# drum mower ?



## greenfield (Dec 28, 2011)

recently saw something online that was new to me the drum mower . looks like a similar principle to a disc mower but power is transmitted via belts and sheeves instead of geartrain . probably less power to run . looks as if it is a new zealand and europe thing . does anyone know much about these mowers ? could not see many details . does anyone know how well they work ? are they used in north america ? just curious


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

There was a few around here 20 yrs ago made by Duetz.I rented one a few times to cut lowland grass.It had 6' cut and a very simple machine.I had 65 HP on it and its all it wanted in heavy hay.I would think they are cheaper to buy then a disc mower with less moveing parts.They are narrower then disc mowers typicaly,the one I rented was 6'.


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## thendrix (May 14, 2015)

When in the transport position they're extremely heavy as they fold back. Some may use hydraulics and fold up but all I've seen fold back. Luke strawalker use them and is very knowledgeable about them. He'll be along soon I'm sure.


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## VA Haymaker (Jul 1, 2014)

I don't think they're a bad mower by any stretch. IMHO, if funds are limited, they are a good deal and will cut anything - based on what I've read, videos, etc., - with ease. They are simple in construction too. They don't require much in the way of hp either.

What I don't care for is they are extremely heavy, you can't kit them with shoes like a disk mower to get a high cut and I have concerns about parts availability and dealer support long term. I know of if buy a New Holland disc mower, there is an online parts list and multiple dealers close by that can support and order parts. Most dealers I've seen carrying drum mowers (around me) are hit and miss; here today and gone tomorrow. But for the money, maybe it's not a concern. Use it toss it when the time comes. Lastly - again for me, I want/need to condition the hay as it's being cut. This year I've got a haybine, prior to that I used a sickle mower. Had great success cutting, but wished with our rain/thunderstorm windows we could have dried the hay out faster.

Good luck,
Bill


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## greenfield (Dec 28, 2011)

so they do not have a conditionig option ?_ I think one I saw on line had a side pull set up and was 11 ft 2 inches cut_


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

There's various brands... We run a PZ Zweegers that we bought at our Shiner Ford New Holland dealer back in the late 80's... the disk mowers were just starting to come out in our area at the time and looking at them, I just liked the looks of the drum mower better... the old non-top-service Kuhn mowers (and New Holland was selling the same mower painted in their colors at the time) had a total of 23 spur gears daisy-chained across the 7.5 foot cutterbar, which runs under the disks down in the dirt. The Zweegers drum mower has just six bevel gears running on a cross-shaft in a gearbox above the cutting drums. (two bevel gears for each cutting drum, and a pair of bevel gears to turn the power 90 degrees from the drive belt sheave to the cross-shaft). That's a huge difference in reliability right there.

Zweegers got bought out and was called PZ Greenland for awhile, and I'm not sure who they're owned by now (Vicon maybe??) I can't complain because we've had nearly 30 years of good service out of that mower, though it's showing it's age...

Various manufacturers offered different options. We COULD have gotten a finger conditioner for our mower-- it mounts in the access cover hole between the drums and is driven by a shaft off the main drive sheave through a right-angle gearbox. We never needed it so we never bought one though. Some makes offer both drum and disk mowers with a choice of no conditioner, finger conditioner, or roller crimper conditioner... Like disk mowers, there's cheap new ones being built in Turkey and other places on the market. I don't know much about those, except they lack a lot of features that the nicer main-line mowers (like ours) have, like adjustable skid-disk height (ours can be raised up to about 2.5 inches or lowered to 0.5 inch, and tilted back with the turnbuckle on the 3 point to get another 1-1.5 inches, for about a 4 inch stubble height if desired. The Zweegers also has a rope-pull fold-- you pull the rope and pull forward steered to the left and the mower will fold straight back for transport-- as soon as the spring loaded pin drops in, you pick up the 3 point, tug another rope to flip the transport lock in position (locks out the suspension springs to keep the mower from bouncing while in transport) and hit the road. When you arrive at the new field, tug the rope again to flip the lock back out, lower the 3 point to put the mower on the ground, pull the rope to release the lock pin, and back up to the left to swing the mower around to mowing position til the pin locks in, raise your three point to transfer some of the weight to the suspension springs, throw the PTO in gear, and you're ready to mow. The cheaper Galfre and other cheapy brands don't have any adjustment for cut height other than lengthening or shortening the top link, and have to be folded manually AFAIK...

Now, you COULD also get a vertically folding cylinder that would pull the drums upright beside the tractor, like a disk mower, for transport... it fits in the top of the suspension springs above the gearbox, between the gearbox and 3 point mast. Due to the weight of the drum mower, though, I think they only recommend it for larger tractors.

We run our 5610S New Hollands at 6mph at 1900 rpm (550 on the PTO) and can mow anything... in really dense bunch grasses and hard to cut stuff like bahia, sometimes we have to drop to fifth gear (five mph). Blades are easy to change with an on-board tool and spring-loaded blade pins... simply insert the tool, lift, and wiggle the blade off the pin (past the crud that always accumulates under/around the blade pin) and swap them from one drum to the other to reverse the direction. Used to buy the "humpback" blades the Zweegers used from TSC, but they were cheap and didn't hold up too well, they don't even sell them anymore, so we buy boxes of Zweegers blades from the New Holland dealer and they're MUCH better quality and last longer.

