Not worth the expense and trouble????

Lloyd In South Carolina · Mar 12, 2015

We moved to our new place we started building 5 years ago, awesome! Our little peace of the country.

We have about 4 -500' of ditch (4-5' wide trench) that runs through our meadow for water control, and a small 1/4 acre pond that I need to mow around. I've been using the weed wacker, and its a pain. Especialy around the pond, it chucks the clippings in, and our south carolina clay/mud is sticky/slippery! I will end up in sooner of later!

My question is, I am thinking about a sickle mower. Read many threads here, and it seems the least cost method for me to offset mow from my tractor seat.

It is often mentioned they are hard to connect, diconnect. I see a few Ford 501's, 515's, and NH 450's around for sale. Is this a worth while investement, or will it be too much trouble to connect and disconnect, and I should stick with the wacker?

Interested in opinions. It would seem if I buy a good condition machine, with the litte I have to cut it would last a very long time.

L.

Tracy Brown · Mar 12, 2015

I took one in on trade once and hooked it up to make sure it worked b4 I sold it. I said I would never do that again. Royal pain. You don't see them very often but if you could find a trailer type, that should be much easier to hook/unhook and should work almost as well.

Dick2 · Mar 12, 2015

Depends on what system you devise for hookup. We arranged so the front hitch plate of the mower would bolt directly to the flat portion of the drawbar on our Farmall B. Always blocked up the front of the mower so we could back the hitch under the mower, bolt the mower hitch to the tractor, remove the blocks and connect the PTO and we were ready to go.

We used both a JD and a New Idea mower with the same hookup.

MikeJM · Mar 12, 2015

Years ago we bought an IH 140 with a hydra-clip sickle bar mower mid-mounted on it. We use it to mow around the fence row and around were the spring runs. Ours is the newer one with the wobble box, it will mow any angle, which is why we like so much for trim up type work. And believe me I abuse it, if it fits in the guards I'll cut it, if it jams it's hydraulic so you reverse to clear and then back to forward to finish the cut. The only thing that would make it better would be on a larger tractor with a longer bar, I find I want a little more reach. For the type of mowing we do I don't want to see any other type of sickle mower.

paul · Mar 12, 2015

Takes just a couple minutes to hook up once you develop a system, no big deal. On of the easier chores on the farm.

Back when dad had the mid-mount mower on the Oliver 88, now that was work, bolt it on and get the pto pulley on and belt on.... Blah.

Paul

wellmax99 · Mar 12, 2015

I have the MF#32, not one of fergy's best efforts, but it makes a fair ditch, pond clipper.

remember: you are not going to be cutting heavy rank hay.

if you take it off/on with the blade down and scotch the machine properly, you can re-hitch next time fairly easy.

REMEMBER: this can be a dangerous machine, if the upright blade falls over on you or you get your hand in the cutter bar trying to push/pull it hitching up.

be very careful around one if you have no prior training experience. its like a snake ready to strike at any time.

the old Ferguson equipment films show transporting the machine to the field with a cover guard over the bar, when they got to the field and let the bar down, then they took the bar cover off, placed it in the fence row,

then reattached it before placing the cutter bar in the upright position for transport.

good luck and stay safe,

Donald Lehman · Mar 12, 2015

Amen to finding a trailer type mower. New Idea used to make some pretty good ones. Be DARNED careful raising and lowering the cutter bar to transport position unless you want to cut off some fingers! Never, ever get off the tractor with the pto engaged!

tim(in) · Mar 12, 2015

We always had the wire slipped off a bale of hay then wrapped it around the sickle bar twice and twisted to keep sickle in place while lowering ,raising,transporting and storing. Just took it off when bar was on ground to mow. Be safe.

tim(in) · Mar 12, 2015

We always had the wire slipped off a bale of hay then wrapped it around the sickle bar twice and twisted to keep sickle in place while lowering ,raising,transporting and storing. Just took it off when bar was on ground to mow. Be safe.

tim(in) · Mar 12, 2015

tried to delete the extra post but couldn't find a delete button

Bill VA · Mar 12, 2015

My 2 cents....

I had a Ford 515 and have seen a Deere 350 (pretty sure that was the model and a Ford 501.

Never hooked up the Deere, but it didn't look to complicated. The Ford mowers looked fairly complicated. The 515 required a break-away bar from the right axle to the mower as I recall.

