Z-Michigan said:
Something's not right here.... if the 3ph is properly set up, an implement should take at least 2 seconds to lower, and the load on whatever it hits shouldn't be significantly greater than the weight of the implement. Does your mower drop like a rock? Otherwise I think your sawhorses were not nearly up to their rated capacity.
I would have thought your method was totally safe. I guess your next bet would be to use jackstands to hold it up - I wanna hear about the mower that shatters some cast iron jackstands!
In retrospect, I think there are few factors that caused the saw-horse
failure in my case. The first is that the contact point between the mower
and the saw horses was small, maybe a square inch. I suspect
it would have been easier on them if the load was distributed over
a wider area. Second, if the mower came into contact with one
of the horses first, it might have failed b/c the mower is a lot heavier
than its rated capacity (maybe the first one failed, then the second
one failed as the mower continued down). And thirdly, the mower
did not fall "like a rock", it went down in a smooth controlled motion,
but there was still an impulse of energy suddenly transmited to the
saw horses as this heavy implement in motion hit them.