Looking for flail for small tractor

[Alan Smith]

Hi All,  I'm looking for recommendations for a flail mower to go onto an Antonio Carrera Tigre 3800 (nominally 36Hp from memory).  It will mostly be for ride maintenance but I also have largish areas of sedge and light brush to clear as well.  I like the look of the Alpha Delta eco 135 but would be very interested to hear others opinions/ recommendations.

 

Cheers

 

Alan

[Tree monkey 1682]

Got to be a flail and not a McConnell chain swipe/ jungle buster?

Flails can be good... can be shite especially if they come into contact with something hard ..

[doobin]

55 minutes ago, Tree monkey 1682 said:

Got to be a flail and not a McConnell chain swipe/ jungle buster?

Flails can be good... can be shite especially if they come into contact with something hard ..

I second this. Twice as quick with a single rotor topper than a flail and in some fairly thick stuff too. Especially in thick non brassy stuff like long grass- that slows flails right down. 
 

runs great on reverse drive too. 

[woody paul]

21 minutes ago, doobin said:

I second this. Twice as quick with a single rotor topper than a flail and in some fairly thick stuff too. Especially in thick non brassy stuff like long grass- that slows flails right down. 
 

runs great on reverse drive too. 

You also have reach to back under low branches, and backing up to ditch without ditching tractor. 

[GarethM]

Plus a flail on anything that small will be like watching paint dry through a telescope.

 

Just buy a 4/5ft topper, most of us have gone Topper to flail and then regretted it, then gone back to a topper or the flail gathers dust.

[openspaceman]

1 hour ago, Tree monkey 1682 said:

Got to be a flail and not a McConnell chain swipe/ jungle buster?

Flails can be good... can be shite especially if they come into contact with something hard ..

Fifty years ago, when a particularly wet area with soft rush, water meadow, had become particularly dry, I took the Kuhn drum mower  and cut it low, it was very effective and the blades were due for replacement as they had done the hay cut earlier. It cut shrubs that had grown up too. The disadvantage was the mower had to be used offset.

 

A week ago I saw a Kubota with a front mounted disc mower doing a very good job of cutting gorse about 4 foot high and up to an inch stem diameter as well as heather and senescent bracken, on an SSSI.  The nightjar should have fledged and flown south a couple of weeks ago.

 

Yesterday the same tractor was making big bales and the whole job looks superb, I have yet to find out what the bales are going for.

 

Excuse the blurry photo, I seem to be suffering from DTs

 

[skc101fc]

3 hours ago, Alan Smith said:

Hi All,  I'm looking for recommendations for a flail mower to go onto an Antonio Carrera Tigre 3800 (nominally 36Hp from memory).  It will mostly be for ride maintenance but I also have largish areas of sedge and light brush to clear as well.  I like the look of the Alpha Delta eco 135 but would be very interested to hear others opinions/ recommendations.

 

Cheers

 

Alan

I've got an alpha delta tow behind quad mower. It's sort of a strange hybrid Scottish /Chinese machine. Very heavy flail shroud that will probably last my lifetime with pretty shit soft chinese couplings from engine to primary pulley, that aim to eat themselves as fast as possible. Original bearings made of cheese but easily transferred to good quality from local ag suppliers. Cast rather than forged original flails that last 40 seconds on rock impact, but again readily exchanged to professional blades from local suppliers.

15 h loncin engine  rattled itself apart at timing case , but spotted the oil pissing everywhere,  and shut down before seizure occurred! As a flail on heavy rushes its easily overwhelmed,  on light grass I could travel faster but it would start to miss bits. Good, maintenance minimal, drive belt setup from primary pulley down. Would I buy the same again? Probably not - would get a lighter faster cutting, swipe blade type machine and put up with perhaps multiple cuts and more frequent blade changes on my rocky ground, with considerably less weight horsing the quad around. 

[skc101fc]

That was supposed to read flails last 4 seconds on rock impact!