Does anyone have experience with these 2 types, advantages, disadvantages, cost etc. My only experience was 25 years ago with an old Hydro-ax. I know Fecon makes a deck mower attachment. Prentice has the MR-244 Rotary ax. I guess what I'm asking are these still practical or are they obsolete compared to today's rotor systems like the Bull hogs.
Welcome to the Forums 2putt! :drink up Can't comment on the topic but looking forward to others input. Clearing debris is getting harder and more expensive to get rid of in my area due to burn bans. In the old days it was piled up and open burned - no more.
We have a Fecon mulcher on a Tigercat and if you take your time, you can mulch the stuff down to the size of landscape mulch. If you have a rotary ax, you will get big chunks of wood for sure. The rotary will be cheaper to operate just because of the price of teeth.
Thank you Landclearer.
The rotary mower style like the hydro ax will be the fastest and cheapest on smaller brush and debris, they will chew it up not the best, but most times manageable and liveable, the mulcher's will do far larger stuff, chip it as fine as you want to take the time to do it and are the highest priced way to go. The most efficient in terms of tree's and limbs and time involved will be any type of chipper you feed the material into, there's a positive feed mechanism and shear bar, but the time consuming and costly part of that process is to cut and skid the material to the chipper or grinder. Each system has its advantages and drawbacks, costs and use's, you just have to determine what machine and process fits each job the best. The more burning bans come into the equation, the more machines there are out there, meaning more competition there is for that market share, all process's are considered high maintenance and high capital investment with low percentage returns, they are not the type of operation for the faint of heart so to speak. The key to any of them is volume, if your looking at smaller jobs most don't want to mess with, don't take them on, they are few and far between and when the cost start to mount up, most will back out or shut you down unless there is a considerable project being held up by the debris on site.
Thank you Randy. The work is for a small co-op. I'm retired now but did line clearance for 40 years. I was asked what I knew about it. I'll pass it along.