Sickle Bar Gaspardo / Frontier sickle bar mower

[Walter63]

I just bought a used SB1107 Frontier double acting sickle mower made by Gaspardo. Unlike my other Gaspardo mower, this one has knife guards that are bolted on rather than riveted. A nice feature that saves time if a knife guard needs to be replaced, as the knife guard bar needn't be removed, just bolt on a new guard.
Unless I am mistaken though, this means that the knife guard bar cannot be slid out the way a riveted one can. Not so nice a feature, as it means that all of the hold-downs must be removed in order to remove the knife guard bar.

If anyone out there has a Gaspardo / Frontier with the bolted knife guards, I'd like to hear from you. The users manual is not helpful on this point.
Thanks in advance.

 

[sweettractors]

I just bought a used SB1107 Frontier double acting sickle mower made by Gaspardo. Unlike my other Gaspardo mower, this one has knife guards that are bolted on rather than riveted. A nice feature that saves time if a knife guard needs to be replaced, as the knife guard bar needn't be removed, just bolt on a new guard.
Unless I am mistaken though, this means that the knife guard bar cannot be slid out the way a riveted one can. Not so nice a feature, as it means that all of the hold-downs must be removed in order to remove the knife guard bar.

If anyone out there has a Gaspardo / Frontier with the bolted knife guards, I'd like to hear from you. The users manual is not helpful on this point.
Thanks in advance.

Can you post a pic of the cutterbar? Ken Sweet

 

[Walter63]

Can you post a pic of the cutterbar? Ken Sweet

I'll post a photo once I reassemble the bar. It was necessary to remove all of the hold -downs in order to remove the knife guard bar, because the protruding bolt heads prevent the bar from being slid out. So the bolt-on guards are a nice feature if you need to replace a damaged guard, but the trade-off is not being able to slide the bar out like you can with the riveted version.
I do, however, consider the superior cut of the double action sickle to be worth any of the disadvantages, and the bolt-on guards are probably an additional advantage in most situations.

 

[Walter63]

I'd like to post an update in case anyone else has this same problem in the future. With the Gaspardo/Frontier sickle bars having the bolted knife guard feature, there are two ways to remove the knife guard bar...Either unbolt and remove all of the knife guards, or unbolt and remove all of the hold-downs. If I were to purchase again, I would opt for the riveted knife guards instead. With those, if you damage a guard, you slide out the bar and replace and re-rivet the new guard. Not that difficult. And if the bar breaks, you can just slide it out and repair it.
On these mowers, the bars are prone to breakage, and the bolt-on bars are just too much work to replace or weld if you have to first unbolt each and every guard to remove the bar. For that reason, I don't consider it a worthwhile feature.
Other than that, I really like the Gaspardo/Frontier double action mowers.