Mini Skid Steer

[windswept]

Hi All,

This is my first post so bear with me. I have been operating a small tree care business for about 15 years and am regularly looking for ways to make the job easier which usually means purchasing more machinery. So i am considering purchasing a mini skid steer. does anyone have experience of using a mini with a flail mower? Although 90% of my work is trees, i have recently won a medium sized maintenance job which will involve twice yearly cutting of sedge/grass. I am figuring that a mini skid steer with a grapple would be useful for most of the tree jobs and a flail mower attachment would mean we would get the most out of the machine, as it would do the maintenance work. Also there does not seem to be a great second hand market in the UK or Ireland so I would appreciate if you could let me know of any dealers. I was thinking of a machine along the lines of either a bobcat mt55, Toro dingo or a boxer 320. At the moment I haven't a clue which would be the most suitable to have on the tree care jobs and to also power a flail mower. I look forward to any advise. Thanks in advance Alan

[treeman_gee]

Alan, give Vermeer UK a call. Their mini skids are superb and they'll happily bring one out to you for a demo. Much better customer service than boxer too!

[John Shutler]

boxers customer service is awfull but they are fantastic machines

ive got a flail mower on mine and its great for knocking back areas of scrub but tracking speed is slow if your thinking or cutting large areas

[Peter]

Compact or alpine tractor is a better choice for flail mowing, pto flail mowers are cheap and easy to obtain. You could also run a skidding grapple on a 3pl.

 

If you really want to go down the mini loader route, look at hyd flow rate closely, you will want 40-50 lpm to run a 1 metre flail, plus the flow to drive the machine. Try to get a demo of the machine with flail if possible. Multione UK have a demo flail unit unless they've sold it very recently.

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

Look up Avant / Boxer / Kanga / Vermeer / Multione on the search function. Several really good threads with stacks of info available.

[windswept]

Thanks for all of the advise. I will go through the older threads but already I feel a bit more informed. I will keep you posted on how things go.

[Rob1982]

As the tree man said have a look at the Vermeer, from what I have seen they are the best of this type of machine out there and the folk at Vermeer are gentlemen to deal with. I had a drive of one at the Arb show but found it hard to drive.

We all so found a mini loader called Norcar, in the end got a demo of an A62 machine and it did not go back down the road. Norcar UK is based around the Arboretum, we are based in Aberdeen! Some way to go to do a demo! We are finding the machine very good and easy to use. It's all so build like a tank. If you'ed like any more info, just ask.

All the best, Rob

[richy_B]

I think it will depend on what you want it to do in terms of tree work. If it's dragging large limbs whole and you have space then a compact tractor or skidsteer sounds great. If small is tight and you will mainly be moving rings about then the mini skid steer could work or even something like a muck truck with the arb trolley.

[windswept]

Can you work a flail mower of the Norcar Rob and how is it on rough ground? On the tree work side of things its more rings we are dealing with rather than whole limbs and some, but not all of the sites are tight on space. I am thinking that if there was a machine that could mow well (the area for mowing is rough) and also be used for lifting rings, small limbs etc, then that would tick most boxes for me. Some type of a shovel grapple would work well I think. I got some info from vermeer and although the S725 and S800 look the business they are well outside of my budget. There seems to be a large selection of compact tractors for sale, and at the moment i,m leaning towards this option.

Thanks

[Blaisey]

May be of help to you.

 

http://arbtalk.co.uk/forum/general-chat/43264-business-breakthough.html

 

cheers