Using Raptor SD to cut tall brush...

[mooch91]

All,

I have about 0.25 acre of tall grassy brush that surrounds my property. It's remnants of old farmland, so it's a coarse grass (timothy, or barnyardgrass, or the like) and some soft-stemmed weeds. It grows to about a foot tall each year and dies back a bit in the fall/winter.

Tonight, for kicks, I raised the deck on my Raptor SD 54 and plowed through it. And despite the fact that the chute got clogged, it kept on cutting, no issues. Didn't bog or stall the motor at all.

If I were to use my Raptor SD to continue to cut through this, will I be damaging the mower at all? I'm thinking I would like to clear the 0.25 acre and maintain it a little going forward.

Thoughts?

Thanks!

Here's a pic of what I was cutting, essentially the brush beyond the horizontal cut line in the photo:

 

[Kremeneon]

I cut over an acre of knee high pasture. no problems.

The only real potential issue I see is the possibility of debris getting caught on top of the deck and buggering the belt or pulleys. I stopped often to make sure there was no issue. You might want to rig up something (bungee) to raise the discharge chute a little above horizontal when cutting that sort of thing.

 

[Randyj266]

When I reclaimed overgrown land in the back of my property, I used an old lawn tractor and my old push mower that I don't care about damaging. I did an initial walk through to make sure there was nothing major and then I mowed it down to dirt so I could see the contour and find any potential debris that would damage the ZTR. After that, since my cut height is very low compared to most, I took the ZTR through at my desired height without blades engaged to find any spots that would possibly cause issues and then either corrected the high/low spots or made mental notes.

 

[SeniorCitizen]

I've mowed a lot of it like that but as Randy mentioned, after a thorough walk through and at the highest setting initially. And there is nothing disgraceful about taking a partial swath the first time over. I wouldn't recommend it on those shrubs though.

 

[Kremeneon]

Yeah, don't try to run over the bushes. cut around them, then come back with loppers and cut them down.

When I broke the pasture I cut now, I made three passes through it:
1. deck at lowest height, no blades, listening and feeling for obstructions.
2. blades on, deck at parking stop
3. blades on, cut at finished height.