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Rotary mower brand recommendations please

D

Dale39

Member
Looking at buying a 6' 3PTH rotary mower, for mowing weeds, ditches etc. I know a lot of people call them by the brand name Bush Hog, so it leads me to believe that Bush Hog is a well-respected brand. Is the Bush Hog the best quality and value machine? Or what are you using and like? Will be using it with an MF 135.

I already have an 84" 3 blade finishing mower, which I don't want anymore, its not suited for wacking tall grass and weeds down, with the belt driven blades.
 

I have a Woods myself, but as all of them are simply sheet metal and a gearbox, I don't see that brand can make much difference. I would look at a Woods or Bush Hog first then look at others that are available. Compare thickness of sheet metal and bracing between sheet metal and gear box mounting. My woods has a clutch as opposed to just a shear bolt. I see that as being very beneficial in protecting both the mower and tractor drive line.
 
Maybe a minor issue but you might note which designs have the smoothest deck top. Keeps grass residue from collecting and rust
getting started if you don't keep it well blown off after use. Also might think about the grease zerk and drive box oil access.
Some are handier than others.
 
Most of the major brands have economy, middle of the road, and the heavy duty type mowers. You can pick the model that most fits your needs. Howse makes good mowers at a reasonable price. I have a 6' that I bought in 1976 and it still does a good job. Bush Hog, Woods, Modern, Rhino, are all good mowers.
 
As mentioned, match the hp rating of the mower to the task and they last a long time. The light
duty ones get torn up in a hurry smashing brush. The medium and heavy models are a big jump up
in price that doesn't get you any needed features if you just mow grass and weeds.
 
I have owned light, medium and heavy duty rotary cutters of various sizes and manufacturers. Currently, I own a 5' Frontier (sold by JD), a 6' Woods BB720X, and a 7' Woods BB840X. I just sold a 10.5' Woods MDS 1260.

I bought all of these new and shopped Bush Hog, Land Pride and Woods before buying.

You will find that smaller, light/middle duty cutters will have a bushing in the tail wheel while the HD models will have a roller bearing. This is important if you plan to keep your mower awhile. The bushing will be a constant source of maintenance even if you grease it regularly while the roller bearing will last a lifetime, even if you do not.

I have mixed emotions about slip clutches. They work well if adjusted to the HP rating of your tractor and are properly maintained but few are. If you do not loosen your slip clutch and slip it every year or so the clutch pack will rust resulting in no protection of your tractor PTO system. Very, very few folks do this.

Dean
 
I have a John Deere and a Land Pride rotary mower. Both work great and I've never had any mx issues or problems. The drive shaft and gear boxes are the guts of the machine. Stay away from any Chinese mowers. My neighbor bought one and went through 4 gear boxes before he bought a better quality machine. Check CL as there are usually a lot of good used mowers that have few hours on them for a good price. I do like the mowers with a clutch for the gear box as they protect both the mower and the tractor from damage if you hit a stump, rock, or heavy piece of metal. Keep the gear box oil serviced and grease the drive shaft frequently.
 
Had my 5 ft Bush Hog for 25 yrs, worked great (shear pin). Now have a 6 ft. Bush Hog for cutting corn stalks, also works very well (slip clutch).
 
I too like the Woods X series especially the blade mounting system Woods uses. The X series is heavy with the 120 hp gearbox and 1/2"X 4" blades and 6 yr. warranty on box, will cut 3" stuff! A light tractor will need front end weight if it can lift it.
 
Having owned about six of them over the years, there is a difference in mowers, even in the same width. Unless you are only
mowing a flat horse pasture a couple of tines a year, go with a medium or heavy duty machine. If you get into some heavier brush,
go with the heavy machine. The gearboxes will be much heavier and the sheet metal will be much thicker. The cheaper light duty
machines will be paper thin in comparison and prone to bending in heavy cover. They will also rust through quicker than the
heavier units. Go with what you can afford, but remember you will be fixing a light one more often.....
 
I run Bush Hog and am satisfied. As others have said, the sheet metal on one is usually the first to give trouble by the abuse a cutter usually gets. Most gear boxes properly maintained should be about the same. Compare the deck thickness is where I'd start, then bracing, and then cost.
 
