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Commercial use flail or rotary advise?

B

Brozum01

New User
I run a small brush hogging
business. I have a woods 6ft
rotary and an Alamo shd74 flail. A
45hp tractor. I have a couple
larger commercial accounts 30
acres. In the past Ive always used
my rotary for these. Which would
be best for me fuel and travel
speed wise. With the rotary I can
generally cut 2-3 acres per hr
depending on the property. It
generally over grown grass for
these accounts..Will the flail
require more hp and will I have to
travel slower?
 
One factor the commercial cutters consider when making that decision is , throwing of rocks and limbs. They use frail mowers to mow in areas like mobile home parks, where damage from rocks could be present. I agree with the others your frail mower is going to use more fuel but might be saffer in some applications.
 
Thank you guys! These properties don't have much risk of damage from debris. Sounds like I'll continue to use the rotary. Just wish I had a deck over trailer so I could get wider than 6 ft on the trailer
 
(quoted from post at 05:46:26 04/09/23) Thank you guys! These properties don't have much risk of damage from debris. Sounds like I'll continue to use the rotary. Just wish I had a deck over trailer so I could get wider than 6 ft on the trailer
Click to expand...

I've been custom hogging for years with this setup, can go back and forth so the field looks like a lawn when done. Plenty of happy customers charging $100 an hour, usually around $40 an acre max.
8' Bushhog 3008 and Allis Chalmers 175 diesel (slightly modified).
You would have to be flying to cut 3 acres an hour with a 6' LOL!

mvphoto104421.jpg
 
Does it have to be chopped up fine or could you use a 3 pt disc mower? You could make some good time with one of those.
 
Depending on the terrain it cuts 2
ft grass and weeds pretty clean in
medium range with the pedal almost
to the floor 5-6mph without
working the tractor or egt temps
getting too high. I was wondering
if I could get a clean cut with
the flail at that speed
 
Also depends on the pattern. I just do circles around the property. I've seen a lot people brush hog like they are on a zero turn with a back and forth pattern. That means the mower spends less time cutting and tractor spends more time changing direction of mow. If the blades aren't cutting then your wasting time
 
The Flail mower cuts everything 3 or 4, maybe more times, rotary mower probably only cuts stuff twice. I used to chop corn stalks with our 6 ft Brillion rotary mower with 35 hp Farmall Super H, 3rd gear 5 mph, mowed hay with it too with two right side panels removed so it tossed cut stuff out. The 7 ft sickle mower would have been faster except it was wore-out, sickle sections and ledger plates wore out, lots of plugging.
 

I started out with a 6' cutting in circles, could never go back. Twin spindle does such a nice job mulching and no rooster tails the next day!


mvphoto104424.jpg


mvphoto104425.jpg


mvphoto104426.jpg
 
(quoted from post at 09:04:05 04/09/23) Depending on the terrain it cuts 2
ft grass and weeds pretty clean in
medium range with the pedal almost
to the floor 5-6mph without
working the tractor or egt temps
getting too high. I was wondering
if I could get a clean cut with
the flail at that speed
Click to expand...

5-6 mph with a rotary mower is a bit fast, most recommend 4-5 mph travel speeds
I was going to recommend upgrading to a small batwing mower, but this post about pedal near the floor and egt temps leads me to thing your using a compact hydrostatic drive tractor
If so is the 45 hp mentioned the gross engine hp or pto hp
It make a difference, 45 engine hp equals to 35-38 pto hp and thus smaller than imagined by many of us older tractor owners
 
Yes 45hp engine. I'm aware of the
limits of my pto hp and
technically 6ft rotary is about
max. Traveling 5-6 mph is only
when the rpms are not dropping,
motor isn't bogging and it's still
cutting clean. I've actually mowed
6-8 ft weeds at 3-4mph without
motor bogging, rpms dropping and
still cutting clean. The key is
making sure the clippings can be
discharged properly. If it begins
to bog at all I definitely slow
down. Egt temp guage is only so I
can monitor and not accidentally
melt a piston or burn an exhaust
valve
 
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