Discbine Damage

Out and about looking at a few discbines and while I'm used to seeing rubber chunks missing from both JD and NH machines, I can't say I've ever seen a broken flail/impeller - until this weekend. Looked at a couple of New Holland flail discbines and both had a few broken flails. Also saw a few new New Holland discbines with steel rollers.

I read steel rollers are durable, more so than rubber, but what happens to the steel rollers when whatever rock or piece of wood goes through them - like apparently happened on those flail discbines with broken flails? Bent rollers or worse?

BTW the NH and Deere flails appear to me to be cast. I should think cast = brittle. Krone's flail machine uses steel impellers which maybe wouldn't be so brittle? Anybody replacing the flails/impellers on a NH or JD mower conditioner on a regular basis? Expensive?

Just curious.

Thanks,
Bill

Discbine Damage