Tried out the massey and drum mower yesterday

New to me for both rigs, got the massey last summer and have been fixing issues with it, got the mower with a tedder and baler for 1700 month and a half ago. Never used a tractor this capable, or a drum mower before, let alone even seen one.

First off the toplink needs to be looong compared to what I had here. Quite a while back a friend gave me a couple, one of which was about long enough, but rusted stuck solid. Pipe wrench got it turning and a little just helped. At what I thought was max length the mower was looking good for attitude.
I tried a couple passes across the lawn and realized I had the 3pt too high, scalping the outer end. After a bit more fiddling I put it to transport and headed for a buddies unused grass patch he mulches every year.
Half way down his driveway a loud bang taught me that toplink should have been tossed instead of resurrected. The threads were rusted bad enough there just wasn't enough meat to do the job of that mower hanging straight out the back. After shortening it up to gain more thread and swinging the mower back to cut position both rigs worked just fine, besides needing to fix the throttle lever as it keeps slacking off and loosing rpm. It looks like 2high is the gear of choice, and switching the multipower lever when it's rough.
The 38's on that massey sure ride smoother it seems though!! I'm getting excited for season to start. hahaa

I"ve been lusting over drum mowers. Would like a full report when you have some experience with it.

By the way, which Massey you running it with?

How big is the mower and what brand??? I think any idiot can use one..... At least I do good with mine :roll: What model tedder???

You's gonna have fuuuuuunnnnnn....

I have 2 Reese drum mowers, one is a 2070w foldback and the other is a 2400 hl hydralic lift.
Bought both used and somewhat abused. The simplicity of the machines is amazing.

They cut well, as fast as a disc mower but maybe not quite as uniformly. Mine leaves a few tuffs of grass at the edges but that is most likely my driving. I have a tedder attachment on the big mower that spreads the hay as it exits the mower.

Parts are easy to buy from Tigerco the distributor, but pricy. The manual is the worst I have ever seen, but the mower is so simple it doesn't matter much.

Best part so far is "hook up and mow" versus "hook up and fix mow fix mow"

Here's the tedder. Guy told me it's a Lely but I think it's maybe Kuhn? All the data info has either faded away or been removed so I need to hunt down a picture to find out what it matches now. Never paid any attention to it till now. It's cat1 and doesn't fit my stuff so I'll peddle it I guess.

The mower is a Lely 2 drum job, V165. I happened onto a video of one in use on 'tube and noticed a lot of comments touting the multiple virtues of their disc mowers over them so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Looks like the only bearings to really worry about are in the bottom of the drums, and the gearbox on this thing. THAT I like. Maybe I won't after using it for a while though, we'll see how the belts work out.

65 I got and get to put repairs into right off the getgo. 3pt didn't work and I'm busy enough I had the shop do that fix. Turns out several bent and damaged parts in there from the guy trying to lift the space shuttle or something. Glad I didn't get into it. Now I'm into replacing most all the ps parts as when the geared snout bent away from the timing gear he pull ALL the other parts and did away with them. Richard is shipping the whole mess when I send funds so hopefully that will be as easy a fix as finding the parts was.

I just bought one (drum mower) from Small Farm Innovations. 6' 2 drums, makes a windrow which is fine as I want to see where to setup for the next pass; a tedder will solve any problems if the ww is one.

I wanted a unit to cut to the side of my tractor but didn't want anything large and didn't feel that I need a moco any longer...not doing sorghum hay. I have had my belly full of sickle bar mowers and I felt that disc mowers had too many moving parts.

As stated the simplicity of the DM is really nice and mine came with a 2 year warranty. There are 3 zerks to grease and an oil sump to lube the drum drive mechanisms....real simple maintenance. Oh, and you can cut anything as fast as you can safely drive your tractor and don't have to adjust anything when the load changes. I ran through the thickest rye grass to the sparsest spring weeds and the only thing that changed was that I could hear the governor on the tractor tell the engine to put out more whoopie which it easily did.

Mine uses 3 blades (about 2" long) per drum for a total of 6, can be swapped from left to right side to use both sides of the blade, change out in like 30 seconds each and cost a buck a piece. Certainly beats pulling out a sickle bar and replacing sections, cleaning up blobs caused by craw dad mounds and ant hills, and clumps of wet grass clogging the cutters....

Mine was $3500.
Might give one a try.

Mark

I have a Reese Drum Mower. I bought it because of its lack of a gearbox. I have forgot the number, but it is 8 ft wide with 2 drums with 4 blades per drum. The belts are kinda pricey. Belts and knives are the only maintenance work I have done. It folds up hydraulically and is kinda heavy. We pull it with a 4040 JD and it is a load. Also it has a tedder built on, otherwise it windrows. Not all bad. In real heavy fescue or reeds canary grass, had to weld more 5/8 square stock to the drums to make the tall grass leave. Tried the neighbors disc mower and it clogged up also. Why can"t you put bushings on the tedder, 3 point. cat 1 shouldn"t be no problem.

well I have a cat2 tedder I just need to finish building a hub for, and it looks lots sturdier built. Combine the two reason and I'd rather put the money from this one into upgrades next year or more down payment on a cnc lathe I really should get.

Thinking of putting a cylinder on this mower for lift. Leave the 3pt alone in the field and just lift the heads for turns and such.

AHHH... craw dad mounts! I got some string if you got some bacon! Let's get'em!!LOL

Loren I"m pretty sure thats a Kuhn. It"s a combo rake/tedder and the pic is in rake format. The widrowers should fold up and the arms swing so the teeth point down for tedding.