Mowing grass hay with a bush hog?

Today I will try to find and fix the problem, but in the meantime, need to mow hay. I understand some folks mow with a bush hog, if it's one with "removeable sides." Mine has fixed skirts all around, but a neighbor has a new JD that has fixed sides, but an open back with short lengths of chain hanging down across the open back. I could remove the bar that the chains are attached to and have the back open, then raise the back so the back cut doesn't mulch alrady cut grass.

I haven't found one yet that I can borrow with open sides. Any experience out there with the open back? Will this work? I hope to get my sickle working again, so this is just temporary, but don't want to end up with mulched grass either.

Thanks for any advice.

Chuck, WA

Chuck, WA

You need to look into a CCM drum mower. They will not clog up and will mow at 14 MPH. The will mow any type of hay in any condition. They are low maintenance and less than $2,500 NEW.

I believe you're treading very close to the edge on the non commercial advertising policy of this forum.

Chuck, WA

Thanks!
Chuck, WA

Mine was modified by a previous owner. It was originally a towed mower, but somebody cut the towing structure off and did a poor job of replacing it with a 3-pt sructure. It's badly balanced for my tractor (MF35 without down pressure), has no break-away (assume it went with the towing parts), and as far as I can tell, no way to adjust the blade angle relative to the tractor. It does have an adjustment for angle relative to the ground (tip the guard teeth up or down), and I set it someplace medium, which gives a nice cut without hanging up on anything.

Last year, the poor welds done by the guy who modified it broke when I'd just started mowing one cutting, and I had to take it to a friend's place where we rebuilt part of the structure, and offset it more for better balance and alignment of the pto and mower drive line.

I've replaced a few guards and all sections, but at about $10 each, replacing all guards isn't in the plan. I've toyed with trying to replace ledger plates, but haven't got the courage to dive into that.

I've set the clearance of knife sections to about a 6 mil gap, but cumulatively, that may be too close. I've set the hold-downs - with a 3 lb sledge as seems to be the practice - but again, while no one of them seems overly tight, collectively, they might be causing too much friction.

Last year, the problem was that there seemed to be a hold-down that was too loose and the grass would jam without cutting. After I tightened it up, I had a couple of pretty good cuttings where I could whip along at the right speed to get the grass falling backwards instead of forwards, but then it gradually got to where it would start to jam again. Before this cutting I was ready to give it up and replace it, but when I looked at what I could afford, what was out there looked in worse condition, and shorter bars (mine's 7 ft.), so I decided to try to fix it.

So, while I sure understand the need for maintenance, I'm trying the best I can, but begin to wonder when a thing is just too worn out in places that are not readily replacable for someone without a machine shop.

Thanks for your reply.

Chuck, WA

You aren't going to believe this, and I wouldn't if I hadn't seen it either, but last night I went out to work on it. Turned it over by hand and it was just as smooth as could be - no binding at all. Put it on the tractor and mowed part of a field to test and it was going like gangbusters until the balljoint on the bar slipped off. Looked at it pretty hard and decided I can adjust that, even though the normal adjustment mechanism seems to be worn badly enough to not work as intended. Think I can shim at the pitman end and make it work.

I wouldn't say this on other forums, but around country folk...we've done some praying over that mower and our hobby haying operation in general. Nuff said. I can't really explain it any other way. The only thing I did was to disconnect the lift mechanism that wasn't working anyhow on the outside chance that it might be dragging someplace inside, but it was disconnected before during one of the "binding" times and I see no reason that would make a difference.

Will be out this morning after the dew is off to fix that ball joint and try again.

Thanks for the replies.
Chuck, WA

Mike

he had stems tall enough my rake was haveing feeding problems the hay DID NOT CURE as fast because of the greenness of the uncut stems keeping the MULCH green
and the bales were just so hard to get up to the 40" long he had to have since they kept busting and with the green and 120# bales most of the time he tossed it out, because his horse wouldnt eat it.

hey the guy was cheep-- had to have his money's worth at 25cnts per bale he didnt want to get cheated