Unhappy with Steiner mower

[aclarke]

Hi there. I have a Steiner MX-460 60" mulching mower attached to my venerable Steiner 410. I've owned this about 5 years, and I'm pretty sure it's not mowing as well as it used to. It basically seems to miss between the three blades. So I get three sections that are mowed reasonably well, with two strips in between the blades where the grass gets sort of cut, but ends up longer there. Is this normal? Am I doing something wrong?

We originally had Steiner blades on the mower, but as they were old and short and dull, went to the dealer to get new ones. They convinced us to go with aftermarket blades that have only two sharp edges on one blade vs. the Steiner blades that had 4 edges on 2 blades (per spindle). I could go back and buy Steiner blades, but I'm not sure if that's the problem, if my expectations are too high with this mower, or if something else is wrong.

Ideas?

 

[Tomtint]

Hi there. I have a Steiner MX-460 60" mulching mower attached to my venerable Steiner 410. I've owned this about 5 years, and I'm pretty sure it's not mowing as well as it used to. It basically seems to miss between the three blades. So I get three sections that are mowed reasonably well, with two strips in between the blades where the grass gets sort of cut, but ends up longer there. Is this normal? Am I doing something wrong?

We originally had Steiner blades on the mower, but as they were old and short and dull, went to the dealer to get new ones. They convinced us to go with aftermarket blades that have only two sharp edges on one blade vs. the Steiner blades that had 4 edges on 2 blades (per spindle). I could go back and buy Steiner blades, but I'm not sure if that's the problem, if my expectations are too high with this mower, or if something else is wrong.

Ideas?

I have a few Scag mowers and a Walker GHS zero turn. .. both are very particular with blades and I learned the hard way. The Walker was leaving Mohawks in my lawn when I tries a non Walker blade.. the Scag was similar but not as bed. Swapped out again to OE blades and no problems.

 

[Industrial Toys]

I think I ran into the same problem. In fact, my Steiner Dealer sold me blades that were a little too long and they would actually HIT! I don't remember if they were Steiner or the Gator Blades I always use now.

I think, and I may be totally wrong, that the design of that deck does not give much overlap between the center and outside blades. And since blades do virtually all of their cutting at the tip, if they get dull or rounded off, you are going to end up with cut quality issues. I wish they had more over lap, but that would have required a longer deck, and that's the last thing I would want on my 430 either.

I have had people start to talk about the blades having to be in sync and thus the blades can be longer, but that is just non-sense!

Trying to search a possible post I may have made about this, but as usual, the search function on this site is useless! Search "Steiner Mower" and pages of totally unrelated posts come up.