Flail Mower Let's talk flail mowers

[ddbackhoe]

Greetings ddbackhoe,

Don't let it get out that the rototiller is actually a flail mower:laughing:

I remember reading a while back that a mott flail mower was mistakenly used as a tiller and it was sold to a new owner.


I want to welcome you as the newest resident member of the "Flail Mower Nations" from the Great State Of Maryland.

About a potential skid steer mounting; Do you have a high flow hydraulic system on your skid steer that can run at least 25GPM through the hydraulic gear or vane motor on the gearbox with number 12 hose when it comes time to build the mounting plate?


You should have no trouble selling it here on the articles for sale page.

Thanks for the welcome.. I'm using standard flow to turn a 7.9 cu.inch motor at 540 rpm for a post hole digger. Mower should be ok with same setup.

 

[leonz]

Keep this in mind please;

The post hole digger is a much higher gear reduction when you do this as you may end up on the low side
as you need a 2,200+ RPM flail mower rotor speed to have it work correctly.
Finding the drive and driven pulley speed when the mower is operating on the tractor should be your guide with
this plan.

The other thing to keep in mind is whether your current motor has a case drain to return the oil entering the seal side of the hydrauloc motor bac to tank to keep the seal back pressure at 12-15PSI to prevent a blow out and the loss of oil.

 

[ddbackhoe]

I will be driving the flail mower gearbox with a hydraulic motor @ 540 rpm, same as hooking to tractor rear pto @ 540 rpm. If I'm happy with the upfront performance, I'll put my pto pump unit on the tractor, buy new hoses and put the flail on the loader.

 

[leonz]

Hello ddbackhoe,

So you have a three point hitch mounted reservoir with an integral pump already?

 

[ddbackhoe]

Hello ddbackhoe,

So you have a three point hitch mounted reservoir with an integral pump already?

yep, sure do

 

[Weedy Fields]

There is a Alamo Flail Mower for sale on my Local Craigslist.

Alamo Flail Mower - farm & garden - by owner - sale

Hope not to offend anyone but someone once gave me a heads up on one for sale so I'd like to pass on the favor.

 

[Code54]

I bought an Alamo this year and it is Excellent - far better quality than a lot of the ones out there. If you watch the used market you can find some good deals. The one Weedy Fields posted looks like it had little use.

 

[KTA CAT KILLER]

So after reading all these pages you guys convinced me to go with a Flail mower. Now my situation was a little different because i wanted something to mount on the front of my Steiner tractor. Steiner does make a rough cut mower but i dont like it because its a little too wide for what i wanted to do at 72 inches and i dont like that it doesnt use any kind of break away blades and it is also much more money than i wanted to spend. So i started drawing up plans and doing research to build a brush hog for the front of the Steiner. then i found the thread, read the whole thing, scrapped my plans and started new plans for a flail. i was lucky enough to find a 50" flail mower for the front of a Jacobsen golf coarse mower for $300. I then cut the mount off, made my own mounts for the steiner, then made a jack shaft pulley system for the Steiner belt drive to the Jacobsen gear box. This thing worked out much better than I ever expected. It takes down tall grass and 1" bushes and it will cleanly cut my lawn if i want to. Being on the front of the Steiner the maneuverability is fantastic and i can mow very extreme bank sides now which is what i wanted when i started this project. There is a few cons, one being that with the mower mounted in front the radiator gets plugged with in 30 minutes of mower and the tractor starts to get hot. Im not very upset with this because i have a removable screen that i can brush off in seconds . The other problem i have with the mower is i think it has too many knives for my intended use. This mower uses something like 60 or 80 pairs of Y blades (i counted once but i forgot) and while that many works great for lawn or thinner grass i think it takes too much power in really thick grass. i want build another rotor to swap in that has about half the hangers so that i can switch between bigger Y blades and hammer knifes. I know the added stress this will put on the bearings and gear box and im willing try it. does any body know how hammers work in really thick grass? my first instinct is that they would work good but i was hoping someone could tell me for sure. sorry about the long right up. i have a couple videos of the mower on youtube, one with it action and one comparing tall grass mowed next to lawn.

Steiner 42 with Flail mower - YouTube

Jacobsen Flail mower on Steiner 42 - YouTube

 

[leonz]

Greetings KTA Cat Killer,

I want to welcome you as the newest resident member of the "Flail Mower Nations".
Please fill in the rest of your information so that we can help you better.
It will be less expensive for you to purchase a front mount Caroni B 2 row flail mower and mount it on your Steiner tractor
BUT In saying that if you have a three point hitch on your Steiner Mule it will be much simpler to mount it on the rear of your current mule.

Now both the Caroni B series flail mower rotor and the Scoop type knife uses a 2 piece mounting system to help protect the knives and the flail mower rotor.

Before start on your project, do not start on it. Please understand that it takes huge amount of engineering and work to make a new flail mower rotor from scratch as you need to be able to access and use a high speed balancer to balance the flail mower rotor when welding on each knife mounting station each time you weld on a knife mounting station. Tthe flail mower rotor will spin at 2200+RPM when operating.

Another option for you to examine is to simply remove two rows of knives as long as they are opposite of each other and continue mowing that way with less work and chaff.

 

[whirly]

Nice job!