Rotary Cutter Which 5' cutter to get

[leonz]

I have simply stated that flailmowers
are safer method of mowing in my opinion
and Iron Horses excellent narrative only proves
it every time.

The physics of the operation of a rotary cutter
or finish mower as well as the open area of
inlet and or discharge of of some models create
the opportunity for the impact and ejection of
any object it encounters.

 

[kubotakid USA]

AMEN, SoundGuy, Our state Highway dept uses rotarys to maintain the Highway medium as well as our county road comm, One way to keep a mower from flying apart is regular maintence, And keep skatter sheilds in place, my personal prefference is #1 Land Pride, or Woods, Dealer support is key, I would think hard before, You buy one of those NH Boomers, Quite a few around here and a few sick about there purchase, A couple guys that i know personaly are stuck with em,.. They bought em new on long term loans. Go with Kubota, new or used they cant be beat :thumbsup: Eric

 

[Soundguy]

The physics of the operation of a rotary cutter
or finish mower as well as the open area of
inlet and or discharge of of some models create
the opportunity for the impact and ejection of
any object it encounters.

mitigate as best you can ( maintenance, inspection , shields/guards and insurance ), and go on and live your life.

If I worried about every single thing that could kill me.. i'd never leave home.

Heck.. you have a 1:3200 chance of being hit be debri from space.

at those odds, the gig i'm playing at tonight is gonna have 1.5 people being hit from something falling out of orbit...

not gonna worry about it...

if there was some amazing benefit to a flail mower.. that'd be what evert gov't agiency would be using full time. I think I may have actually seen a county flail mower where I live.. once. but I see plenty of rotary mowers all over the place.

soundguy

soundguy

 

[beppington]

if there was some amazing benefit to a flail mower.. that'd be what evert gov't agiency would be using full time. I think I may have actually seen a county flail mower where I live.. once. but I see plenty of rotary mowers all over the place.

I agree that there are no amazing benefits to them, except they provide a closer-to-lawn cut quality, cutting the vegetation into finer pieces, are less likely to dangerously hurtle large objects outside the unit itself, rarely if ever gouge turf, & are closer up toward the rear of the tractor for better maneuverability.

Of course each buyer needs to decide for himself if these characteristics justify owning a flail mower. Obviously for you, Farms With Junk & most govt mowers, it doesn't. For many owners of small to medium & maybe some large farms or ranches, & for some govt mowers, it does.

Alachua Co, FL has at least 2 of them in service.

 

[Farmwithjunk]

I agree that there are no amazing benefits to them,

It's not even that complicated.....

ALL of us are living under some sort of budget. Mine is based on what a very competitive market allows.

State maint, and private contractors log considerable hours on multiple tractor/mower rigs....The initial cost and maintenance cost of a typical commercial grade flail mower added to the slow mph's at which you can cut relative to the same width of a rotary cuts my productivity in half....Throw in the fact that the tractor to run a 15' batwing, vs cost of tractor to run an 8' rear mounted and a 7' side mounted flail is ALMOST 1/3rd LESS for the rotary.....compound that by the number of mowers at work....I'm up to 10 now...(7 bat wings, 3 single spindle) And don't forget the shear number of hours.....The cost difference between mowing with rotaries vs with flails is staggering. .....ALL my competition is bidding with "rotary cutter" numbers....I bid (and won) a specific state contract this year where I bid against 19 other contractors. My low bid was less than 2% from the HIGHEST bidder....Bid that same job mowing with a flail...? Bid would have had to be AT LEAST 30% higher....My margin of profit on that mow? (I do it 3 times per year...First 2 are done and paid....) About 7-1/2%

DO the math.....The inefficiency and cost of operation of a flail mower would eliminate any chance of being competitive....

There is only so much money to be had in what I do. Just because I'm infatuated with flail mowers, my competition isn't going to roll over and let me charge double for the work. The money isn't there, and real insurance company numbers tell states that the alleged "safety" of a flail vs real world safety numbers with rotaries doesn't warrant a change in bid specs.

I TRIED to make them work. Like I said in an earlier post....If I had all sorts of free time, and money truely was no object, there'd still be one more reason why I wouldn't own one....Their liabilities outstrip the advantages.....

Cost...Cost of operation...lack of productivity relative to better options....

 

[Soundguy]

well that's enough! ban all rotarry cutters.. they are too dangerous. Even though more people died last year from toothpicks and plastic fork accidents.


soundguy

 

[beppington]

well that's enough! ban all rotarry cutters.. they are too dangerous. Even though more people died last year from toothpicks and plastic fork accidents.

That's just because there were more people pickin' their teeth after picnics :thumbsup: ... than rotary cutters in use. No, I do not have statistics or facts to back that up :laughing:

I don't know if your reply here was toward me, but I'm not saying rotary cutters are bad, just that there are uses for both. In fact, I thought for a while I'd be getting a flail mower when I do buy a mower of whatever kind (been using my dad's so far), & I still might, but I've been having 2nd thoughts because, while I sure like the lawn cut from the flail, & the other benefits I listed, my very wooded property drops a lot of oak & other hard wood limbs ... the kind flail mowers don't handle well. And I don't appreciate having to get off the tractor to move limbs all the time.

