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guys, i'm not getting a smooth cut. any idea why? raptor sd 54

Jul 8, 2015#1

T

turboawd

:laughing:

:confused2:

Jul 9, 2015#2

S

Shughes717

Is that red clover you are mowing? Looks like it should have been baled for hay. Could have made a little money selling it to horse owners.:laughing:

Jul 9, 2015#3

T

turboawd

Shughes717 said:
Is that red clover you are mowing? Looks like it should have been baled for hay. Could have made a little money selling it to horse owners.:laughing:

is that what they call it? lol
that stuff is wet when cut and makes the clippings stick to the deck.

Jul 9, 2015#4

R

RaptorSDer

I think you're cutting it too low. Try raising your deck to 4 foot (letter Z)

Jul 9, 2015#5

G

gainestruk

I hope you got the message across ! LOL

Jul 9, 2015#6

K

Kremeneon

I've mowed that sort of thing several times. The clover gets whipped into a nice goo for sure. I love the wall of salad flying out of the chute though.

Jul 9, 2015#7

K

kraky

Looks like your blowing clippings into uncut grass...blow them into the cut area and it should become putting green quality cut....lol!

Jul 9, 2015#8

KrashnKraka

turboawd said:
:laughing:

:confused2:

Yer striping is crooked/uneven/bent/zigzag - yer get that with those "boxstore[sic]" mowers ;-P

psssst... I can hear galloping hooves and barking dogs. "fox among the chickens" much..?.:laughing::laughing::laughing:
Made my day...tks.

KK - from sick bed

Jul 9, 2015#9

S

Shughes717

turboawd said:
is that what they call it? lol
that stuff is wet when cut and makes the clippings stick to the deck.

It looks like red clover from the photos. Clover is very hard to cut with a lawn mower. Red clover and white clover are cool season perrenial plants that grow very fast and have a high moisture content. Red clover does really make a good hay for horses, and cattle. It makes horses slobber quite a bit, but it is a high quality hay. I joked about you baling it, but if you had access to a drum mower or a sickle mower (and a hay baler) you really could make a profit off of it if you baled it.

Jul 9, 2015#10

F

flightco

Shughes717 said:
It looks like red clover from the photos. Clover is very hard to cut with a lawn mower. Red clover and white clover are cool season perrenial plants that grow very fast and have a high moisture content. Red clover does really make a good hay for horses, and cattle. It makes horses slobber quite a bit, but it is a high quality hay. I joked about you baling it, but if you had access to a drum mower or a sickle mower (and a hay baler) you really could make a profit off of it if you baled it.

It is nice of you to make excuses for the Raptor SD, but those of us who own one know they are a faulty mower. Should have been able to mow and bale this beautiful lawn, but it did a poor job of it. No excuses.

Jul 9, 2015#11

S

Shughes717

flightco said:
It is nice of you to make excuses for the Raptor SD, but those of us who own one know they are a faulty mower. Should have been able to mow and bale this beautiful lawn, but it did a poor job of it. No excuses.

You don't use rotary mowers to bale hay. Clover is a forage crop, and it takes a lot more power to cut compared to grass. Especially when it gets that tall. If the op waits until the clover gets that tall before cutting it, and isn't doing so for the purpose of baling it, then he should be using a tractor and a bush hog. The raptor ad was designed to mow lawns not bush hog clover. I hope you were just being sarcastic with your post. : )

Jul 9, 2015#12

F

flightco

Shughes717 said:
You don't use rotary mowers to bale hay. Clover is a forage crop, and it takes a lot more power to cut compared to grass. Especially when it gets that tall. If the op waits until the clover gets that tall before cutting it, and isn't doing so for the purpose of baling it, then he should be using a tractor and a bush hog. The raptor ad was designed to mow lawns not bush hog clover. I hope you were just being sarcastic with your post. : )

I hope you were just being sarcastic with your post. :

The theme of this entire thread is meant to be in good humor because there have so many posts about the Raptor SD not cutting well; yes I was joking too. I thought that would be obvious when I said it should have cut and baled.

Jul 9, 2015#13

R

RaptorSDer

flightco said:
It is nice of you to make excuses for the Raptor SD, but those of us who own one know they are a faulty mower. Should have been able to mow and bale this beautiful lawn, but it did a poor job of it. No excuses.

Haha you win!

Jul 9, 2015#14

S

Shughes717

flightco said:
I hope you were just being sarcastic with your post. :

The theme of this entire thread is meant to be in good humor because there have so many posts about the Raptor SD not cutting well; yes I was joking too. I thought that would be obvious when I said it should have cut and baled.

Just checking. Been a lot of raptor and raptor sd hate going around lately. :laughing:

Jul 9, 2015#15

T

turboawd

so i went back to finish up today. this parcel of land is probably 3+ acres. i thought the hustler literature said you can mow over 3 acres an hour :confused2: it took me probably a total of 8 hours.

i had to go slow somewhat and cut it twice to look decent.
my old lawn tractor broke and i waited a while for my dealer to get one of these raptors in stock, so that is why these weeds got so tall. i'll be cutting more frequently.

anyways a little about the blades. the stock blades are horrible in tall grass. there just isnt much lift and suction/blowing with them. the deck constantly plugged up and got packed with grass. i tried a set of the high lift blades (hustler# 797696) and they did ok. but then i tried the oregon 596-808 blades and they worked the best. they threw the grass the farthest out the shoot and kept the deck cleanest.

i did cut the deck outlet bigger, which helped a lot to prevent the outlet from getting plugged up. the opening is rather small compared to other decks. i'm not sure why the back edge of the opening is angled but it caught a lot of grass and the whole outlet would get plugged up solid with grass.

