Flail Mower Let's talk flail mowers

[DoubleDeere]

V belt vibration is normal. A smaller V belt will roll inside the grooves as it will walk inside the larger diameter pulley.

The same thing occurs with using am SAE belt on metric pulleys(been there done that with my JD JUNK snow blower-I can buy 6 V belts for the price of one JD driven V belt for my 44 inch snow thrower JUNK.

The Teagle Flail Mower uses a one piece 4-groove V belt for its high horsepower flail mowers and a very large coil spring to maintain snubber pulley tension.

I did not recommend a narrower profile belt.

 

[houser52]

Hello houser52,

I apologize for forgetting to ask you this earlier but does the flail mower sound like a high end vacuum cleaner when you are mowing??? you may have to goose it a bit higher on the engine rpm side, I am so sorry I did not think to ask you this earlier.

Would you mind posting a few pictures of the flail mower rotor, the rear roller and the mounting arms for the rear roller?

You and Island Tractor have the same mower but different mules and I am still upset that it is not working for you as it should be.

Leon

I put on the new duckfoot blades yesterday but here are a few pics that you asked for.

 

[houser52]

As I mentioned earlier, I installed the new duckfoot blades on my Caroni TM1900 yesterday and had enough time before dark to try them out.

Everything seems to be balanced as I didn't have any mower vibration at all. I had weighed each blade at exactly 6 ounces each. These new blades have a different sound than the Y blades when the machine is running, more like a deep hum of a heavy duty vacuum cleaner. Raising the mower while cutting creates a cloud of clippings and dust from under the mower. The blades must create a lot of suction.

I have the cutting height set with the roller in the fourth hole from the bottom which makes it set pretty high which is the way I want it. I ran the tractor at a little less than 540 PTO speed and the tractor around 2200 rpm.

I tried it first by cutting pretty thick 8" grass around my tractor shed. The finish was very similar to my zero turn leaving a nice clean cut. I then mowed about another hour around the old home place in similar grass and it mowed just as well.

It's probably too early to tell but the new green Kevlar belts are holding up well so far.

Here's a couple before and after pics of the grass at my tractor shed.

 

[lpigott]

Looks nice! Is it safe to say, at this point, you prefer the duck foots over the Ys?

 

[leonz]

Hello and good morning houser52,


I am glad the knife change helped with the mowing issue and the cut looks good.


Leon

 

[houser52]

Looks nice! Is it safe to say, at this point, you prefer the duck foots over the Ys?

The duckfoot blades definitely cut the grass and weeds that I mowed yesterday better than the Y blades. Keep in mind that this was pasture like grass that didn't have any rocks or brushes and the duckfoot blades did not suffer any damage from some small dead pecan branches that was run over.

I've only got to mow with them for a couple hours under good ground conditions but I really like them so far. I think they're going to work out great.

 

[DoubleDeere]

good to see you are making progress houser52. I am attaching some photos and a PDF to try to explain better the flail mowers idlers and v-belt reverse bends issues. Not sure if it helps anybody understand or not. I am not the best at explaining things.


View attachment Idlers.pdf

 

[houser52]

good to see you are making progress houser52. I am attaching some photos and a PDF to try to explain better the flail mowers idlers and v-belt reverse bends issues. Not sure if it helps anybody understand or not. I am not the best at explaining things.


View attachment 523262View attachment 523263View attachment 523264View attachment 523265

Thanks and I understood what you were talking about earlier. A shorter belt would mean less belt wrap around on the v pulleys creating less contact and less friction like in the first pic. If I can get a 1 inch shorter belt to fit over the pulleys, I'll give'em a try. Can't hurt.

 

[whirly]

View attachment 523262

Thanks for the PDF. Very enlightening.

 

[DoubleDeere]

Thanks and I understood what you were talking about earlier. A shorter belt would mean less belt wrap around on the v pulleys creating less contact and less friction like in the first pic. If I can get a 1 inch shorter belt to fit over the pulleys, I'll give'em a try. Can't hurt.

When I watched your video I noticed the sharp reverse bend on the idler. That photo I snipped from your video to compare it to the other photos. As the belts stretch the reverse bend will increase on all 3 of the units. The Vrisimo has the largest idler on it of the 3 and should lessen the sharpness ( small radius ) of the reverse bend. Anything that you can do to decrease the reverse bend on it whether it be shorter belts or larger idler pulley I would think has to help increase the belt life. The other caution would be, you do not want to do anything to create to much tension on the belts causing decreased belt life and bearing life.