Flail mower vs a finish mower

I have been cutting the fields (10 acres) at the church with a finish mower now for 20+ years. The 6' one I have now is about worn out.
Had a friend tell me I might want to look at a flail mower. He claims they do as good a job and last longer.
Anyone ever used one? What is the advantage? The finish mowers I have used seem to do just fine...unless I let it get too high.
Thanks in advance for your input.

I don't know about lasting longer ? I flail mower I had worked good but no where near as nice a finish as rotary finish mower .

The flail mower will take more power to run. I think the finish mower does a better job. I'm on my third finish mower, the first one purchased in 1975. I mow 2a of grass and a little of anything else around I need to cut. The one I have now is about 6 years old and is in good shape and still looks new. They all seem to be built alot better than the early models. I didn't like the king cutter and had problems with wheels, bearings, and belts with it. They are still building the same thing too so I would stay away from it. If you take care of it I think anything you buy will last you other than the king cutter.

Yeah...I am looking at a Bush Hog 6' rear discharge. They claim it does not windrow as bad. I don't need to bale it like Allan so I want to spread it out a little better.
I have the hp so that is not a problem.

We have 4 bush hog finishing mowers. They do a very nice job.

Use a 5ft bush hog finishing mower behind my 1951 JD M to mow the front/back yard and around the shop. Yard looks like it was mowed with a push mower.

If the grass being mowed is thick and tall, the side discharge mowers will leave a heavy row of cut grass but no worse than any other mower.

Have sold them both for 35 + years.. Unless you have to use a frail mower you don,t want it. We sell them in trailer parks and to cities where there is a danger of throwing rocks into something..Up keep is more, cost more on the front side and will not cut as well in taller stuff.. Can,t think of benifits for a home owner to go to a frail mower..M 2 cents worth.. for free

I have a woods 6 ft rotary mower I use in my mowing business. In tall dead grass, mostly wild oats it leaves some what of a row. If I use my 7 1/2 ft flail mower it will leave the grass fairly flat which looks better to the fire dept. My flail mower will leave some stems standing if I mow green weeds. I think you should stay with your finish mower. Stan

You must be quite a salesman if you're been able to sell FRAIL mowers for 35 years!

I'd think most guys would want a TOUGH mower, not a FRAIL one!

jm, you didn't sell fLail mowers for 35 years. If you had, you would've looked at the literature at least once, and realized that they're called fLail mowers, not fRail mowers.

Frail means feeble, weak.
Flail is a slinging, whipping action.

Unless, of course, you're an employee in a Chinese restaurant. Then all your Rs are Ls and all your Ls are Rs.

It does seem odd that someone that sells them can't spell them correctly. There is some mis information on here. First of all you can't lump all finish or all flail mowers in the same category. That would be like comparing the cheapest garden tractor to a commercial golf course mower. In heavy cutting a good flail like a Mott/Alamo will take less HP to run than a comparable rotary mower. A flail with enough power behind it can cut tall grass to a finished look in one pass. Again a good flail like an Alamo. Like rotary mowers, flails also come in rough cut and fine cut versions. Flails can also come in reverse rotation. A reverse rotatation fine cut flail will give the nicest cut of any flail. In fact a flail mower could be used for any application except a golf course green and have been used on sod farms. A good flail mower will cost a lot more than a rotary finish mower but will last a long time if properly maintained and used. Flails are the safest mowers because they will throw any rocks or debris into the housing and not out like projectiles. The knives are designed to fold around obstacles as well. If the field you're mowing isn't maintained like a normal lawn and is rougher with perhaps some debris, then your friend is correct that a flail would be a good choice. If it's a nicer lawn a rotary finish mower will do a nice job and cost less. If you do look at flails, compare the type of knives and construction of the machine with an Alamo. They are the standard to compare with. They have much heavier construction and HD components through out. Lots of municipalities and railroads use Alamo flails because of their safety and HD construction. I hope I've cleared some things up for you. Dave

Thanks Dave...I will look into what you said. One end of the place is pretty rough. I have tried to level it out with a landscape rake...but there are a lot of ruts. Folks drive across it to go fishing...and the ruts turn to man killers when the gumbo dries.

A rotary shredder can use different blades to vary how good a finish cut it makes. My woods has 4 choices of blade types.

My experience with flail mowers is they cost too much initially for what you are doing. A good used finishing mower like a Brush Hog will do just fine. I have a 3 blade 6 foot finishing mower that mows 4.6 acres of grass from nice suburban lawn to rough pasture with tall weeds. With 50 HP behind it, the mower rarely has to retrace its path to get the real tall stuff. Tall brome grass is the stuff that is the stuff that usually needs a second pass. It lays down too easily.

I use a 5 ft Bush Hog Finish mower. Works great unless the grass is to high. Hot as it is this summer that happens to often.

A flail mower will cost more than an equivalent finish mower, but it will do a MUCH better job. The flails pick up the grass that has been laid down by the tractor's tires, resulting in an even cut.

You'll probably end up going with a rotary finish mower simply because of cost, but take a good look at a few flails before you decide.

If you have the tractor for it I would recommend a 7 foot Farm King/ Allied/ Buhler finish mower. They are well built and have rollers under the front of the deck to help prevent scalping in rough ground. They also are rear discharge so there is no windrowing of the clippings. Here is a link:
http://www.farm-king.com/landscaping/finishing_mower/index.php

The up front cost is much less than a flail mower and the on going maintenance is much less on a finish mower. Also the mowing speed is slower on a flail mower if you want a good cut quality.

A Farm King finish mower is built like a box with square corners that collect and build up with cuttings. A flail will cut at the same speed as a rotary. Flails can do in one pass what a rotary would need 2 passes to get the same finish. Flails leave a very even discharge across the full width without anything to block the cuttings and have a full width roller to prevent scalping. I suspect that a lot of the posters on here have never used a flail mower. I know of Mott Interstators that were still in use after more than 20 years on the job in commercial applications. There are cheaper flails like the Fords and JD's but they are just that, cheap copies. Look at the thickness of the deck on an Alamo Super Heavy Duty flail and then look at a Ford. Look at the ring mounted blades that swivel in all directions for safety on an Alamo. If you want a HD mower that will last for decades and give you a manicured look, it would be very hard to find a better unit than an Alamo flail. They are more expensive but are true HD machines. For a good rotary finish mower, look at an Italian Sicma. Comparable in cost to a Farm King but has a formed steel deck without square corners for cuttings to collect in and cause plugging or big clumps of cuttings to be left in piles on your field. Dave

In the early 70's when flails weren't as common, my dad demonstrated one of the first Mott Interstator flails to the City of Edmonton. There were several big shots that were skeptical of this new type of mower, so they had the demo in a field with about 4 ft. tall grass. One of big shots was barely taller than the grass. The tractor was a 6600 Ford with an 88 inch PTO unit and 2 74 inch Hydraulic side units. The height of cut was at about 4 inches and my dad told the operator to put the tractor in first gear and put the PTO to 540 RPM. The tractor went about 10 ft. and all the big shots jaws dropped! The shorter big shot then said we have to get one of these. After that demo, they were easy to sell. Of the first 100 Interstators sold, my dad sold almost half of them. The city bought several and gave glowing reviews to anyone else that was skeptical. After seeing them in use, they sold themselfs and in the 70's a 2 sided Interstator cost about $25,000 and the tractor was a similar price. The inventer of the flail mower(Mott) was an engineer with IH but IH wasn't interested in his new mower design, so he went out on his own. His new hammer knife mower was the reason Ford, JD and a host of others started making flails. Mott was bought out by Alamo but are still the best machines on the market for what they're designed for. Dave