Flail Mower suggestions for B2650

[dirtydeed]

TT-

pm sent.

In short, it's been so wet here that I haven't even connected it to the tractor. I'll try within the next couple of weeks if I can. I have no reason to believe that it would be too much for the 2650 as I won't be cutting 5' tall weeds. I may try it over at my neighbor's property since his is drier than mine. Sorry, that isn't much help to you.

 

[dirtydeed]

Ran the flail mower for a bit last night on wet grass. I think it will do a great job. The HP of the B2650 seems adequate and will easily over rev the mower in short grass.

It's still so wet here that I know that I'll really need it. The grass will likely be a foot tall before I can mow. From what I can tell so far, the hammers do a very nice job on grass and they had no issue with some small brush that I eliminated last night.

Once we dry out a bit, I'll hop over to the neighbors pasture and give it some more testing. I'm planning on moving the mower out to its furthest offset to make it easier to mow the roadsides. I believe it will stick out about 7 inches beyond the right rear tire in that position.

 

[D2Cat]

Dirtydeed, what type of flails do you have? The hammer blades are meant for heavier brush.

 

[sheepfarmer]

D2 I thought it was the other way around? I have the paired knives type and they were sold to me as brush blades.

 

[D2Cat]

Sheepfarmer, those Y shaped flails will do fine on brush, and excellent on grass. The hammer flails will knock down much larger "brush", like small trees.

Here's an example of some weeds I cut a year ago with the Y flails. This stuff was about 5' tall and up to 1 1/2" stem and ground. I left it up about a foot off the ground just to see what it would do. It's an old manure pile composted to pretty much dirt, but I wasn't sure what might be in it!

 

[dirtydeed]

Dirtydeed, what type of flails do you have? The hammer blades are meant for heavier brush.

D2CAT,

I have the hammers. They do a reasonably nice job on grass as well.

Sheep- the knives that you have are meant for grass. But should cut small brush up thumb size thickness.

 

[hodge]

I have been looking at the Chinese flail mowers for a while, and I'm about 75% ready to buy one. I would greatly appreciate any input or reviews that you will have on your FH.
The one thing that concerns me- the lack of reviews on them. Numerous companies sell the same mowers, painted different colors. What few reviews that I've read, and videos seen, seem to be favorable. But, a lack of reviews is strange, this day and age.

 

[dirtydeed]

Hodge,

It will likely be a bit until I can give you a real "review"...still under water here.

I can tell you that the folks at BETSTCO were great to deal with. When I inquired, the sales lady offered me a "demo" unit (medium duty model) that they had used on site for marketing purposes. She was able to send me the mower and a complete set of replacement hammers for under $1200. I was a bit skeptical, but the unit looks brand new. That price is roughly half the cost of the woodmax. When I did inquire about the woodmax, the availability of mowers and replacement parts (hammers) were not available.

It looks like the mower is built fairly heavy (1/4" steel sides and 3/8" around gearbox). So far, I have no complaints at all. Then again, it hasn't been used very hard yet.

I looked for quite a while at used mowers and couldn't find anything that would justify their cost to that of a new unit with a warranty.


I'll post back when I have had a better opportunity to use it as it's intended.

 

[D2Cat]

Hodge, to get some feedback on various brands/types of flail mowers you might visit here. It's overwhelming, the information out there, so it takes a while to even absorb a bit of it.

https://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachments/118882-lets-talk-flail-mowers-579.html

 

[sheepfarmer]

Here is a link to an earlier discussion of the various blades. In any case if you don't like what you have you can change them. Mine, the y shaped shackled ones work fine for mowing pasture with wild rosebushes.

http://www.orangetractortalks.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20627



https://tractortoolsdirect.com/showroom/caroni-flail-mower-b-type-blades/

 

[RVS PERF]

Hi all, first post and newish tractor owner. Purchased a B2601 a few months back and just really getting a chance to start using it now that spring is here and the summer projects are starting. I have read till my head hurts on flail mowers and took a chance on the Med duty Betstco 53" FH-EFH135 a few weeks back. Had to clear some brush up for some fence installation and recently purchased 80 acres in northern MN that will need some ATV trails, hiking paths, shooting lanes for deer hunting, etc cut as well as some area for a place to set up camp till we get to building something. Got my first chance to use it the other day and so far very impressed.

Seems built as well as I would expect for a $1300 unit from China. Assembly was easy enough, instructions were a bit poor. But went together easy enough. I didn't go easy on it. Gave it the "throw it off the deep end" treatment and was pleasantly surprised! It ate up anything my tractor could knock down and drive over and turned it into a very fine mulch. Only had to slow down a little for anything over about 3" as you could hear the hammers slapping off instead of cutting. After about 3 hours of eating trees, down wood (some up to 4-5" thick!), a few rocks, a metal pipe and about 20 feet of steel wire there were only a few hammers with some very tiny chips in the edges. The thing is very smooth, quiet, and I had no trouble powering it even though they recommend a few more HP than I have. I think I'm going to enjoy running this one! I can't post pics yet, need to add a few more posts.

 

[RVS PERF]

Some pics of what I got to test on.

 

[dirtydeed]

Perf,

That looks great...nothing left but mulch. I assume that yours has hammers as well? I believe we have the same model number.

Which offset position did you use?

PS. congrats on the new machine.

 

[RVS PERF]

Thanks. I do have hammers. They took almost 0 damage through al the stuff and I was very surprised at that. I ordered an extra set of hammers and belts with the unit expecting to have broken a few with some of the large stuff I knew I would find under all the leaves and crap that's been left out there for 30+ years the house has been here. Looking forward to heading up north and making some new ATV trails and cleaning up the new property in a few weeks! I believe I had the skids at the 2nd hole from the bottom and the roller on the 2nd or 3rd hole from lowest setting.

 

[dirtydeed]

Got a chance to use mine today (same mower...FHM EFG135) on waist tall grass. No problem at all with the B2650. I could easily over rev the PTO if I wanted while I was in medium range. The mower did a reasonably decent job with the exception of some very wet/muddy areas. In some cases, it seemed to just bend the grass over and smash it down with the rear roller.

Overall, the mower and the tractor performed well. If anyone had any doubts, the B2650 handles the 53" mower without issue.

 

[Russell King]

How tall can you mow with the flail mowers? Or what is the highest setting on the mower?


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[dirtydeed]

How tall can you mow with the flail mowers? Or what is the highest setting on the mower?


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Depends on the mower. I saw some that 4.5" is the tallest setting. The one I got does 0-6".

They will go higher by just limiting the 3pt with position control. So, the rear roller would not be on the ground.

 

[Russell King]

Depends on the mower. I saw some that 4.5" is the tallest setting. The one I got does 0-6".



They will go higher by just limiting the 3pt with position control. So, the rear roller would not be on the ground.

Thanks for the information. I assumed you could hold them up but none of the sites really say much about that.

I will contact them about the HP required since my L185 is fairly low but what I would be mowing is fairly thick grass and no saplings.


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[dirtydeed]

Here's a quick tip:

When mowing tall weeds/grass in stump ridden areas, be sure to remove the front jack stand (if so equipped) lest your mower ends up like this...