Flail Mower Let's talk flail mowers

[Jack Yuan]

Thanks for the detail. I assumed all rows had an equal number of flails. I see that 1 row only has 2 flails. Bad assumption on my part.

Not all rows has equal number of flails. Just need to make sure rotor is balanced.

 

[jthibodeau89]

Thanks for the detail. I assumed all rows had an equal number of flails. I see that 1 row only has 2 flails. Bad assumption on my part.

Nevermind. I missed a couple in the photo. That is the 16 flail rotor. In any event, rows are not necessarily all the same depending on width. I assumed that all rows had the same number of flails. Not so on the 165.

 

[Jerik]

Just saw this on Craigslist: Older 6' Ford flail mower for $750, in case anyone is interested - Flail Mower - farm & garden - by owner - sale.

 

[TheFarmerInAdell]

I finally finished reading this massive thread. I might as well throw my hat in the ring. I bought this 5' Ford 917 recently (already posted it in a separate thread, but this thread is more impressive...). I'm still working on getting it fully functional. It was missing the rear roller and one of the roller supports. I'm currently having a local shop make them for me, and I have new bearings to install for the roller. The rotor bearings seem to be in decent shape yet. Just needed to grease them.

A number of blades were missing along with a few broken and the rest are horribly beat up. After reading this thread I've decided to get a set of both the original blades (airplane wings) for when I want a nice finish and a set of side slicers for knocking down some CRP land that is coming out of contract this fall after 20 years. I will only be grass (as far as I know...), any brush I'll take my brush saw along to cut down to ground level before mowing. I don't think I'll mow the whole 30 acres, just a nice path around the outside and burn the rest off :cool2: . I will also mow some trails. Once I have all the heavy stuff knocked down I'll switch over to the smooth cut blades to maintain it. Both hang on the same hangers and D-rings so no problems there. I'm also ordering a new belt (double V) to keep on hand.

I have played with it a little bit and it does cut decent on my little 24HP (18PTO) tractor. I can't lift it real high, but high enough to get it off the ground. It's HST so I can go slow in the heavy stuff. Overall the thing is in decent shape for being so old.

 

[Fallon]

I finally finished reading this massive thread. I might as well throw my hat in the ring. I bought this 5' Ford 917 recently (already posted it in a separate thread, but this thread is more impressive...). I'm still working on getting it fully functional. It was missing the rear roller and one of the roller supports. I'm currently having a local shop make them for me, and I have new bearings to install for the roller. The rotor bearings seem to be in decent shape yet. Just needed to grease them.

A number of blades were missing along with a few broken and the rest are horribly beat up. After reading this thread I've decided to get a set of both the original blades (airplane wings) for when I want a nice finish and a set of side slicers for knocking down some CRP land that is coming out of contract this fall after 20 years. I will only be grass (as far as I know...), any brush I'll take my brush saw along to cut down to ground level before mowing. I don't think I'll mow the whole 30 acres, just a nice path around the outside and burn the rest off :cool2: . I will also mow some trails. Once I have all the heavy stuff knocked down I'll switch over to the smooth cut blades to maintain it. Both hang on the same hangers and D-rings so no problems there. I'm also ordering a new belt (double V) to keep on hand.

I have played with it a little bit and it does cut decent on my little 24HP (18PTO) tractor. I can't lift it real high, but high enough to get it off the ground. It's HST so I can go slow in the heavy stuff. Overall the thing is in decent shape for being so old.

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The Y knives will do finger sized brush pretty well. Beyond thumb size it will do, but not well.

 

[TheFarmerInAdell]

The brush I have is sumac. And it seems that where there's one, there's a hundred. Only the outside edges are finger sized or smaller. The brush saw takes them out pretty quickly. No need to beat up the flail mower or my tractor when I have a good tool to do that job.

I did discover that my tractor has a mid mount mower, but only when the grass is at least as high as the floor boards. There is no guard over the HST cooling fan. I was mowing and heard a funny noise. Shut off the tractor and looked underneath and found a pile of grass tops cut off by the fan and stuck around it. That can't be good for the HST... :mur: . Time to make a guard out of some expanded metal I have sitting around.

 

[leonz]

Don't forget that you can mow in reverse to make your first pass to avoid having any grass and brush sucked up in to the cooling fan shroud.

Just as food for thought for you; your flail mower rotor has mounting holes for a full set of side slicers on each row and your brush will be sliced up to a much finer clipping and will dissolve that much faster.


You might want to give the folks at BXpanded and ask if they have or can make a solid brush guard for your Yanmar so that the entire underbody of the mule is protected.

 

[TheFarmerInAdell]

I don't really need to worry about mulching that fine with this mower. It will really only be used for large areas that are too rough for my riding mower and for trails where there may be natural debris. If I switch it to finish mowing I would need to buy 81 stations worth of knives, hangers, and D-rings (all of which are different than the rough cut version). That would cost as much as the mower itself cost me! Plus all the time invested in swapping back and forth all those blades. For what I'm doing the airplane wings will give a great finish. The side slicers will be used when opening up new areas which will be a rare event. With the price of the wings being almost double per station as the side slicers, I'll switch when needed. Who knows, maybe the side slicers will be good enough for what I want and I won't even use the wings :confused3:

 

[Fallon]

I don't really need to worry about mulching that fine with this mower. It will really only be used for large areas that are too rough for my riding mower and for trails where there may be natural debris. If I switch it to finish mowing I would need to buy 81 stations worth of knives, hangers, and D-rings (all of which are different than the rough cut version). That would cost as much as the mower itself cost me! Plus all the time invested in swapping back and forth all those blades. For what I'm doing the airplane wings will give a great finish. The side slicers will be used when opening up new areas which will be a rare event. With the price of the wings being almost double per station as the side slicers, I'll switch when needed. Who knows, maybe the side slicers will be good enough for what I want and I won't even use the wings :confused3:

Side slicers did fine on my 917 for pasture, field & a bit if brush mowing as my side gig. The heavy hammers on my new Peruzzo do a lot better on heavy wood stuff over finger size, but not any better for finger or smaller.

Changing out knives on my 7' 917 took around an hour when you factor in lifting it (SSQA to 3pt adapter kicks ***), undoing bolts & hammering on/off the handful of stubborn brackets. Not hard or that long. But also not that worth it to swap unless I break a knife.

And as always only work under things that are well supported by non-hydraulic means. The 2x4s aren't great, but held if I put the loader in float. Dont remember if the missing knives pictured were when I got it or after running into some rocks... or the well head. ;-0

 

[TheFarmerInAdell]

Your knife pattern isn't normal for a 917. For rough cut they use every 3rd hole, finish they use every hole. It appears someone decided to go between rough and finish and use ever other hole. Never hurts having more knives.

Did you have to modify your 917 to use the quick adapter? I bought a quick adapter that I'm going to mount onto a SSQA plate for my skidloader, mostly to move implements around. That would be a great 2nd purpose for the adapter.