Jul 10, 2015#16

K

Kremeneon

turboawd said:
anyways a little about the blades. the stock blades are horrible in tall grass. there just isnt much lift and suction/blowing with them. the deck constantly plugged up and got packed with grass. i tried a set of the high lift blades (hustler# 797696) and they did ok. but then i tried the oregon 596-808 blades and they worked the best. they threw the grass the farthest out the shoot and kept the deck cleanest.

This exactly is my experience also, I quite like the Gators.

I mowed a similar area last night, half clover, and wet. But it had only gotten to about 10-12". Gator blades handled it great, the deck was a mess when I was done though, including the rear area of the discharge opening as you mention. Rain every day for the last couple weeks here in Kentucky has been a challenge.

Jul 10, 2015#17

S

Shughes717

turboawd said:
so i went back to finish up today. this parcel of land is probably 3+ acres. i thought the hustler literature said you can mow over 3 acres an hour :confused2: it took me probably a total of 8 hours. i had to go slow somewhat and cut it twice to look decent.
my old lawn tractor broke and i waited a while for my dealer to get one of these raptors in stock, so that is why these weeds got so tall. i'll be cutting more frequently.

anyways a little about the blades. the stock blades are horrible in tall grass. there just isnt much lift and suction/blowing with them. the deck constantly plugged up and got packed with grass. i tried a set of the high lift blades (hustler# 797696) and they did ok. but then i tried the oregon 596-808 blades and they worked the best. they threw the grass the farthest out the shoot and kept the deck cleanest.

i did cut the deck outlet bigger, which helped a lot to prevent the outlet from getting plugged up. the opening is rather small compared to other decks. i'm not sure why the back edge of the opening is angled but it caught a lot of grass and the whole outlet would get plugged up solid with grass.

great job cleaning that property up. That clover had to put a heavy load on your engine.

Jul 12, 2015#18

KrashnKraka

Shughes717 said:
It looks like red clover from the photos. Clover is very hard to cut with a lawn mower. Red clover and white clover are cool season perrenial plants that grow very fast and have a high moisture content. Red clover does really make a good hay for horses, and cattle. It makes horses slobber quite a bit, but it is a high quality hay.

Happy to read that...I have 25kg of seed on order for 3 weeks now.
Sowing it fir exactly that purpose

Jul 13, 2015#19

S

Shughes717

KrashnKraka said:
Happy to read that...I have 25kg of seed on order for 3 weeks now.
Sowing it fir exactly that purpose

KK

Ladino clover is another very good variety. I would have to say that alfalfa is the most widely used forage crop to bale for horses though. It's a little more high maintenance than clover. Not trying to take this thread over, so I may pm you about your crop.

Jul 13, 2015#20

KrashnKraka

Shughes717 said:
Ladino clover is another very good variety. I would have to say that alfalfa is the most widely used forage crop to bale for horses though. It's a little more high maintenance than clover. Not trying to take this thread over, so I may pm you about your crop.

Yeup...understood. PM is on AFAIK.
Fir others I should add my planting is experimental. The environment is mediterrean type tropical, good drainage with high rainfalls and 18C-40C temp range. The varity (Campeda)
should do fine here but nobody has tried it largescale. I want to find out, feed is a much sought after commodity around here and iffn I can bale it with my ZTR and leave no "lines"...?... even better!

KK
[no layered striping created in this ZTR post] :laughing:

Jul 14, 2015#21

M

mooch91

turboawd said:

No concerns with your warranty by cutting the deck open?

Did you notice a substantial difference in discharge after you cut it?

Jul 14, 2015#22

T

turboawd

mooch91 said:
No concerns with your warranty by cutting the deck open?

Did you notice a substantial difference in discharge after you cut it?

well i doubt i'll ever have a structural warranty issue with the deck. and you cant tell i even cut it out.
the outlet does not get plugged up easy in tall wet grass, like it did before.

Jul 14, 2015#23

KrashnKraka

turboawd said:
well i doubt i'll ever have a structural warranty issue with the deck. and you cant tell i even cut it out.
the outlet does not get plugged up easy in tall wet grass, like it did before.

Interesting.
Our supplier exclaimed, and I mean "exclaimed"..."put a spanner on it and yer done, WE cannot
mod without authorisation from the manufacturer". This only very shortly after delivery and with
a relatively minor (faulty) component which could be easily rectified. It took some 'testing' and
RTD's to get the problem sorted. End cost to us was four times the value of the mod which was
eventually fitted.

Warranty is often more about generating income more so then true user satsfaction...IME

I digress...

It is not unusual to have to do two cuts at two heights on the style of "weed" talked about here.
And the further it can be thrown the thinner it gets for the next cut. The more cuts the finer
the mulch, with a resulting faster "meltdown" period between mows.
It is all about choices with operator savvy being the prime factor. Live and learn in other instances.

That's me tapped out....

KK

/out

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guys, i'm not getting a smooth cut. any idea why? raptor sd 54

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