Naive...but

[LD1]

Does everyone lift the cutter when making sharp turns (assuming you have a lift type) or do you just sling it around on the tail wheel?

I usually sling the tailwheel. Thats why it pivots But if I am cutting really close to the ground, with the front skids and sideskirts sometimes touching the ground, I will lift it otherwise they cut in.

[aczlan]

Part of the trouble with square mowing patterns is that towards the end of it, you're making almost nothing but turns, since the legs are so short. Once you have the rectangles established, I try to cut mostly on the long edges to prevent that. I'd sooner drive a few more feet ahead unloaded to get to a long steady cut than spend more time stopping and turning, or doing cloverleafs.
Sean

If you use the "Zamboni" pattern as shown above, the only time you will be doing "nothing but turns" is when you miscalculate the "center" and make one side wider than the other.

Aaron Z

[Soundguy]

Every time you get to the end of the rectangle, you drive over an already-mowed area. The wider the rectangle, the more time it takes to start the next strip of actual mowing, so dividing the field into several narrow rectangles is somewhat more efficient. But you have to accurately eyeball a parallel "plunge cut" for more rectangles, and cleaning up when you make a mistake can offset the time you gain. If you get good at it, it's about as fast as using the turning brakes to make square 90 deg or 180 deg turns when mowing.

it's a small mowed portion.

virtually impossible to do any mowing job and never drive over pre-mowed grass.

[Baby Grand]

I do it like Soundguy said, but I do the perimeter last. Nothing to do with efficiency -- I hate killing praying mantises. If I cut towards the center, they'll get trapped. Those girls do such a good job on the bugs around here, that I don't feel foolish making a little extra effort to be sure they can escape into the woods.

Great point and a good reason to review smstonypoints' Zamboni diagram. I had to stop 4 times last weekend to relocate mine. One of them kept flying back into the tall grass - not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

[texasjohn]

now that's a pretty critter...worth mowing around!!

[Grandad4]

it's a small mowed portion.

virtually impossible to do any mowing job and never drive over pre-mowed grass.

Amen to that. That would probably be a good math problem for an engineer type... what's the most efficient zamboni pattern for any given width and length of field? If you are using the simplest, two rectangle pattern on a square field, you'd make one lateral transit - half at one end and another half at the other end for every two lengthwise strips of actual cut, so the total running time is 50% higher than the actual cutting time. At the other extreme, such as if you have a zero turn, there's virtually no lateral transit time... it's down and back, down and back, so the total time is same as the actual cutting time. (Those are greatly over-simplified, not real world examples, of course)

Somebody else is going to have to figure out the rest... or not, as the case may be.

[Soundguy]

since my 15' batwing won't 0-turn.. I'm not worrying about it too much..

[MN Charlie]

I haven't tried this with a 3 point mower but with my lawn tractor I modify the "Zamboni pattern" a bit. I mow the perimeter and then, starting along one long edge, I skip slightly less than one mower width and mow a strip. Then I skip another (slightly less than one) mower width and mow a second strip. That leaves something that looks a bit like this (ASCII Art time...):

1 --#############################--
2 --------------------------------------------------------
3 --#############################--
4 --------------------------------------------------------
5 --#############################--
6 --#############################--
7 --#############################--
8 --############...

The lines of --------- are mowed and the lines of ############ are un-mowed.

Once the pattern is set, I set up a loop where I mow row 1, loop to row 6 and mow back the other way. At the end I loop back to row 3 and on the return trip go up row 8 and so on. Each time that I mow into the un-mowed portion of the yard, I leave a row. The pattern progresses across the yard. It doesn't even matter if the rows are straight, they just need to be parallel.

How many rows I had to leave was based on the turning radius of my lawn tractor. I haven't tried this with the 3 point finish mower yet but it should work.

[kenmack]

I make my rectangles a comfortable turning radius such that I minimize the inefficient end re-mows. I've even made alternating left/right turns so that my initial mow path snakes across the field. Then when I reach the other side, I do the same thing back the other way. In a sense, I cut all my rectangles in the beginning and finish them all simultaneously.

[creekbend]

This may help: The Geometry of Ice Resurfacing

Steve

Thanks for posting.