I have a Mahindra (Kodiak makes it) 6' 3pt job, with slip clutch. Seems to have held up pretty well over the past 2 years. I have not tried to cut too many trees
with it, though. I will say that with sharp blades, it will handle most saplings that it's encountered fairly well. The sides have bowed out some from hitting
hidden rocks, and I'm having to replace the blades one day this week. But, the cutter is 2 years old, and has mowed a LOT of grass and cleared up a lot of
ground. You 135 should pull it fine, I pull mine with a Farmall 300 so we're about evenly matched. I also have an 8' pull-type cutter (Deere MX8) that I use for
bigger places but that isn't what you were asking about.

Whatever cutter you decide on, do yourself a favor and buy a slip-clutch model. I fought shear-bolt cutters for years until I bought my 6' cutter. Simply slip
the clutch about once a year and you'll have no worries. Keep it out of the rocks, too. That's what's been hardest on both of mine, all the d@mn rocks around
here. Both my cutters have their sides bulged out somewhat from hitting them in the field. Otherwise, the Kodiak has held up well. Keep the slip-clutch, blades,
and gearbox in good shape and you will be good to go for years.

Mac
 
There are lots of good comments below.

This may sound a bit detailed but I would suggest you look at the blade mounting method. Can you set how much the blade deflects reliably and that deflection is reasonably maintained. I have a Woods X Series, it uses a shimming system that seems pretty good.

Where I am there are lots of stones. This can drive damage to the top sheet metal or any of the framing below the sheet metal when the blade deflects. I don't go looking for stones but sometimes they are where you don't expect them. The same with stumps.

Paul
 

Rotary cutters,, brush hogs, shredders.........

Worse thing to do,,, is to leave all the grass and dirt on top of the shredder (as they are called down here). Leaving the top covered will hold moisture on it and rust it out quickly. Parking it with it at an angle to let water run off will help, but most brands trap water on the decks due to design of frame.

As others have said.. there are consumer grade, medium grade and heavy duty highway grade. But for just cutting grass, a consumer grade will work fine.

If your cutting light brush, lots of rocks, then you might move up.. If your clearing heavy brush, then the biggest, heaviest, will be worth the 3 times the price.

Stump jumpers if rough, brushy or even rocky... help get the center over obstacles. If tractor is over 35 hp, then consider a slip clutch. If brushy, a slip clutch will save a lot of time as I can break 10 shear pins a day and run out of pins and have to quit when clearing/ reclaiming brushy pastures.

Shredders are not designed to clear heavy brush, but... if it will push over, some folks will do it. Cant tell you how many shafts I have twisted.
 
We bought a new 6 foot Bush Hog 3 years ago and I'm pretty disappointed with it! It's the medium duty one because we are using
it on a JD4600 and I didn't want anything heavier. The blade mount that some call a stump jumper is oval, not round, so it has
a leading edge to strike objects. On the cheap King Kutter we had for 12 years the stump jumper was round like it should be
and was never a problem. On the Bush Hog the edge of the pan would bend up and hit the frame underneath. Then I would have to
crawl underneath with a pipe wrench and straighten it out. My solution was to pound it back into shape, weld up the cracks,
install gussets, balance it, and put it back together, It works fine now, but I haven't hit anything yet, we have a lot of
stumps and rocks. I have the slip clutch set a little looser than recommended, it will be cheaper to fix than what's
underneath.
a169769.jpg
 
(quoted from post at 19:29:15 08/22/17) We bought a new 6 foot Bush Hog 3 years ago and I'm pretty disappointed with it! It's the medium duty one because we are using
it on a JD4600 and I didn't want anything heavier. The blade mount that some call a stump jumper is oval, not round, so it has
a leading edge to strike objects. On the cheap King Kutter we had for 12 years the stump jumper was round like it should be
and was never a problem. On the Bush Hog the edge of the pan would bend up and hit the frame underneath. Then I would have to
crawl underneath with a pipe wrench and straighten it out. My solution was to pound it back into shape, weld up the cracks,
install gussets, balance it, and put it back together, It works fine now, but I haven't hit anything yet, we have a lot of
stumps and rocks. I have the slip clutch set a little looser than recommended, it will be cheaper to fix than what's
underneath.
a169769.jpg
Click to expand...



