PT425 Lawn Job Pics

[Sedgewood]

<font color=green>Now I wonder why you got four and I got two... must be part of your advance commission on my machine.</font color=green>

Ok Charlie, Sean says two is standard and you must have added two more so I guess I'm not supposed to know about the er... commission. Anyway, he sees no need for four blades except perhaps in really heavy thick grass. I've been having some problems with just that - 10 inch thick stuff apparently overwhelms the RH set and leaves an uncut strip at the left side of the RH set. Have you had this happen with your super four blade setup? I have a set of blades coming and will give it a try with four.

 

[Charlie_Iliff]

<font color=red>10 inch thick stuff apparently overwhelms the RH set and leaves an uncut strip at the left side of the RH set</font color=red>
I have that same stripe. I don't think it is the cutter being overwhelmed, but rather the guide wheel flattening the stripe and the rough-cut blades not having the lift to pick up the stripe on that side of the rotation. I only get it when I am going fairly fast and trying to take high, thick grass all the way to 3 inches, or so. (Of course, that's most of my pasture mowing.) There is a little of the same effect when the left side of the deck is in the new heavy stuff, but not as much, so I try to cut with that side.
Some day, I'll mount the finish blades, which are rigid four per spindle, and see if they have more lift in the heavy stuff, but for now I'm venturing too often into old kudzu which conceals stumps, rocks and old fence wire. I'll save the finish blades for lawn work.
And you're right - you're not supposed to know about my commission.

 

[Sedgewood]

Charlie <font color=red>I only get it when I am going fairly fast and trying to take high, thick grass all the way to 3 inches, or so. (Of course, that's most of my pasture mowing.)</font color=red>

This is of some concern to me because historically most of my mowing has been of the brush-hog-it-once-a-year-in-Aug variety and I've been planning to sell off the 5ft Bush Hog and mow with the 6ft rough cut - and faster too! Alas I may have deluded myself. I am however so happy with the results that I may just cut more often since it does go much faster and is less physically tiring as well. Now to convince my brush hogging customers to go along with the gag.

I have that northern kudzu variety in great abundance - multiflora rose - some of it now reaching the tops of trees twenty to thirty feet in the air!

 

[Charlie_Iliff]

Re: 1845 Rough Cut deck

<font color=red>Now I wonder why you got four and I got two... must be part of your advance commission on my machine.</font color=red>
Call it a senior moment. After reading your posts, I drove home, cranked it up, picked up the deck and looked under it (for probably the second time since it arrived.)
To my amazement, I found that six of the blades that I remembered clearly had either fallen off or been swiped by that BX cult that GlennMac warned about,
The finish blades do indeed have rigid crossed flat blades with four cutting tips, but my rough cut setup only has two hinged blades per stump jumper.
Hmmm: having unintentionally misled you into ordering another set of blades, I'd think Power Trac would at least pay a commission on those. Of course, you can get even easily. Just report that with two more blades on each stump jumper the stripe goes away even in 1 foot stuff at 12 mph.
Stay tuned - further misinformation inevitably to follow.

 

[Sedgewood]

Re: 1845 Rough Cut deck

Charlie<font color=red> Hmmm: having unintentionally misled you into ordering another set of blades..</font color=red>

You didn't - I ordered the blades last week to have a spare sharp set on hand. I will of course try it with four to see what if any difference it makes - other than giving the mushrooms more to chew on.

 

[Charlie_Iliff]

Re: 1845 Rough Cut deck

<font color=red>This is of some concern to me because historically most of my mowing has been of the brush-hog-it-once-a-year-in-Aug variety</font color=red>
I don't know how your season has been, but here after a fall and winter drought we had a bit more than average rainfall in April. The result is the fastest and probably the thickest pasture growth I've ever seen. Ten days ago I cut one field after only one week, and was wading through four to six inches of thick new growth (multiple kinds of grass and broad leaf weeds). That was the worst week, and I saw the uncut stripe a fair amount. Earlier, taking only an inch or so off, the cut was almost finish cut quality. It may be that the once a year brush hogging in August will still work fine if the growth is dry enough to spring up before the blades get there.
Incidentally, we are seeing some similar stripes with the 72" Woods rotary behind the JD 950, where the tractor tracks aren't being lifted and cut cleanly.
I'll be interested to hear how the 4-blade setup works.

 

[Sedgewood]

Re: 1845 Rough Cut deck

Charlie <font color=red>I don't know how your season has been, but here after a fall and winter drought we had a bit more than average rainfall in April.</font color=red>

It didn't really start raining here until May. Its been raining off and on now since Sunday with some flood watches even. It was a first mowing Saturday in a particularly lush spot where I had the uncut stripe. One to two inches is as you say almost finish cut quality. If it doesn't quit raining soon I'm gonna have a lot of lushes to catch up on! It'll be interesting to see if the dry stuff in August cuts better. It may. Or the sheer volume of it might plug up the works.

 

[bubenberg]

sedgwood, i don't know if you are just joking or are you really trying to sell more mowings per year and field. if your intentions are "honorable" here is what you can say in our general area, especially if you do horse pastures. whatever grass stands in a horse pasture after four weeks the horses by nature will only go closer to those areas if they are undernourished. nature makes them stay away because they hate to eat to close to their own manure.
another point of selling more cuts is broad leaf control. the more one mowes the thicker the grass gets the longer the grass growth the bigger the gapes between plants becomes and these gaps become fertile areas of broad leaf growth.

 

[Sedgewood]

bubenberg <font color=red>sedgwood, i don't know if you are just joking or are you really trying to sell more mowings per year and field. if your intentions are "honorable" here is what you can say in our general area, especially if you do horse pastures.</font color=red> No horses. No nothing. Just barely manage to get my neighbors (we share a common 1500ft road) to mow once a year to keep the forest at bay. Some of them, and myself included, for a long time only got to it once every 5-10 years. Just often enough to keep a meadow a possibility. So more than once a year might be a stretch unless they see how nice my place looks with its PT manicure. The rough cut handles the 10 year old stuff and multiflora rose quite well and gives a far nicer finish than the Bush Hog ever did. Now I'm promoting woodland walking trails and open parklike woodland; PT wriggles through the trees where I couldn't even think of going with the Bush Hog. Plus the steering acuracy and having the mower up front means I'm not barking the trees as I go. This is all just a sideline to me to get to play tractor and to help pay for the toys. I've lined up more work in the month I've had PT than I usually do in a year. Mowing. Brush clearing. Road regrading. Ditch cleaning. A new culvert. Debris cleanup. Even mowed a lawn. Might get the snow plowing too. And this thing is waaaaay too much fun. Now about that day job....