 

[Soundguy]

the average person uses a plastic fork 1.5x per week.

every 15 minutes, someone, somewhere is injured or killed by a plastic fork..

i brought that up to illustrate the realative safety of a rotary cutter

leonz made them out to be something like a deathray from outter space cooking people by the millions


sure.. there are plenty of good legitimate uses for flails...and rotary's.. and people still using hand held scythe's..

soundguy

 

[TripleR]

I don't know why this always seems to bring out such strong emotions and sometimes personal attacks.

Rotary cutters and flail mowers work well for some or they would quit making them.

I have never owned or even used a flail, but people I know and trust have and like them.

leonz provides his opinion and others provide theirs, we can take it or leave it, I just don't understand the hostility.

I have gotten a lot of good advice and information from many TBN members including leonz and don't know why we can't remain civil.

 

[RoyJackson]

I don't know why this always seems to bring out such strong emotions and sometimes personal attacks.

Some folks are just so opinionated, they'll use any means to justify their post.
I've seen this from some of our armchair engineers on varous threads...which is why I use my current signature line, BTW.

The lack of civility does, IMHO, reflect the overall reduction of civility in the U.S. It just took a while to reach TBN.

Not a happy turn of events for TBN, unfortunately...

 

[BlacknTan]

Well, this thread taught me one thing...

I'm gonna' stay the he** away from plastic dinnerware from now on!!

 

[Soundguy]

I don't know why this always seems to bring out such strong emotions and sometimes personal attacks.

Rotary cutters and flail mowers work well for some or they would quit making them.

I have never owned or even used a flail, but people I know and trust have and like them.

leonz provides his opinion and others provide theirs, we can take it or leave it, I just don't understand the hostility.

I have gotten a lot of good advice and information from many TBN members including leonz and don't know why we can't remain civil.

I think it's the fact that someone says flails are better because they are safer, and rotary mowers are dangerous and kill or maim millions every day.

the statistics just don't bare that out....

any pice of machinery is inherently dangerous. As I stated before... plastic forks kill ALOT of people.. QUITE often.

that's a PROVEN statistic...

whatever mower an individual decides to use is their own personal choice. but to persuade someone to use one, implying if you don't that small countries worth of people will be killed?? well.. that's a lil mor ethan false advertising

no personal attacks there... just looking at reality.

PS.. death statistics are public knowledge... and pretty easy to lookup...


soundguy

 

[Soundguy]

Well, this thread taught me one thing...

I'm gonna' stay the he** away from plastic dinnerware from now on!!

for sure... pretty scarry deal there.

heck.. the 1:3200 chance of being hit by falling debri from space kinda makes ya think too. Once again.. the gig i'm working at today. there should be about 1.5 people hit with orbital debri.. so I'm on the lookout!



soundguy

 

[canoetrpr]

I have a 5' Woods bush hog - BB60 on my Kubota L3400 HST which is about the same size as the TC30 you are looking at.

I regret not getting the 6 footer as Soundguy was suggesting to you. I only mow 10 acres of pasture and do it regularly - every 5-6 days I move my cows from one paddock to the other and I go and mow up the stuff they didn't eat so as to keep the weeds down. My biggest complaint with the 5 footer is 6" overhang would be nice to get close to fence lines.

I think the TC30 will handle a 6 footer light/medium duty just fine wrt. weight and particularly if you keep it mowed. You can cut a smaller swath if you get into heavy stuff as well.

Also, any time I've purchased equipment, tools etc. of cheap quality I have regretted it. I have a 7' Kodiak rake which is a real piece of do do. The welds on the bracket that held the guage wheel assembly to the rake ripped out quickly. I've broken several 'tines'. I don't even use it that much and don't do very rough stuff with it. Get a Woods, LandPride or Bushhog 6' light / medium duty like the Woods BB72 and it will last you a lifetime.

 

[Pete Judd]

I find it interesting that my county has gone from fail to rotary mowers on the arms of their mowers for mowing the side of the rual roads. They lift them up high, and knock branches off trees, large open entry at the front, chained on the back side.

I am not mowing for a living, only for keeping the place up, and a couple of friends as well as a disabled woman at the bottom of the road. My mowers are 5 ft, and my 18 hp tractor seems to have enough power to run them. I did a 1/2 acre of black berry and scotch broom. all over my head when sitting on the tractor in about an hour. Most of the lost time was having to back into it to push the scotch broom over to push down the blackberry's to keep my blood in my body.

 

[Thick82558]

What was the question again
Oh ya you will never be sorry to buy quality. I have a 5' rotary cutter made buy new modern manufacturing. Galvanized deck 3/16 deck steel I think that it is 7gage
Built strong American made in Texas.
I am very pleased.
I also have a nh tc29da
It pulls the 5'er just fine through our thick grass we are on flat ground though. Give this brand a look. But just like anything you get what u pay for.

 

[MrWinkey]

If the guy who asked the question is still around......

My tractor is a 28hp Mahindra with 22 pto HP. It runs my light duty 5' king kutter just fine in grass taller than me. Someone posted the weights and I think it was around 530 and that's pretty hefty for a light duty mower. Best part was that it was in a flower bed behind an apartment complex!!!! Little wench time and 400 bucks I have a brand new cutter. Well it has sat outside for a few years but i don't even think it was used once! People think mowers are gold around here.

If I had a bigger tractor the 6' deck would have been my preference as it's wider and easier to get the fenceline. I'm limited on size because of access behind my shop.


Myself, I would get the tractor and the shop on craigslist for any attachments. Perhaps a neighbor will let you try one of the mowers they run?

Good Luck!