM or 9+ foot. That looks about right when mounted on your tractor. So that knocks out all of the American, German and Chinese flails.

 

[JWR]

That' s some helpful insight but it is no where near 9ft wide. It cuts a 7.5 ft wide patch so with the side metal, etc.it is probably 8ft wide overall. I do see the "Italy" word.
Not a Mott or Alamo ? Was there manufacturing in Italy of Mott or Alamo flail mowers at some point I wonder ? Lots of puzzles.