I know.... I know.... It's stupid. It's dangerous. But its pretty awesome too! I've been clearing some land around my place and this thing is great for cutting paths \ trails. It cuts down small trees, vines, brush like no other. There is no finer thing than turning something that was otherwise useless into something that is extremely useful and somewhat bad ass!! I suppose I could have spent 10 grand on a real brush mower... But this thing is doing the trick quite nicely so far. :)
I do not recommend you try this at home... I keep telling myself that its only dangerous to the people standing in front of it.
A similar idea occurred to me last week when I was struggling to mow an half acre of 2-foot-tall grass and weeds to stay ahead of a threatened fine by the local fire management district. The mower had to be restarted a couple of dozen times when it bogged down in the thick greenery, and I thought that modifying an old "beater" gasoline-powered mower by opening up the front could limit the tendency to bog down the engine.
ReplyDeleteIs there a tendency for the deck to flex on your your modified mower? I'd think that excessive flexing will eventually lead to the deck cracking, but this could be alleviated by welding or bolting a piece of angle iron across the front to reinforce the edge.
It might be possible to make this Frankenstein a bit safer by extending a number fork-like tines over the whirling blades so that one doesn't accidentally run it into small tree trunks and the like, leaving the spacing between the tines just wide enough to admit grass and weeds with tall, thick stalks, such as thistles and milkweed without bending them over. Since one is normally behind the machine and if one uses a newer mower with the automatic blade-stop mechanism, chances of getting one's feet into it would be next-to-zero, although there still exists a possibility of launching rocks and other small, solid objects.
This thing was a beast... It worked very well on underbrush. I even cut down a few trees with it.... It was great for cutting trails. The problem I had with it was that the blade kept bending. I think it would require a blade redesign to work. Lawn mower blades have a bend in them... This thing really needs a thick straight blade. In the end, the mower wasn't built well enough to handle the stress. The motor actually cracked where it bolted to the deck and oil went everywhere. :)
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