Mulcher tooth recommendations

[danreed76]

I recently picked up a Magnum 60 (now owned by Bradco) mulcher head to clear some underbrush.  Needs a bit of cosmetic and dental work. What are the advantages to the different tooth styles (obviously carbide will last longer)?  Is anyone aware of any aftermarket teeth available for these units?  I've not turned up much in my online searches.

Thanks,

Dan

[VT_Forestry]

We have 2 Fecon heads - the one on our TigerCat M726 uses the carbide hammer-style tooth, the end product is typically stringy and more like mulch.  You don't have to sharpen that style tooth, which is nice, and the carbide will last a long time if you don't eat anything solid like concrete or rebar (or engine blocks laying out in the woods  :D ).  The other one we have on a Cat 299D XHP, it has the planer-style tooth on it.  Great end product, more like wood chips, but they gotta be sharpened pretty regular to get a nice finish like that, especially if you are going for a nice clean look and are consistently getting down into the dirt.  Hope that helps   

[danreed76]

Thanks for that feedback.  We got the unit to clean up our property, both establishing some silvo-pasture and cleaning up the understory in areas that we want to make more attractive and enjoyable.  Would the hammer type teeth make it suitable for follow up with a disc harrow prior to planting?

Our woods are relatively clean, but there are a few hidden rocks here and there.  Essentially we want the end product to be maintainable with a bush hog (or periodic re-visits with the mulcher).

How many hours would you say the steel teeth go between sharpening?  Average life expectancy if operated properly?

[redprospector]

Check out Quadco for aftermarket teeth. They may have something for that head.
As far as how long teeth last, it depends. When I was running a Gyro-Trac I had to sharpen daily. On my Fecon head, I've got almost 600 hours on a set of double carbide tools. I only get about 300 hours out of a set on my Tushogg head.

[VT_Forestry]

Both heads will leave something that can be easily run over with a bush hog.  As far as discing afterwards, it depends on how much time you want to spend breaking stuff down.  We've pulled a disc through and it does ok, but we spent a little extra time chopping it up knowing we were planning to do that.  We are sharpening the planer-style tooth frequently since we have pretty abrasive soil here.  Our mileage has varied greatly based on operator - some people have to rotate the tooth after 50 hours, effectively getting 100 hours out of a set before needing new ones.  A better operator has gotten almost double that.  We sharpen in the field with a battery powered angle grinder.  The carbide teeth are going on 200+ hours and are still good to go.  They don't need to be sharp so as long as you don't break them off when you hit something solid you should get upwards of 400-500 hours before they need to be replaced.  We've replaced a few that we've broken but the others are still going strong.