Hello, I am looking to purchase a brush cutter for making trails. Most of the cutting will be 1 to 2" beech trees. Please don't recommend a chainsaw. I have done 20 acres of TSI with one and its time for an improvement. I was looking at the Honda
HHT35SUKA which is a 35cc 4 stroke or an Echo 43"cc two stroke. Any suggestions between the two?
I have used blades that were essentially circular saw blades with many teeth. Some were carbide tipped and some were not. I have used blades with three tips (Husqvarna 12" dia
https://www.husqvarna.com/us/trimmer-blades/grass-knife-3-tooth/) as well as two tips. I have used trimmer line (Oregon Flexiblade .158" line
https://www.oregonproducts.com/en/flexiblade,-serrated,-158",-350-ft-/p/21-609).
But the best by far, has been the Champion Brush Blender (
https://www.championcutter.com/blades.html) All the other blades mentioned above are flat, but the Champion has downward pointing ends that are MUCH more effective because they seem to catch and cut what you're working in, whether it is grass or material that grows in all directions like blackberry vines. At first I powered the Champion blade with the HHT31SUNBA brush cutter with a GX 31 Honda 4 cycle engine, but that did not have enough power for me, so I got the Echo SRM 410 U, and it works pretty well- I wouldn't want any less power.
The Flexiblade trimmer line, I put in an Oregon Gator head that needed the holes enlarged for the line, so the metal sleeve got removed. I haven't used it much because of having the line break too often to suit me.
So I use the Echo with the Champion for tall field grass, blackberry, just whatever needs to be cut. No other blade compares as far as I am concerned. I see some similar appearing blades on Amazon, but I haven't tried them. It will cut growth up to about 1", but I might need to take several whacks at it. Once, I hit a rock and it caused one of the blades to deflect upward toward the blade guard, and it cut through the metal shield more than half way (see image). So I run it without a shield, and it doesn't get clogged in really heavy field grass, though it does slow down some. I wear goggles plus metal mesh face shield and ear plugs. Gloves would be good also. Still, I have been hit by small wood chunks, one that left a bruise on my leg.
One person wrote in reply to my setup, that his Stihl brush blender tubing got torqued too hard and broke at the head. So far mine has held up after 5 years of seasonal cutting. Note that the OD of the main tubing is 1.1" for my Echo, but 1.0" for my Honda. Don't know what his Stihl was.
This past year being out of work due to Covid, I finally had the time and did several acres, mostly grass but some blackberry. Have not gotten all my 4.5 acres or so cleaned up to a mowable condition. would eventually like to get a flail mower (
https://www.singlecylinderstore.com...5I5ObPrTls7MkMcs85HjrjGHWRRowigwaAtv9EALw_wcB). Youtube videos show that flail mowers mulch well and leave a good finish. Personally I would use the brush cutter to gain access to an area, then a chainsaw to help clear the rest, and haul that large stuff to the burn pile. I would not expect a flail mower to mulch up large stuff and leave behind so much excess material, even if it was broken up. But for heavy field grass and a reasonably good cut on my rural property, the flail mower looks ideal. Cannot afford a tractor with flail mower.
I would like to go to an electric mower for the sake of the environment, and this Mean Green mower looked good (
https://meangreenproducts.com/wbx-33hd/) but a distributor quoted a price of more than $12,000 for that (ouch). And it's questionable how well it would handle tall field grass.
Hello, I am looking to purchase a brush cutter for making trails. Most of the cutting will be 1 to 2" beech trees. Please don't recommend a chainsaw. I have done 20 acres of TSI with one and its time for an improvement. I was looking at the Honda
HHT35SUKA which is a 35cc 4 stroke or an Echo 43"cc two stroke. Any suggestions between the two?