Caroni TM1900 Flail Mower...

[Jelf]

@BotaDriver

I just ordered a TM1900 and it comes with the B rotor, same as the one you bought. Your experiment last year mounting finish blades on the shackles is quite intriguing.

Now that you have done more 'finish' cutting with your modified mower I am curious if that modification is still working well for you. Do you have any advice for someone considering the same mod?

 

[BotaDriver]

@BotaDriver

I just ordered a TM1900 and it comes with the B rotor, same as the one you bought. Your experiment last year mounting finish blades on the shackles is quite intriguing.

Now that you have done more 'finish' cutting with your modified mower I am curious if that modification is still working well for you. Do you have any advice for someone considering the same mod?

If you want to do any finish-like cutting what-so-ever, order the blades. After a whole season, roughly 1/3 of the blades needed some sort of attention. Some were in the 'replace' category, others just needed a couple seconds of angle grinder. I did mow over some larger rocks with the unit to see how it would handle them. It's important to know what the unit could handle. I was using it at a family members house and it caught a steel water meter lid. It destroyed the lid (the whole lid, not just a little lift plate in the middle) and didn't do much damage to the blades, and no damage to the mower. I hadn't yet swapped out the blades that needed attention, and I was unable to see anything that looked different than when I last inspected it, which is amazing due to how the steel lid looked (It got pulled up into the unit). I thought for-sure it was a major swap out of blades---still using the factory belts, I did make sure they were tight though.

You can use almost 2x the ground speed with the replacement blades than you can the factory blades, and still get a better cut. You may have to mow regularly every 7 to 10 days, and may still have to double up on any areas that are really thick with grass. The more offset you have the mower, the better (as long as your machine can handle the offset), this is due to the fact that the tires lay the grass down, and since it's a reverse rotation, it doesn't exactly pick it up to cut it. Best results are achieved with DRY grass.


Grease all of its points every mowing (do at least 5 acres per mow)

 

[Jelf]

Thanks for the info BotaDriver. I have ordered a set of the same duckfoot blades. Later this month after the mower is delivered I plan to mow some side-by-side stips comparing the OEM 'Y' blades to the duckfoot blades. I'll post pics.

 

[sheepfarmer]

Jelf I like the idea of your experiment! I still have the y shaped brush blades and have only used it on overgrown pasture (3 ft tall) and wild rosebushes and other obnoxious weeds. The pasture looked a lot neater when I went over it a second time a couple weeks later. And yes dry is better. I wouldn't mind if it looked nicer, but it is definitely doing what I intended. As far as I can tell the blades are all still fine, I have hit a few rocks, but haven't looked too closely since the pasture includes some poison ivy. Will clean them up when I'm all done mowing.

A user question, it dawned on me that turning sharp corners pushes the mower sideways on the skids where they could catch. Is it normal practice to lift an implement up before turning to avoid bending the 3 pt arms? (Hopefully this light bulb moment has not occurred too late, I hate learning things the hard way, but no one mentioned it to me)

 

[Bulldog]

I would lift it in a hard turn and not take the chance of bending or breaking something.

 

[sheepfarmer]

I would lift it in a hard turn and not take the chance of bending or breaking something.

Thanks Bulldog! It came as a surprise to me how much it swings north when you are trying to turn south . It is on a quick hitch which adds 4 inches to how far it sticks out, but is much closer to the tractor than a brush hog, but those mostly seem to have wheels.

 

[BotaDriver]

A user question, it dawned on me that turning sharp corners pushes the mower sideways on the skids where they could catch. Is it normal practice to lift an implement up before turning to avoid bending the 3 pt arms? (Hopefully this light bulb moment has not occurred too late, I hate learning things the hard way, but no one mentioned it to me)

The skids shouldn't be touching the ground, just as the skids of a 'bush hog' shouldn't be touching the ground. If either of the those 2 mowers will have the skids engage the ground in a turn due to terrain, you should lift them. I don't really consider gradual sweeping orientation changes turns. Turns to me are hard rights, or heading back the other way. U turns I foot brake, even right angle turns I'll drag the respective brake.

With the 1900 offset, I try to always cut in a manner where the offset is on the inside. That way only the inside set of tires are running over un-cut grass. I have R4s on the 3800 with 3" spacers so that I can use my root grapple that weighs nearly 900lbs (yeah, it's a bit much for the little machine and the spacers and lots of ballast are a requirment).

Which blades did you order?

I'm considering trying out the FM-220398 (page 29). Based on their shape, they look like they'd give MAX suction for lifting pushed over grass. The duck feet just aren't an aerodynamic shape and while they do lift the grass, I think the FM-220398 might be better at it.