Presently I have a MF32 and the first time I tried to hook it up - I thought this is the worse. Then I figured out that if I set it on some blocks and tie it off at the top to a fence post (so it can't tip over), it was very easy. No funky brackets to fool with, only a stabilizer bar required on the right hand side. I guess that if you are selling the beauty and ease of the Ferguson 3 pt system you'd better design the MF sickle mowers to fit-up without a bunch of other brackets/cables - they did and it works!

If you got ditches, I'd forget the pitman mowers like my MF32 and look for a belt driven MF41 (or other make). Though I don't own one, I've read that the MF41 is one great sickle mower. With the belt, you can mow at much steeper angles than the pitman - which might be handy with your pond and ditches.

Good luck,
Bill

Bob · Mar 12, 2015

If the cutterbar will need to operate at any angle other than FLAT while mowing the banks, a "pitmanless" mower is a MUST.

(Example, John Deere 350 or 450, there's lots of others, as well.)

wellmax99 · Mar 12, 2015

great idea, I never thought of tying a wire around that blade to keep it from moving while raising and lowering the cutter bar.

however, knowing me, I would forget about it and tear up something when I turn the pto on.

but seriously: I have the up most respect for that old mower and what damage it could do.

it and the bush hog are the most dangerous tractor tools I have, one row corn picker is retired.

chainsaw is most dangerous non tractor tool I have.

Dave H (MI) · Mar 12, 2015

I have a mid mount mower I never take off the tractor...two actually, since the Cub has one also. There are also trailer mowers. Doesn't get easier than that.

Lloyd In South Carolina · Mar 12, 2015

Thanks everybody, great advice. I am lucky enough to have a failry new tractor (2004 JD 4510) and i have kept all the safetys active, so if I get out of the seat, everything stops!! A pain sometimes, but not as painful as the pain of a serious injury.

Thanks for all the advice, I think I will look for a wobble box unit of some brand (used market is limited) and give this a try.

Sure would be nice not to carry the wacker around for 45 mins to an hour!

L.

C. Amick · Mar 12, 2015

A highway type side-mount industrial mower that can mow at an angle seems to be the ideal type mower for you to me. They made those for Case VA's, Farmall Super A's and others. I know where there is one on a larger International tractor here in VA. It's been parked at the same location for a long time.

wolfman · Mar 12, 2015

A good little 7 ft 3-pt sickle mower is very handy. Something like an Int 1300 is very easy to mount and dismount, neat to store and can mow banks etc. I think the Int 1300, ford 515 and the New Idea ??? are the same mower in three different colors.

jsfarmall · Mar 12, 2015

There ya go! I don't know much about cutters and bush hogs other than Just what I have seen and what my buddies have. That tractor there would be good with a 3pt scicle or side cutter like your talking about. Do know a lot about newer tractors in general though. Most of the smaller utility tractors don't have much of a lug on the tires. With the ground being slick just wanna be careful.

dahlin · Mar 13, 2015

I have a Allis Chalmers B with a belly mounted sickle mower and Farmall Cub with the model 22 sickle mower both have pitmans and both have worked very well for me and have used both for mowing around ponds. I leave the Allis on all the time and it is a real nice tractor to operate.

showcrop · Mar 13, 2015

I used to mow with an old IH balanced head 3PT model. It was no big deal to mount/dismount it.

Texasmark1 · Mar 13, 2015

Couple of things from my limited experiences.

For pond bank cutting I think they work real well IF you don't have any trees or anything else around the bank. Gets to be a problem (for me) trying to navigate around obstructions, and keep the tractor relatively level....maybe 20 degrees tilt max.

On transport position, be careful driving down fence rows where trees usually populate. The cutter bar sticks up much higher than your perception of heights as a tractor operator and if you forget, and make contact, your cutter may be unusable as a result. Now how do you think I know that .............one broken wobble box casting later.

Mark

Blind hawg · Mar 13, 2015

We have a home made 12 volt rotary pond bank clipper on a side boom that came with a Wheel Horse garden tractor. 12" cut. Maybe you could do the same with that string trimmer

495man · Mar 13, 2015

A 3pt hitch sicklebar should not take more than a minute or two to dismount/mount IF you parked it blocked properly!

Easiest is bar down and frame blocked to have it park in "operating" position. PTO, lower links and top link. Easy.

Not worth the expense and trouble????

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