Excavator mounted Diamond rotary mowers

[Canuck Digger]

I found a slightly used 40"diamond mower for my 6 ton carrier with 23 gpm aux flow. I'm pretty sure I've read every article know to man comparing flail vs. rotary vs. mulchers. The brand seems to make some of the best attachments on the market, good customer service and warranty.

My work would break down as follows: 50% black berry munching, 20 under brush, 20 saplings, low hanging branches to 4" and 10 tall grass. Although I was pretty much set on a flail mower, I'm warming up to the idea of rotary, mainly due to what appears to be a higher/faster production rate.
The draw backs of the rotary seem to be: not as good of reduction, more uneven finish and more flying debris.
Benefits seem to be, less moving parts, overall faster production, cheaper to purchase, in comparison to flails lighter = less tipping issues.

Anything I'm missing? Any reason to simply stay away from rotary style mowers. Thx.

 

[KSSS]

Diamond makes good stuff, I think they are great to deal with and first rate in my dealings with them. As far as the rotary verse flail. I think on the mulching done higher above ground it would work well. I believe the closer you get to the ground the less attractive it becomes. Banging the blade in the dirt and rocks, flying rock and so forth. I am curious how fast the rotary will get up to speed after slowing down in tough material, the flail spins back up rather fast, the increase mass of the blades and lower hyd flow may be a little bit slower in some situations. That is just my speculation, I have never run a rotary on a mini ex. The guys at Diamond might be able to help steer you. I found them pretty knowledgeable.

 

[Canuck Digger]

Diamond makes good stuff, I think they are great to deal with and first rate in my dealings with them. As far as the rotary verse flail. I think on the mulching done higher above ground it would work well. I believe the closer you get to the ground the less attractive it becomes. Banging the blade in the dirt and rocks, flying rock and so forth. I am curious how fast the rotary will get up to speed after slowing down in tough material, the flail spins back up rather fast, the increase mass of the blades and lower hyd flow may be a little bit slower in some situations. That is just my speculation, I have never run a rotary on a mini ex. The guys at Diamond might be able to help steer you. I found them pretty knowledgeable.

Thx. for your thoughts. Yes, I hear you re. the rocks/flying debris. I believe the design of the diamond cutter allows the blades to deflect some. I know couple of guys that have home built rotary style units that are nowhere near the durability/strength the diamond unit would offer. They seem to work ok, Diamond claims 4" material which is similar to some of the higher end flails.

 

[treemuncher]

If you are only running 23 gpm, go with a rotary with free swinging blades. I still have a Davco 705 that I used to use on my Posi Trac 4810 and I will adapt to the Menzi A91F one of these days. It left a flat, clean finish and I could fly through grass and light stuff at full speed but that was with 38-40 gpm at 3500 psi. It took more power to run the drum mulcher and that never did well with grass unless I was right down in the dirt with it. Drum mulchers will leave a lot of stubble that a rotary won't - I always had to use the rotary as a finish pass when building foot trails prior to laying gravel down. Otherwise the stubble would pop up through the gravel and trip up any foot traffic.

The Davco was rated for 4" or 6" trees, I forget. I did take down a few 8"-10" trees with it as long as I was slow and easy on it and it did fine. The rotary units are more dangerous as they will throw stuff pretty far at times and throw a lot more than a drum mulcher will. Take that into account on how you approach jobs. Leave a safety barrier up at all times until you make your last few passes and that will normally keep flying stuff within the work zone. Be sure to armor your cab and especially your glass. ALWAYS wear safety glasses and a hard hat if you don't have Lexan windows in your cab when running a cutting attachment - saved my eyes a couple of times on some pretty close calls. When that front glass shatters, it is instant! And then you can't see through it at all.

I think that a lot of the success with the Davco is that it always carried a good flywheel effect to power through thick patches. It has the 4 blades sandwiched between 2 large steel disks and the blades can completely spin 360 degrees when needed. The blades are 15 lbs each so they pack a good punch when they hit and that is a lot of flywheel mass to slow down when running at full rpm.

