Fallon
Super Member
Yes I have read all all several hundred pages of the massive flail thread, contributed to it a fair bit too...
I've got an old beat to **** 7' Ford 917 fail mower with side slicers. I bought it for $100 & have around $600 into it and a few weekends of cutting, welding, bearing replacement & what not. It still works well but it's probably suffered 30 years of abuse before I've started beating it up in the past couple. It's noisy due to several cracks in the hood I haven't gotten around to welding up & just generally getting worn out. It has side slicers on it which do good on grass, but gnaw on heavier brush a bit while failing to shred it as much as I like. I mostly do field & pasture mowing. I do hit a bit of brush & Yucca (think knee high aloe like cactus made out of burlap) so probably need to look at something beefier. I don't do lawns, but I want to get a decent cut & mulching action.
I had been lookig at a WoodMaxx FM-78h with duckfoots ($2,500) as a direct replacement for the 917 with a hydraulic sideshift & trash door. But I've got some heavier jobs on the horizion, so I really should be looking at a machine rated to 2" material instead of only 1".
I Pinged my local dealer about a LandPride flail that will eat 2" material all day long & got this:
FM2584 $4,975.00
Duckfoot Knives $1,617.00
Heavy Y Knives $2,040.00
Hammer Knives $1,372.00
Brush Rake $250.00
I pinged the Iowa farm guys & got:
I pinged Iowa Farm Equipment & they had 2 prospects they recomended
Peruzzo Elk 2000, 79 Flail Mower with HD Cast Hammer Blades (duckfoot), Manual Offset & PTO Shaft - $5,499
Weight is 970lbs
Finally called them here today & had a chat. They are recommending hammers as giving a good cut on grass being able to occasionally eat 3"+ material. They can get dull, but can be sharpened, unlike the lighter duck foot knives, which only apparently work well on lawns. I forgot to ask, but I'm concerned I might end up with a green implement behind my orange tractor though.
A 7-8' Vrisimo 300 is over $10k from ETA or elsewhere I can find online.
I poked at the Alamo website & their Interstater & Super Heavy Duty Flails are only rated to 1", which is a lot less than I'd expect given their reputation. All their other gear seems to be hydraulic for mounting multiple flails on big machines. Haven't been able to find any prices around either.
Those are some pretty hefty prices that make me me choke a little. But it's the direction I should probably go for a machine that will last me for a few decades & stand up to abuse better than the 917. And given I paid only $100 for my old Ford 917, everything by comparison is insanely expensive. I was slightly concerned that the beefier knives/hammers will give me a much lesser cut on plain old grass, the Iowa guys seemed to put those fears to rest.
I think I've got it in my head that a Peruzzo Bull 2200, 86 might be in my future after my Christmas bonus shows up here soon. Looking for people to help rationalize my decision or talk me out of it (maybe into something else).
I've got an old beat to **** 7' Ford 917 fail mower with side slicers. I bought it for $100 & have around $600 into it and a few weekends of cutting, welding, bearing replacement & what not. It still works well but it's probably suffered 30 years of abuse before I've started beating it up in the past couple. It's noisy due to several cracks in the hood I haven't gotten around to welding up & just generally getting worn out. It has side slicers on it which do good on grass, but gnaw on heavier brush a bit while failing to shred it as much as I like. I mostly do field & pasture mowing. I do hit a bit of brush & Yucca (think knee high aloe like cactus made out of burlap) so probably need to look at something beefier. I don't do lawns, but I want to get a decent cut & mulching action.
I had been lookig at a WoodMaxx FM-78h with duckfoots ($2,500) as a direct replacement for the 917 with a hydraulic sideshift & trash door. But I've got some heavier jobs on the horizion, so I really should be looking at a machine rated to 2" material instead of only 1".
I Pinged my local dealer about a LandPride flail that will eat 2" material all day long & got this:
FM2584 $4,975.00
Duckfoot Knives $1,617.00
Heavy Y Knives $2,040.00
Hammer Knives $1,372.00
Brush Rake $250.00
I pinged the Iowa farm guys & got:
I pinged Iowa Farm Equipment & they had 2 prospects they recomended
Peruzzo Elk 2000, 79 Flail Mower with HD Cast Hammer Blades (duckfoot), Manual Offset & PTO Shaft - $5,499
Weight is 970lbs
- Choice of various Y blades, duckfoot (only recommended for lawns) & hammers
- Optional Hydraulic Offset Kit (10 left or right) - $395.00
- Optional Front Gauge Wheel Kit - $395.00
- Weight is 1,550lbs
- Hydraulic offset standard
- Hammers
- The cool looking hydraulic weed eater side cutter thing for getting up next to fences & obstacles adds on a way impractical $3k, way out of my budget for gadgets
Finally called them here today & had a chat. They are recommending hammers as giving a good cut on grass being able to occasionally eat 3"+ material. They can get dull, but can be sharpened, unlike the lighter duck foot knives, which only apparently work well on lawns. I forgot to ask, but I'm concerned I might end up with a green implement behind my orange tractor though.
A 7-8' Vrisimo 300 is over $10k from ETA or elsewhere I can find online.
I poked at the Alamo website & their Interstater & Super Heavy Duty Flails are only rated to 1", which is a lot less than I'd expect given their reputation. All their other gear seems to be hydraulic for mounting multiple flails on big machines. Haven't been able to find any prices around either.
Those are some pretty hefty prices that make me me choke a little. But it's the direction I should probably go for a machine that will last me for a few decades & stand up to abuse better than the 917. And given I paid only $100 for my old Ford 917, everything by comparison is insanely expensive. I was slightly concerned that the beefier knives/hammers will give me a much lesser cut on plain old grass, the Iowa guys seemed to put those fears to rest.
I think I've got it in my head that a Peruzzo Bull 2200, 86 might be in my future after my Christmas bonus shows up here soon. Looking for people to help rationalize my decision or talk me out of it (maybe into something else).