Does anyone use a tracked skid steer to do roadside mowing? I recently bought a Cat 279c with high flow. Would a 72" mower deck be any good for this type of job? In our area they normally do this job with a tractor with a side mount flail mower? Would the skid steer be competitive against this set up?
A side mower is normally used because the terrain is steep or has a ditch. A track loader wouldn't be much fun hanging on the side of a hill for hours on end. What about a mower for your KX080? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFwsdHXGfiE
Depends on how steep your ditches are. Are the flail mowers side mounted or boom mounted on those tractors? If you've got very steep roadsides or grader ditches that skidloader will suck. If they're fairly flat you'll love it. Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2
Depends on the ditches, all of ours are straight drop offs mowed with side mount brush mowers and operators with nerves of steel. Some use boom mowers too.
They do all of the roadsides around here with well-used tractors. I would imagine the cost to operate per hour would be pretty high with a ctl. IE...Hard to be competitive.
That's exactly what I was thinking. The county only recently sold their Farmalls with side mounted sickle mowers for the easy stuff, which is most of what you could reach with a skidsteer. The township uses a medium size ag tractor with a boom mower, not cheap but way faster than a mini excavator.
The ones here are ancient non turbo Ford';s with open canopys
I haven't gone out to see the section of road that they are tendering out. They have two sections 70km (44miles) each. Problem is right now there is so much snow it might hard to get an idea what the terrain is like. If it is fairly flat any idea how long it would take to cut 1km/1 mile of road?
Around here no, you can take a 60-90 hp tractor with a mid wing 6' flail and 6-7' rear flail and burn the road up. Then you have a 100-120 hp tractor with a rear 7-10' deck and a mid mount 15-25 foot boom to clean up the slopes and drainage ditches if needed. Most areas the row is 30' from the road center line on a two lane roads. Depending on the mile's of mowing workings on contract or by the hour and times to be mowed should be the factor on the machines used. The state uses both there own mow equipment and contract mowers on state roads and highways, city and towns do there own less the state roads with lots of signs, mail boxes, telephone poles, guard rails to deal with. Some areas they only want flails also and no bushhog decks. We could get 9 miles an hour with a TM155 and a 15' batwing at times but 4 miles was good with all the traffic, signs, poles, mail boxes. Ditches and slopes with a boom mower your in the creeper gear range a lot and depending on the grass and brush eats time, some charge extra for the boom cleanup outside of the shoulder area if requested, cutting back for intersections and so on. Most will also want a high bond and insurance due to the danger of mowing and sending things into traffic. I would go for it and see if you can do it, but I also know it is hard on equipment and mowers and the slopes 1 to 1 and greater works on you in a 8 hour day.
We can run 3-6 Mph with a 15 ft. Batwing... I couldn't see how any township would hire a skiddy and mower. We'd run circles around you. Ours is on a kubota m100x. The slopes can get steep an we still go with no problems. I beg the fuel pet hour is half of what a skid would use.
What's a township pay for that mini x? I just watched the video, nice but the production is awful. We could run a Rayco with a brush head at 5 times that speed.
I don't work for the city/county. How would your Rayco operate on a 40* hill or clear a fence row? The excavator if for places loaders can't go, like the creek in the picture. There's no way a mini excavator could keep up with a 100+hp machine, but that's not the point.
Just do it like in Europe with a nice Vredo. Vacuums all the clippings up too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5M8J-eZOs0