 

[southernman13]

We have a high flow 72” diamond rotary mower on an Kubota 95. It’s baddd azzz. Would love to be able to adapt to our pc200 Komatsu. I’d have to check the hyd circuits to see what the flow rate is on our excavator. It has pluming for the bud thumb and provisions for a hammer. Diamond is a very good manufacturer

 

[Canuck Digger]

If you are only running 23 gpm, go with a rotary with free swinging blades. I still have a Davco 705 that I used to use on my Posi Trac 4810 and I will adapt to the Menzi A91F one of these days. It left a flat, clean finish and I could fly through grass and light stuff at full speed but that was with 38-40 gpm at 3500 psi. It took more power to run the drum mulcher and that never did well with grass unless I was right down in the dirt with it. Drum mulchers will leave a lot of stubble that a rotary won't - I always had to use the rotary as a finish pass when building foot trails prior to laying gravel down. Otherwise the stubble would pop up through the gravel and trip up any foot traffic.

The Davco was rated for 4" or 6" trees, I forget. I did take down a few 8"-10" trees with it as long as I was slow and easy on it and it did fine. The rotary units are more dangerous as they will throw stuff pretty far at times and throw a lot more than a drum mulcher will. Take that into account on how you approach jobs. Leave a safety barrier up at all times until you make your last few passes and that will normally keep flying stuff within the work zone. Be sure to armor your cab and especially your glass. ALWAYS wear safety glasses and a hard hat if you don't have Lexan windows in your cab when running a cutting attachment - saved my eyes a couple of times on some pretty close calls. When that front glass shatters, it is instant! And then you can't see through it at all.

I think that a lot of the success with the Davco is that it always carried a good flywheel effect to power through thick patches. It has the 4 blades sandwiched between 2 large steel disks and the blades can completely spin 360 degrees when needed. The blades are 15 lbs each so they pack a good punch when they hit and that is a lot of flywheel mass to slow down when running at full rpm.

Thx. Treemuncher. That's the kinda info I was hoping for. Picking up a Davco 705 this weekend for my HF CTL . Can't wait. Used unit in a minty condition so had to be done. For sure re. all the safety stuff. Lexan for sure. I believe they're rated for 6". Thanks again. Think I'm leaning towards a rotary style for the 6 ton machine as well.

 

[Canuck Digger]

A little feedback on the Davco 705. She's a beast! Comes in at 1,900lbs. Running it on a case TR270 with HF, which claims about 43gpm I believe. Thought it might feel a bit heavy, especially when doing branch work, but no problem there. Instead of lexan, went with a removable expanded metal/mesh screen. So far so good. Unit works great. Mainly done blackberries/sapplings/tall grass. The production rate is unreal. Think it'll be a money maker due to the production rate, as long as one can stay away from rocks, barbed wire and so on. Now I just wish Davco would make a mini X unit, which they do not.

 

[treemuncher]

Be sure to check your motor size on that Davco. At 43 gpm, there is the possibility that you could be trying to force too much flow through it. The one I had was at 38 gpm max if I remember correctly. I do remember that I could not run my ASV at full throttle with the Davco. Otherwise, I would be running past the max input rate of the implement's motor thus causing damage.

 

[KSSS]

The TR270 doesn't make 43 gpm on high flow. It is around 35-37

 

[Canuck Digger]

Yeah, I was just educated guessing on the flow rate. Couldn't remember exactly.
I hardly ever run anything full throttle anyway on the skid steer/CTL side of things anyway. lol.

 

[RTSmith]

Just my opinion, but having run an AFE disc mulcher a bit, listen to Tree Muncher- Lexan. I don't believe when "that piece" hits, the stretched metal will do the trick. I run Cats with the lexan door, and havve sat there before in a holy shiite, how did that door not collapse. I have found 2" diameter sticks stuck into the ground 300' from where I was working. And I mean stuck into the ground. And my mulching hours aren't many. Your odds fall the more you do. JMHO.

 

[KSSS]

I have had those moments as well. I had a baseball bat sized limb hit the Lexan so hard that I couldn't believe that it didn't punch through the door. It would have stuck me to the seat, I have no doubt if it vented the door. I would go with nothing less than half inch Lexan when mulching.