Brush hog vs. Sickle Bar vs. Flail Mower

Good day!

I still have not bought a mower for my M, but a discussion that was on this board has spurred me to thinking. I had been primed to get a tow-behind sickle bar mower (preferrably without a pitman arm) so as to save what little top soil I have here on the high Colorado plains. I have decided against a brush hog type mower, because they raise so much dust, most of which is our pathetically thin top soil.

An earlier discussion raised the possibility of a flail mower. I hadn't heard of these before. Do they kick up dust like a brush hog does? There is always danger with implements. I am keenly aware of the dangers of a sickle bar, which is why I have hesitated to purchase one. What are the dangers of a flail mower? What maintenance is involved with one? What hints and tricks do y'all have regarding mowers in general?

Need more info. What exactly are you mowing? Brush? Small trees? Just grass?

In my opinion, a sickle mower is the safest - any rotary or flail type mower has the potential to fling rocks and hurt people.

A sickle mower will not throw rocks or debris. The only time it would be more dangerous than the other type is when manually raising and lowering the bar for transport - just keep your fingers clear!

Here are a couple of videos to show what a sickle mower will do in grass/alfalfa/etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opMByfDDfzk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWLEffYTPBk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mmi7Yq1Al4

From what I know about a brush hog is that they are a rotary type like a lawn mower (with heavier duty parts, of course) and they mulch whatever you are cutting so it rots more quickly into fertilizer.

And what I know about a flail mower - the ones I have seen referred to as a flail type look like a garden tiller that is running really fast to cut off grass, etc.

I'm just mowing Colorado high plains prairie grass. Not a tree within a mile (exaggeration). I was leaning toward getting a sickle bar mower, especially a balanced head tow-behind.

I am in the Deep South and I have been told that our moist, thick grass will bunch up and make a sickle bar ineffective.

For hay purposes, a PZ brand disk mower wins hands down. For brush and pasture mowing, a Bush-Hog (rotary) is the most economical, but cut quality is poor. My personal favorite is a flail mower. Low dust, clean cut, and fairly low maintenance. I have actually used it in my yard before.

The flail has a rotating drum with clevises hanging on it. The clevises hold two L shaped knives. These are slung outward by centrifugal force. If they strike an object, they swing away (like a root, rock, engine parts, ect). I am sold on the flail mower. They also have fine and coarse cut knives for different purposes. Golf courses use them on the roughs.

This is a Mott 88" Flail with COARSE knives installed... The FINE are closer to true 90 degrees out. These are about 50 degrees.





I downloaded the manuals from Alamo and they state if you feel vibration, there is a problem. If all knives are installed, you can place a cup of water on top of the mower and it will hardly ripple the water. And that is probably from the driveline and tractor.

Charles

Thank you for the information and the pictures. A picture is worth 1000 words.

I didn't know about fine vs. coarse knives. Thank you for that tidbit. Dust is one of my main concerns, so it is good to hear that this is a low-dust thing. Here, dust means I'm losing top soil, and I have so little already. The high plains of Colorado is essentially desert. We're in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains, and Pacific moisture has a hard time getting over the peaks.

I don't think I'll have problems with cutters clogging, as most of the stuff we have here is so dry. I know what you mean about clogging, though. When I lived in the Dallas suburbs, I bought a 5HP mower that was only 20" wide. The grass got so thick in the spring rains, it used to bog out my old, smaller (3.5hp?), wider mower.

Some of the things that have given me pause on the sickle bar mower are finger hazards and keeping the cutting edges in reasonable condition. It probably is just that I haven't done it, but it seems like a hassle to replace cutting teeth on a sickle bar. Riveting and un-riveting teeth seems time consuming, though I don't expect to have to do it very often. I can readily see where replacing the flails on a flail mower is rather simple. The flails even appear to be sharpened on both sides, so you can reverse them when they get dull or whatever. And the flails seem to be inexpensive. They sell for $10 or $15 on ebay for a 10 pack.

And it appears as if I can adjust the height of the flail mower pretty high. I could probably engineer something to mow even higher. I want to take down the tall grass which is the real prairie fire hazard, yet keep the little leaf-ear cactus which is about 6 or 8 inches high. Either way, this has got to be better than my 20" walk behind mower for mowing open prairie.

All of our sickle-bar mowers have been converted to bolt-on sections. Two bolts to switch out a section. And we use IH swather guards so there aren't any ledger plates to bother with, either.

If you wanted to cut 8 inches high it wouldn't be too tough to rig up a guide wheel on each end of the bar to hold it up that far...

A flail or sickle mower will probably work for your intentions.

A bush hog can be set to mow high as you probably want to mow around 6in high or so. Sickle will mow too close and get into the small rocks and the like.

The flails reverse just like a hay mower. You adjust the height of the flail by adjusting the roller in the back. You could possibly raise it up and use it with the roller off the ground. Remove the roller and install some sort of gauge wheels to protect the cacti.

As I type this, I was thinking. All types of mowers make some dust, even a sickle. But RoundUp does not. :lol:

I may mow a swath to show the cut quality with the COARSE knives. Maybe.

Charles