Bringing an old Rotary Mower back to life.....Before and After

Greygoose · Jul 22, 2023

Anyone get as much enjoyment as I do refurbishing an old implement over buying a new one? A little welding,cleaning,painting,new PTO shaft,some grease / gear lube, blade touch-up and this old 5 foot J Bar runs like a new one.
And I have less than 400.00 in her including the 250.00 purchase price. It's not even so much about saving money-in the first photo (How I found it) it was left for dead just because it was old and had a broken PTO shaft that the owner never wanted to repair. Kinda almost felt sorry for it. This is the third attachment I have brought back to life-the others were a backhoe and a tiller and it is quite satisfying. Maybe I'm just weird?
Mike

David in KY · Jul 22, 2023

Beautiful!
Did you use a sand blaster? Wow.

kf4uda · Jul 22, 2023

Nice work. It may not have looked that good when it was new.

Tinhack · Jul 23, 2023

Nice job!

That looks better than the one I got at TS last year. It can't support its own weight on the back wheel. It bows the deck.

John0829 · Jul 23, 2023

Good job!

Greygoose · Jul 23, 2023

Thanks very much Guys. David-I had very little elbow grease in this machine.No sandblasting,I did run a sanding block all over it and got the loose crap off, then just sprayed it all down with rust kutter (spelling correct) and left it sit overnight.Washed it then painted it.
Tinhack-Are you serious?? I was looking at them at TSC and they looked allot thinner than this older one but I didn't think they might be THAT thin!
Mike

rgr33 · Jul 23, 2023

That is my wintertime hobby. mostly do flail mowers, but have also done rotary cutters, a disk, and some old trailers And hay wagons over the years.

Never have any particular project in mind, just whatever looks like a viable refurbish project at a bargain price