Tractors, Mowers, Chippers, Trailers, Chainsaws, Generators, Driveway Erosion Control, ETC.

Very familiar with this.

 

You were ranting at the same time I was posting lol. Stupid Swisher didn't help this by calling their rough cut and finish cut mowers BOTH "trail mowers" People think "Trail" means mowing a trail so like a rough cut mower would do. What they really meant was that it "trails" behind the tow vehicle. So the idiots called finish and rough cuts "Trail Mowers"

Then they called the rotary/rough cuts different things as well. "rough cut" Rugged cut" and I think one more. Confused a bunch of people.

ETA: Jaysus, they have further muddied the terminology. The other one is "Country Cut" and now "Trail Cutter" has also been added to the mix. Good grief!

 

@Lt. Dangle Here's about the max I do with the Swisher. This is woody sumac. When you get a bunch of saplings together it takes a lot of weight to push it over and the mower tries to climb up it. It's really hard on the hitch to ram it hard enough to bend the saplings down. Then the taller stuff hits me in the back. It will chop up to 2" stuff but it is better suited to single saplings and tall field grass. It plows thru 4ft tall grass like there's nothing there.

https://youtu.be/2sOOX8olvFk

 

Anyone have any experience with GR Trailers? I'm looking for a utility in the 6x12 range, and came across a dealer here that sells them. Seems like decent features for the money compared to others I've seen around here. Just don't know anything about the quality, warranty, etc.
Website: https://www.grtrailers.com/single-axle-utility-trailer-3500-lb/. And an ad with some decent photos: https://www.truckcountryllc.com/2022-gr-trailers-6-yJ1k|kr.html

 

I've never heard of them but from the pictures on their website they look like they are built well.

 

Its got 3" C channel to the tongue. Your good to go as far as I'm concerned. I have 3" L channel to the tongue and had to weld a cross member to keep the twisting to a minimum when leaving it on a jack under a load. Almost everything else is pretty straightforward to address if even needed. I also prefer a 7 blade plug it has to the standard 4 because wiring in reversing lights is super easy, if it doesn't have them already. I converted my 4 wire to 7 and am convinced it should just come that way. Taco has a nice 7 blade socket just waiting for it.

I also like that it comes with 2by for planking. Mine (AMO) came with 5\4 and flexed under my SXS so I swapped to 2by's.

2k is about ball park for what these go for nowadays, so price looks ok to me. I paid about 12 hundy for my 6x10 a few years ago if I recall correctly, but I changed a ton of stuff to get it right.

 

I have an old set of blades I'm contemplating cutting down and drilling to make my own brush blades, but the risk of failure and the resulting consequences have tempered my enthusiasm on the idea for now.

 

Just get a couple of Meg Mow hubs.

https://youtu.be/TZgGU1sNPzk

 

I'm currently in the process of converting my tow behind to mount on the front of my SxS for the reason you mentioned. I have really thick brush at my cabin that consists mainly of briars. But it's so thick even backing it in my deck gets pushed around. My straight blades plow right through it if you can get it on them. Also backing up a trailer in the woods sucks lol.

I also have a windshield to deal with projectiles. Hopefully...

 

I've seen these but never looked into it. I just wish they had lowlift blades instead of mulching blades.

 

Yeah, I looked at that again and realized it was for finish mowing. I think those hubs are made to order. I'd bet they would make whatever you wanted. Curious to see. You could email them and ask.

 

What I was going to do was order the blade hub for the model of your mower, then bolt on my blades. Luckily for me I don't really mow much in the way of saplings so my setup works fine. I did catch a 4" or so stump and that was the end of one of my spindles lol. I have carefully gone back over all my stumps and cut them as flush as possible to the ground.

Realistically, fallen branches, brush, and heavy grass are my main targets though. My ultimate goal is to make my mower as reliable as possible so it just works when I need it to. Ideally a set of swing blades makes it more reliable as it prevents unforeseen problems.

I just like to fiddle with it I guess.

 

DId you intent to make it a single center mounted hub? It takes up a lot of real estate under there. I think my blades are something like 15.5" to make a 44" cut.

 

The dealer local-ish to me is asking 1800 for a 6.5x12, which seemed pretty good to me

 

Yeah, I was either going to build a new deck either from scratch or find a really cheap dead one on marketplace.

I could use my existing mower as it is setup, but I'd have to cut down the blades and hub mount to size. My metal scrap yard didn't have an appropriate piece of metal to make the adapter last time I was there. Like I said before, certain parts of this project I would rather rely on someone else's engineering than my own. My biggest concern doing it myself is balance and issues pertaining to that.

Honestly, I'm surprised your blades are as long as they are. Realistically they only need to be a few inches long to cut. I have a 21" blade currently so cutting down 2 swing blades and getting an adapter in there should be very easy to do, but the risks of something going catastrophically wrong seems high.

This idea teeters between "could I" to "should I" pretty frequently.

In my mind if I am going to spend the money and time on lawn care cutting, I'm building a flail mower. My tow mower works pretty well as is, I'd hate to ruin it by trying to make it something it's not. I really want a flail mower, but don't want to spend 4k on one. That's worth trying to engineer my own imo.

 

What are you planning on hauling? Price sounds good to me as well.

 

Fb had a broken but easily fixable roughcut for $300 the other day. That's why I'm not real serious about building one. I'll find a cheap enough one at some point.

 

I was wondering if you had kept your eyes peeled. I bought mine in running condition for $400. One thing people don't know is you can make a decent finish cut with one. Most people are knocking down 16+" of growth with them and then think that's as good as it'll make it look. If you knock down that much with a finish mower it also looks bad.

I was putting hours on some radiator flush last in one tractor last year and cut some 6-7" grass with mine and it looked like I finish mowed it. Pretty much used it as my finish mower for 4 acres for the last half of the summer.

 

Yep.

Most I see like yours go for 1-1.4k asking around here. $400 for a running example is great deal. Congrats.

 

This is what I really would like to find near me. This one is about 6 hours away unfortunately and is not at a "Gotta get it" price for that kind of travel.



A new one is like 3k or so. I'm not wanting one that badly lol.