wood vs king kutter

[ykpowers]

I just recently purchased a 8n. and I am looking for a finish mower. I have found two for sale locally. 1 is a 72 inch King Kutter the other is an a RM 59 wood mower. They are both about the same price. is one brand more recommended than the other. Does one hold up better than the other. Or is there anything special I need to look at when purchasing a used finish mower.

thanks in advance for any advice.

 

[Thomabear]

I had a RM59 and I didn't like it. The baffling was poorly designed and it left a wind row that had to be passed over again after the grass dried. Not sure about king cutter...

 

[LD1]

The 6' cutter will work the 8n harder. The 8n doesnt have a good selection of slower gears, and if you try to mow anything heavier than normal, it wont do as well. But KK finish mowers in general are pretty good IMO.

 

[jpm1]

I have a Kig Kutter 72" fiish mower, I love it! Its mowed close to 10,000 acres now with little money put into it. Ive replaced the axle bolts and wheel bearings at the cost of about 25 bucks. My mower mowes rain or shine hard dry ground or wet muddy ground. Where ever the grass is is where my KK will be. the only thing i didn't like about my KK was the single pickup chain in the back. I changed it to a chain in each corner because my ground is rough where i transport to and from. When this machine finally dies there will be another KK in my shop.
What a lot of people don't realize is King Kutter is a major producer of equipment and of good quality too. here are a couple of pictures when my mower was newer. . . .John

 

[MitchellB]

I got an older King Kutter and my complaints with it are the 4 tires have tubes. They were all flat when I bought the mower and required 4 new tubes before they would air up; solid tires would be better in my opinion. My other worry is the top chain connection from the top link attaching point to the rear of the mower. I think the newer King Kutters use a double line brace there instead of the single brace like I have. I keep my loose chain ends tied up to prevent them from getting into the PTO when I mow in a deep dip where the rear of the mower raises up causing the chain to slack and lower. The sheet metal is a little light weight too. Mine had a thick layer of flaking rust on top where it had been stored outside in the weather when I bought it that made it even thinner in places. However, the light weigh makes it easy to move and pull.

What I like, are the anti-scalping roller mounted on the front-center, the floating wish-bone hitch and the fact it uses 4 tires on the ground for the deck to ride on that follows ground contours well. While the plastic cover with 2 hold down screws makes getting into the pulleys & belt easy to clean it out, I don't trust the plastic cover to hold up to much abuse, but it has been OK so far. Mine uses a single very long belt that may be a little pricey at replacement time. I've replaced my 3 blades with new ones which were easy to do with my impact wrench (single bolt each - Left hand threads as I remember) and not very expensive for the new blades. This one is a side discharge, but I think the newer models are rear discharge, which would also be better to have to prevent windrows.

 

[LD1]

I will also mention, that depending on tire size and spacing, you may have an issue with the front wheels on the mower hitting the back tractor tires when raised.

I know from experience that an 8n with 12.4x28 tires and a KK 5' mower dont work well together

 

[ykpowers]

View attachment 410878
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Mitchel that looks very similar to the one im looking at. Have you had any issues with lifting and tire issues like noted above?

 

[MitchellB]

Mitchel that looks very similar to the one im looking at. Have you had any issues with lifting and tire issues like noted above?

Mine is a 5 foot King Kutter. I wanted a 6', but got a good deal in this used 5' model (needed repair). It worked find with no clearance issue on the rear tires of my 8N which I think are 11x28. My 8N had no power problem running a finish mower. In fact, I used to have a 5 foot Bush Hog that would really work the 8N hard, but still had the power to cut down anything the tractor could push over. I never cut anything but grass with the finish mower though and rarely knew it was behind me except for the noise.



In the first and this picture, my 5 foot King Kutter is attached to my newly purchased (last year) 861D Ford with fairly new 14.9x28 rear tires on it. I had to move the King Kutter front tire arms in as far as they would go in on the mower housing to clear the tires on the 861D and then it is a tight fit to clear the tires when raised. A 6 foot King Kutter may have the tires positioned wider still and be an easier fit.???? I also always use my trailing anti-sway stabilizer arms, so the mower does not swing from side to side.



I don't have any pictures of it when it was attached to my 8N though. Sorry.

 

[davethegundoctor]

I have a 72" Land Pride that does a great job. I use it on a Kubota Grand L3540

 

[paulfun9]

I have a 72" King cutter rear discharge. I'm sure there are better mowers out there but for the cost they are a very good set up. I have to point out the fact that the one pictured is a side discharge I would recommend holding out for a rear discharge mower as it eliminates windrows very well. I wont buy an other side discharge mower ever again!

The wheels on the newer ones at TSC are solid and the decks seem to have been built a lot better than the older ones I saw for sale used when we were eyeballing getting one. After looking at a few different used ones we decided to just go get a new one at TSC, it seemed the best way to ensure we didn't have to mess with fixing it and knew from the start it would be taken care of and lubed properly.

The drawbacks to it are as mentioned the wheels can contact the rear tires of some machines when raised but don't seem to be a problem for anyone we know of when in use on the ground. With my DK40 they touch when raised about half way but higher or lower they don't. The other thing we had to deal with is the pins for holding the wheel assembly where you adjust the height would break and get lost very quickly. This was due to the travel being able to move the wheel up and down very quickly letting it hammer the pin on ruff parts of the field. The solution is to install a spring from the local hardware store between the top spacer and a washer just below the clip which keeps a constant pressure rather than a quick uncontrolled drop and rebound. Cost about 5 bucks to cure the problem.