|
|
The Brown Bear FS4000 & FS5000 from Recycle & Composting Equipment will reduce trees from 10-12 inches in diameter to mulch. The 3 meter wide flail rotor is equipped with 54 sharpened, heat treated cutters, each independently, rotatively pin mounted. The cutters are positioned in the drum by centrifugal force. Should the cutter deflect, it is free to rotate 360 degrees around the pin mount to minimize damage. Each cutter is overlapped on both sides by another cutter to deliver flat cut stumps.
Not only can the FS series Forest Mulchers easily mulch large diameter trees but they are also right at home with lantana, blackberries, bamboo, and thick scrub of any kind. If it gets in the way of the Brown Bear…its history.
The Brown Bear from Recycle & Composting Equipment are the only manufacturer of complete units, meaning they not only build the flail head but they also build the tractor to go with it. The reason behind Brown Bear building the tractor was that forest mulcher flail heads, of any brand, require massive amounts of hydraulic pressure & flow so as not to slow down too much when the going gets tough. Brown Bear realized that adding the flail head to an existing tractor (like everyone else), even with bigger pumps installed, was still not delivering the kind of performance they required to be able to clear up to 8 acres an hour (FS5000) so they underwent the task of building their own tractor in their 40,000 square foot manufacturing facility in Iowa, USA that will meet and exceed the hydraulic requirements demanded by a forest mulcher.
The benefits of the Brown Bear forest mulcher is in the design of the flail drum and their cutters. All of the Brown Bears competitors either use swinging hammers or fixed hammers where multiple hammers are mounted on one shaft and there are 3-4 shafts around the circumference of the drum.
The big problem with these units is that they have a hammer, not a cutter, so the hammer beats and masticates the wood and not cut it, leaving large pieces instead of mulch along with rough cut stumps looking like a bunch of vertical pungi sticks which will puncture tyres and inflict damage to the feet of cattle and horses if used for pasture clearing.
The big maintenance problem with this design is that with several hammers mounted on the same shaft, there is a rough spot worn onto the shaft where every hammer runs. To change the hammer the shaft must be removed through multiple hammers and multiple supports with semi close tolerance and the rough spots on the shaft make for either a sledge hammer job, which can take hours, or need an oxy torch which will require a new shaft.
In comparison all the Brown Bear flail units use sharp cutters, not hammers, that can be sharpened on the machine if need be using a common hand grinder. The cutters normally need sharpening about once every 40 hours or so and last about 200-300 hours if kept out of rocks. There are carbide tipped cutting tips available for using where there is a lot of sand but little rock.
I generally ask potential customers considering a flail forest mulcher would they rather cut down a tree by hand using a hammer (opposition) or with an axe (Brown Bear).
Every cutter on a Brown Bear forest mulcher from Recycle & Composting Equipment is individually pinned and can be changed in about 5 minutes with common hand tools and can be rotated 180 degrees and used again.
Because every cutter has a cutter behind it overlapping it, the cut leaves smooth stumps which do not puncture tyres or damage the feet of stock.
The majority of the mulch left by our flail cutter is 1” minus chips because our stirrup shaped cutter shaves the chips out like a mill.
These flail heads are also available on a skid steer mounted unit & a 3 point linkage mounted, PTO driven unit.
|
