Flail mowers utilize a horizontally-mounted rotor with numerous hinged (flailing) blades that pulverize a variety of materials in a single pass: grass, weeds, deadfall, brush, and small trees up to approximately 1” diameter.
These heavy-duty mowers are forgiving during use in rocky conditions due to the fact that the blades can easily “fold back” when hitting a hard object. The blades flail out by centrifugal force (at a drum speed of about 3000 rpm) to pulverize material. Flail mowers are excellent for reducing mowed material to a reasonable size for quick incorporation/breakdown into the soil.
Because of the time and horsepower required to “grind up” the material being mowed, the taller and denser the material is, the slower this type of mower typically has to travel. The Berta mowers offered by DMS feature an adjustable-size discharge port to control the amount of grinding the mowed material is subjected to. The adjustment is achieved via a removable baffle: If installed, the discharge port is smaller, and the material stays inside the mower longer and gets chopped up more; If the baffle is removed, the discharge port is larger, and the mower discharges the cut material in larger pieces, therefore requiring less power. For trail maintenance, the mower will typically be run without the baffle installed in order to achieve a high ground speed. The baffle can be installed to better manicure areas around in-town trails or similar.
Mowers come equipped with a quick coupling mount that allows the mower to float over uneven terrain. This type of coupling is necessary for trail maintenance, as most single-track recreational trails are constructed on a grade to help control the flow of water. The mowers also come equipped with a full-width steel roller behind the blade rotor which can be easily adjusted up or down to regulate cutting height from about 0-3 inches.
The mowers specified by DMS as part of our trail tractor packages have a 30″ cutting width as standard. Other widths are available.