There's also the REESE drum mowers built in Australia... our dealer sold some of those a few years after he was selling the Zweegers... those have NO gearbox AT ALL, and are totally belt-driven, using a large V-belt similar to what you might find on a combine... they have a large double-sheave drive pulley behind the mast running off the PTO shaft, turning a pair of belts, one to each drum, with one belt flipping over or running through a mule pulley arrangement or something to reverse the rotation. While I liked the simplicity of the Reese design, I didn't care much for the dinky little pneumatic "tail wheel" they put behind the outside drum, and the fact that their skid disks underneath are NOT full skid disks that are free to turn in any direction as the mower is moving, but are fixed half-disk with a skid-shoe back half... IIRC they also have an inner shoe running on the ground like a sicklebar mower as well... What WAS nice about the Reeses was you could get a tedder/spreader attachment that bolted straight onto the back of the drum cutterbar box that would be belt driven off the main pulleys, which spun to toss the hay out across behind the tractor onto the ground from the last pass of the mower... This was a neat addition because it eliminates the little windrow that drum mowers leave behind, since everything is gathered to the center of the two drums and expelled out the back. (Ours is a CM212 Zweegers, which is about 7.5 foot cut, (212 centimeters), but they did offer an 8.5-9 foot cut drum mower that used four smaller drums running side by side, which would leave two mini-windrows out the back). The "windrow effect" isn't really a problem in our hot dry conditions here in SE TX, in fact it cuts down on sun bleaching of the hay before it's dry enough to bale...

It's been a good mower and I've been well pleased with it, but as I get older I'd really like to move up to a newer 9 foot New Holland disk mower... on a caddy. A caddy is pretty much out with a drum mower due to the requirements of how it folds and lifts. I've run the Kuhn disk mowers for a friend, and they're a nice mower (especially the newer top-service hub gearbar models) but I STILL don't like the thought of a couple dozen spur gears daisy-chained together running in a gearbox down in the dirt... I've seen too many of the things that get pinholes rusted in them and leaking oil, and basically the only REAL fix is to buy a new cutterbar casing and gut all the parts out of yours. The thought of a gear or bearing going out and feeding metal bits up and down the cutterbar from one end to the other doesn't appeal much either, plus the newer Kuhns mill down their "turtle shafts" from about 1 inch or so diameter down smaller than a dime by cutting a groove in it at the factory-- if the turtle hits something, it's supposed to shear the shaft off and toss the turtle out the back to protect the cutterbar from damage. Problem is, you then have to replace the entire gear, bearing, housing, shaft, and hub assembly AS ONE PIECE because Kuhn DOES NOT sell the individual parts... which amounts to about a $250 repair... New Holland's "Mow Max" cutterbar uses a cheap hub with shear splines in it-- if the turtle hits something, it shears the splines to save the gears-- and can be fixed for about $40 bucks and a half-hour of work. I just like the idea of a modular cutterbar better-- if a guy invests in an extra module or two, if a module had a bearing burn up or gear strip or something he could split the bar at that module and bolt in a new one and be back to work in a couple hours... and rebuild the damaged module at his convenience... plus all the metal shavings and crap are confined to THAT SINGLE MODULE and not circulating in the oil up and down the cutterbar as with the oil bath gearbed cutterbars like Kuhn.

JMHO, but I think I'd stay away from the cheap Italian knockoffs and stuff in the disk mowers, just as I would with the cheap brands of drum mowers... but that's just me. YMMV...

Any other questions, just ask...

Later and good luck! OL J R


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

greenfield said:


> so they do not have a conditionig option ?_ I think one I saw on line had a side pull set up and was 11 ft 2 inches cut_


Yeah, Reese had some larger belt-driven pull-type models with conditioner options... bet that's what you saw...

Looked at them up close at the farm show in Lubbock many years ago-- looked like a well-built mower...

Later! OL J R


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## atgreene (May 19, 2013)

I bought a Zetor 2 years ago, been very happy with it. Mowed 4' vetch late season last year next to a gehl disk, was covering about 2x the ground with less issues clogging than the 8' gehl disk. It's not a perfect mower, but as I do almost all silage, it works good for me. It doesn't take much hp at all, blades are easy to change and will cut as fast as you can hold on. My only real complaint has been that its too narrow, wish it was 9'. Other than that, I'd buy another one.


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## bjr (Jan 24, 2013)

I own a 52" model (bought it from SFI in TX) that's goes behind a 35 hp tractor. Does fine. Complete blade change out in 'bout 15 minutes. Right now generic blades cost around $1.30 apiece and it takes 6 of them. I changed twice a season. SFI has had excellant support. bjr


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

Lots of brands of drum mowers in Europe. Pull type as well with conditioning. I'd consider one as they look more rock resistant that discmowers. My Pottinger mower is available with drum bar instead of disc.

http://www.poettinger.ca/en_uk/Produkte/Detail/50/eurocat-front-mounted-drum-mowers

Click the eurocat arrow to expand it and you'll see photos of what they look like under the hood.

Atgreene I see you have milkweed problems too.


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## atgreene (May 19, 2013)

Yup. That was a late cut and a new field to me. Put 60 ton of hen manure on it this fall, hopefully I can cut it before they go to seed next year.


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## wittegeit (Jul 12, 2009)

PZ Zweegers company is owned by Kuhn since 2009, they still produce the best drum mowers you can get on the market!


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## Swv.farmer (Jan 2, 2016)

Drum mowers are great their fast cheap and dependable. 
And then i ask a simple question how many 30 year old disc mowers do you see still in use.


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