That looks like a John Deere (a Frontier mower with JD decals on it).
 
When I was shopping for a brush hog a few years ago, I got some good advice from an old codger. He said I would be ahead in the game if I found a good 15 year old or so medium duty unit used, rather than a new one of any kind. I guess the steel they're using now is pretty bad, and the materials are not very good.

I bought a Howse that's at least 15 years old. It's got a few dings in the side, and needs new blade, but it does the job with my little 8N at near sea level.

I was thinking of replacing it, but I just changed the lube, and bought one blade, and it's working fine. No clutch, but I'm careful not to go over much rocks.
 
Hardee makes a great mower and does not change many parts over the years they seem to stick with what works. Thus parts are easy to get
 
(quoted from post at 22:10:37 08/22/17) When I was shopping for a brush hog a few years ago, I got some good advice from an old codger. He said I would be ahead in the game if I found a good 15 year old or so medium duty unit used, rather than a new one of any kind. I guess the steel they're using now is pretty bad, and the materials are not very good.

I bought a Howse that's at least 15 years old. It's got a few dings in the side, and needs new blade, but it does the job with my little 8N at near sea level.

I was thinking of replacing it, but I just changed the lube, and bought one blade, and it's working fine. No clutch, but I'm careful not to go over much rocks.
Click to expand...

Doc, that advice holds true for many things. Case in point LG tractors and ZT mowers. Domestic units designed for five years, commercial designed for thirty. A ten year old commercial for half the price of a new domestic, will be going strong for another twenty years.
 
I've probably bought and sold half a dozen or so over the years, all different brands and in different shades of destruction from new to
worn out U joints.

They all cut if the blades were sharp. I never wore one out. Some had leaking boxes which Lubriplate 105 grease fixed. I did tear up a
central gearbox on an 8' twin blade Mohawk once when I got high centered on a terrace. Due to my ignorance, lack of attention to proper
servicing/setup or something, I ripped out the gears on the central box with a 100 PTO tractor.

One thing it did do for me was to ensure that the gearbox was rated for more hp than the tractor's rating the next time I bought one.
 
I'm surprised by all the people that like the slip-clutch versus shear bolt. On a bush hog designed for a 30-45hp tractor, I think the shear bolt design is just fine. I like the idea of KNOWING that the bolt is going to pop and not hurt the tractor. The slip clutch can be/should be tested 1/year to make sure it's working, but I'll bet the majority of people never do.

If that clutch doesn't slip when it's supposed to...serious problems are pretty much assured. Hopefully all of the damage is in the bush hog and not the tractor. Maybe I'm just paranoid, but grade 5 bolts are like $2.00/lb at the hardware store and it takes like 1 minute to throw a new one in.

Now if I was clearing/re-claiming pastures for a living, or had a much larger tractor, I'd go slip-clutch. Odds are you would exercize that clutch pretty regularly in unknown areas, and productivity would be a bit quicker than jumping off the tractor 3-5/ job in a rough area. I knock the weeds/trees down in an area I'm very familiar with...so I rarely need to throw a new shear bolt in.

We have several old Bush Hog branded rotary mowers around our place. Another is JD branded...not sure who made it. They are all beat to hell and rusty. Keep the blade sharp and the gear box full of lube, and they all work just fine. Buy at least a medium grade model and I doubt anybody could tell the difference between any of them.

Use some sort of grader belt or rubber matting to keep rocks from beating up the back of your tractor or giving you a nasty welt when you get into any rough areas.
 
Thank you to all for your responses. Much appreciated and I will consider your advice when shopping for a mower.
 
Thought I would update you on this- we ended up purchasing a Woods RC6, an old stock 2017 model from a dealership in SW Ontario. I do appreciate all your input on this, a forum like this is a valuable resource.

Haven't used it much other than try it out in a ditch....I think I'm going to like it! It'll be used on the 135 most often.

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