Garage-Built Mower Uses Big Off-Road Tires and Gear Reduction to Obliterate Grass

It doesn’t always matter if the problem you’re facing has a perfectly good solution; sometimes, you want to come up with one yourself. And who am I to challenge that type of initiative and ingenuity? Nobody, that’s who. That’s why I can only applaud what Taylor Dolfi is doing with this homebuilt, high-powered brush hog that uses some serious gear reduction to wack down weeds.

The build has been in process for months now, but just this week, Dolfi uploaded a video showing the latest iteration at work. You can see here that the contraption is built around a truck rear end that’s been flipped. Propulsion comes from whatever you have available to tow it. As the tires turn, it spins a series of gears and a chain drive that rotates a vertically oriented half-shaft. The final result is 10.7 rotations of the blades per single rotation of the tires (or thereabouts).

Trial and error have been frequent, but then again, such is often the case with original ideas. An early iteration of the build didn’t utilize a chain drive, and because the gearing was so high, turning the blades quickly enough to cut thick brush was almost impossible. Dolfi then went back to the drawing board while also ditching the traditional mower blades for incredibly thick braided wire.

While I can’t find the exact thickness of the wire, it’s way bigger around than your finger. And better yet, each one has sharpened blades welded on at the tips, making quick work of fat stalks and, I imagine, small trees. Said braided cables are attached to the spinning bearing with a pair of lug studs as well as spot welds. Still, you wouldn’t catch me anywhere near the back of this thing.

It’s not quite a finished product yet. Nailing the geometry has been tricky, and when you’re mowing on uneven ground, there’s even more “what-ifs” to consider. But something that made me chuckle is how Dolfi suggested raising the deck height, so to speak: Just swap the tires out for 37s. That’ll do.

You can see just how much the pull-behind brush obliterator has changed by watching videos on Dolfi’s Instagram, where you’ll also find photos of his Dodge Challenger on Jeep wheels and off-road tires. You can tell he has a lot of fun, no matter what he’s doing. And with a front-porch view like that, who can blame him?

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