If you need to mix material into the ground to make the nicest finish possible, as some land owners wants it, then I'm not sure that a "brush cutter" is the tool of choice.
However, for ground-level or above operations, if you're in an area with lots of rocks, you'd probably be better working with an excavator rather than a skid steer, whichever the cutting technology is your attachment equiped with. If an excavator is no option for you, and you know you'll work in rocky conditions most of the time, I'd honestly recommend to look at a machine different than the brushcutter-chippers we make.
However, if you might consider an excavator-mount machine, here's a few things to think about:
On the excavator, you'd have better control and visibility over what you're doing, and that translates in longer blade life, and thus lower operating costs. To give you an idea, speaking for our machines, our customers report on average a life of 300 hours on excavator-mount brushcutter-chippers, some really good operators bringing this up to 600 hours or more (but let's keep with 300 hours). On front-mount brushcutter-
chipper, the life is more between 80 to 120 hours.
Granted, the excavator-mount cost more before being ready to run (piping, hosing, installation labor, extra hydraulic stuff, etc...). But you could make up for the difference in half a year, just on the blade expenses:
Let's take our DAF-180D: 74" cutting width, 27 knives, for skid steer 70 hp and up with high flow, 30500$ US list price. If the blades cost 50$/each (our premium blades are actually a bit under that), and your in rough condition that gives you only 80 hours of life, you'd then end up with a cost of blades of 16.88 $/h.
Now, comparing with a DAH-125D: 48" cutting width, 17 knives, for excavators 80 hp and up, probably around 46000$, all installed, with optional hydraulic door (to limit projections). Still at 50$/each blade, reaching 300 hours of life, you'd end up with a cost of blades of 2.83 $/h.
Just by the difference in blade cost, you'd make up for the difference in 1100 hours (approx).
And with an excavator, any big tree you need to chip, you can chip it standing, from the top down, far from the rocks. With the skid steer, you need to make it fall, and then chip it lying on the ground, and thus going in the dirt, and all... That doesn't help blades life.
On the other end, an excavator might not be as easy to move around as a skid steer can be.
But also to be considered, when you're working with the skid steer, you need to use energy to move the carrier for every 74"-wide passes you have to do. With the excavator, you need to use energy to move the whole carrier for a much wider pass (reach of the boom from one side to the other).
You might start thinking you'll need both a skid steer and an excavator, hey?... Or at least that nothing is perfect down here
Hope this helps a little nonetheless...
Frederic
