2015 - Volume #39, Issue #1, Page #27
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Sno-Cat Mounted Mower Makes Trail Trimming Easy
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“Our snowmobile club maintains about 65 miles of trails, and we needed an easier way to get rid of brush growing out into the trails than cutting it by hand. We already were using the Sno-Cat to pull a trail groomer, so I adapted a used mower to replace the front-mounted blade,” says Bennett.
He removed the mower’s original mounting brackets, leaving just the cutterbar and hydraulic motor and its casting. He used a 5-ft. length of steel I-beam to make a new mounting frame. He welded 4 metal tabs with holes in them onto the I-beam and then pinned it on in place of the Sno-Cat blade. Two of the tabs connect the hydraulic motor’s casting to the I-beam, one supports a hydraulic cylinder that swings the cutterbar 45 degrees to the left or right, and one is used to pin the I-beam onto the Sno-Cat’s frame.
He also welded angle iron brackets onto the I-beam, allowing him to bolt the mower onto the Sno-Cat’s blade mounting brackets.
“I built it last summer and used it to clear brush on about 1/4 mile of trail. It worked even better than I could have hoped,” says Bennett. “Our North Country Mountaineers snowmobile club owns the machine. We paid $700 for the cutterbar. It only takes about 10 min. to switch from the brush cutter to the blade. I just remove 2 bolts from the tabs on the I-beam, remove a bolt from the top link that holds the hydraulic cylinder, and disconnect 4 hoses.”
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Norman Bennett, 188 Drown Mill Road, Newport, Vt. 05855 (ph 802 624-0720; bigtrukr@icloud.com).
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