CaptainQuint:

I may be all wet but I believe the "Trailcutter", which cuts 44" in the pull behind model, is the "Rough Cut" model. You may be thinking of the "Trailmower" which has two blades under the deck and is more like a finish cut mower. The Trailcutter has a single cutting head under the deck with two swinging blades attached to it.

At any rate the Trailcutter or rough cut model is what I have and it does a great job on lite brush. Stuff up to about an inch chops nicely as long as it's green. We have been cutting sagebrush with it and that stuff is tough.

 

Nope they appear to be different beasts.

From the Swisher website:

T-44 Trailmower
http://www.swisherinc.com/t44_trailmower.html

T-60 Trailmower
http://www.swisherinc.com/t60_trailmower.html

RT-44 Trailcutter
http://www.swisherinc.com/44_trailcutter.html

They also sell something they call their "Belly Mount Quad Hypercut" which mounts under your ATV
http://www.swisherinc.com/quad_cut.html

 

Right you are CptnQ. We have the RT-44 Trailcutter with the big Briggs engine. Good machine.

I saw that belly mount unit and am considering it rather than the 60" Trailmower. Looks like it would be easier to navigate around in tight areas. Best deal would be to have the big belly mount and two of the big trailmowers. 180 plus inches, lets see divide by 12 and thats, wow! like 15 feet each pass. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-shocked.gif[/img] More time for fishin. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]

 

tencubed
Where did you see the belly mounted ATV mower? I'm looking for a mower for narrow log trails and the tow-behinds seem like they'd need too much space to navigate.

 

Nvermind. I did a search and found it here. For $2400 I think I'd just buy another lawnmower

nullbelly mower

 

I have a swisher 60" finish mower, I'm considering a bigger motor maybe a 16hp. The factory 12hp motor bogs down easly in thick grass. Other than that the only nessasary mod is to remove the factory small fuel tank and replace it with a 5 or 6 gallon outboard boat motor tank (works great).

 

Yeh, I thought about a bigger tank and the outboard tank sounds like a good way to go. Then I thought it might be better to take a break every once in a while to fill the gas tank and have a cool beverage of your choice. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]

Does Swisher offer a more powerful engine as an option on the 60"? I know there are options for some of the smaller mowers.

 

I Pull my 60" finish cut behind my lawn tractor(42") cut and it works great. You can offset it so it just overlaps the mower blades. When you get to a corner you just turn when the swisher gets to the edge of the mowed grass and spin it it on that spot. When you start down the new row it all falls into place. I trim around trees with the swisher in tow also and it Works great once you get the hang of it. Nothing like cutting a 102" swath![img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

 

I currently have an RT-50 trailcutter (they don’t make that model any more) which weights 628 pounds. I used it to mow 5 large fields (about 40 acres total) once or twice a year to keep the weeds, blackberries and wild rose from taking over. These used to be hayfields on a working cattle farm many years ago but the cows are long gone and it’s just a nice quiet 92 acre family retreat now (and a place to ride our ATVs!). Besides the hayfields there were some rocky pasture areas that I mow sections of as well (sometimes more than once a month). The mower did the job pretty good but it would take a couple of days to do one of the 5 fields since you are limited to 3 mph or sometimes less. The vegetation was generally at least as high as the quad or sometimes nearly as high as my head while I was sitting on the quad. The 12.5 hp Briggs & Stratton engine I felt was not powerful enough for this application because where it was thick I would sometimes have to stop and let the revs build back up after it bogged down. It would cut anything I could drive over though. There were some wild rose bushes that I drove over when I first started cutting with it that were probably more than 5’ tall and although I had to ease the mower over the bush gently it was able to cut it up (sometimes I had to make another pass to chop up stalks that didn’t get completely cut up on the first try).

I’m not using it now though because something broke inside the engine (no compression) when I hit a rock about the same time that I acquired an old Ford model 3000 tractor with a 60” bush hog and a new Kubota BX-22 with a 60” deck for finish cutting (for pasture areas that didn’t have a lot of rock), so I use the tractors now and they are more efficient than using the RT-50.

However I don’t use the tractors to do the rockier pasture areas because of the hazards of potentially running over a hidden rock with the tractor which may result in a tipover. I’ll probably invest in a new RT-44 so I can use the ATV again for these areas (I don’t want anything wider than the ATV in the hope that I’ll detect any hidden rocks by running over them with the ATV in time to stop or turn before dragging the mower over them. This was easier to do when I had my old SRA Grizzly as it was more sensitive to bumps and easier to detect rocks when I hit them than the soft riding IRS Grizzly. When I get started mowing again with the ATV I may devise some sort of device to drag ahead of the mower or ahead of the ATV (such as a length of pipe) so I can “hear” when I come across a rock that’s in between the wheels so I can take evasive action before dragging the mower over it...

 

oooohhhhhhhhhh belly mower

edit: no price? ah, prior experience tells me something [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-shocked.gif[/img] about how much its going to be, eh?
Cool, belly mowers are the only way to fly.
Wish they'd come up with zero turn bush hog..