dadohead
Silver Member
Some pro cutters have the bottom of their mower decks sprayed with bed-liner material. The first coat is smooth and then they splatter coat the 2nd... you request the smooth finish be left of course. The reports were that it provides an incredible non-stick surface. More importantly though, it prevents the abrasion wear some regions are known for.
As a tractor/mower engineer I took a prototype mower to a bed-liner shop and had it coated. $600ish? They took the drive parts off and masked the spindle pocket areas. That's where all the costs went. I ran the machine at our Florida test site (the sandy soil wears blades to nubs in several hundred hours). At end of test most mowers have the beginnings of at least one wear through area. This deck had none; the bed-liner was completely intact. The mower deck then ran another full field test in Wisconsin... it stayed much cleaner than any machine we had ever tested.
Enough interest was generated by leadership that I put a team together to investigate adding this process to the factory. Ha! Manufacturing wanted NOTHING to do with it... a nightmare material to incorporate into a production facility. Costs would have been wild too. Impressive solution though!
As a tractor/mower engineer I took a prototype mower to a bed-liner shop and had it coated. $600ish? They took the drive parts off and masked the spindle pocket areas. That's where all the costs went. I ran the machine at our Florida test site (the sandy soil wears blades to nubs in several hundred hours). At end of test most mowers have the beginnings of at least one wear through area. This deck had none; the bed-liner was completely intact. The mower deck then ran another full field test in Wisconsin... it stayed much cleaner than any machine we had ever tested.
Enough interest was generated by leadership that I put a team together to investigate adding this process to the factory. Ha! Manufacturing wanted NOTHING to do with it... a nightmare material to incorporate into a production facility. Costs would have been wild too. Impressive solution though!
