Skid Steer Slasher

[tjcoogan]

Hoping that you experienced guys can shed some light on the pro's and con's of slashing/brushcutting with a tracked skid steer.

I have heard that the discharge from some slashers can vent back into the inside of the tracks and cause issues. I was also wondering if you can safe guard against wire entanglements as this could be an issue with lazy land owners and old fencing wire hidden in long grass. I am sure there are other hidden issues that I have not thought of I have done some searching on the web but this has not been very successful. Look forward to any input.

 

[willie59]

You can find brushcutters with closed rear, and models with open rear. The models with closed rear do somewhat prevent debris to be ejected out the rear to hit undercarriage or bounce off front of machine. However, since closed rear models restrict rear ejection, and the fact you are moving forward with cutter, grass/cuttings tend to build up in rear of cutter unit until it grows into such a large amount that it can't stay in there any longer and the whole clump lifts cutter and the clump rolls out the back, sort of like running over a log as it were. In this respect, closed rear models offer better protection of machine and operator, but open rear models will spread grass/cuttings more uniformly. And yes, wire, fencing, twine, rope, all tend to be a problem as folks typically use a brush cutter in tall grass/growth which prevents operator from seeing what's on the ground he's mowing. We have incorporated a device on our cutter head to keep wire/rope from wrapping around cutter head shaft with very good results, but wire/rope is a problem with any cutter.

 

[Randy88]

Not sure which style of cutter your running the rotary mower type or the drum style, but first off, I don't like the track skid steers at all, so bear that in mind, I'd rather go with a rubber tired unit and either solid tires or filled tires, second I'm not really impressed with the skid steer cutters at all, they are too high priced to buy and maintain for what little they get done or are capable of doing in the long run, I operate an excavator mounted unit with power pack dedicated to run the head and get something done but that's just me.

You have very limited reach with a skid steer unit, also have limited terrain you can operate on along with size of brush you can do, I can take down and chew up 5 foot diameter trees 80 plus feet tall and turn it to mulch on about any kind of terrain, I don't back away from anything thats made of wood and grows, a skid steer unit will do only up to about six inches in diameter or less, the less being the key with any efficiency what so ever. You have overheating issues of the engine, hydraulics and operator if you don't have ac on the skid steer and with a tacked version, the rubber tracks to tear up or be chewed up and those are pretty expensive as well.

I'm not sure what head your looking at but not all heads were created equal by any means, nor the skid steers to put them on either. But without more information I can't really tell you much

 

[Aussie Leroy]

tjcoogan; I have a 257B Cat With highflow and Cat (highflow) slasher love it but only cut grass,blackberrys, Etc

 

[tjcoogan]

Thanks for the info so far. My intentions are for grass cutting and light scrub only on terrain that a Cat MTL can traverse using a 1.6m wide std flow Timber Wolf/Cat brush cutter.