Finish mower question

Typhoon · Jun 27, 2004

Ok, I know this question has a lot of variables, so im not asking for a direct, accurate answer. Just a general idea. I have never mowed with a finish mower. I have been brush hogging for 2 years now, but never a finish mower. As I said in my previous post, I just brought home a new 6 foot Landpride 1672 Rear discharge finish mower. Can't wait to use it. Anyways, my questions are...
1. How durable are the blades as far as hitting the dirt sometimes, or a rock here and there, etc, in comparison to a rotary cutter blade? 2. For those of you who use finish mowers, how often do you sharpen the blades? I will be mowing about 8 acres, once every 2 weeks or so. I mean, is this something you do every few weeks or just once a year or?? And how big of a chore is it? Thanks!

sweettractors · Jun 27, 2004

In order to keep your sanity, Manually removing rock and high spots from the 8 acre field would be a good thing to do. Of course, setting the finish mower at its highest setting will help also.--Ken Sweet

Sweet Farm Equipment LLC *New First Choice 6ft Finish Mowers or 56 Inch Roto Tiller $1195*

Bob_Skurka · Jun 27, 2004

I will agree with Ken. You really need to clear out the rocks and flatten some of the bumps. You might want to borrow, rent or buy a "york rake" and try to get the rocks, debris, and it will even help flatten some bumps, but you might want to go after high spots with a box blade. Until you do that, set the mower deck setting high so you avoid most of the junk.

KiotiJohn · Jun 27, 2004

I would say that your biggest indicator of a need to sharpen your blades is the way the tops of the grass blades look after cutting. If they have a rather "frosty," torn up look to them, your blades are too dull. I believe that the finish mower blades are not terribly different than a lawn tractor with cutting deck blades. 8 acres of cutting would probably call for sharpening the blades afterward. Cutting high helps the grass to establish good deep roots and also shades the roots from drying out so quickly, making them a little more drought tolerant. The durability of the blades really depends on how well and of what material they are made. Some resist damage from stones and dirt clumps better than others. Compared to rotary cutter blades, I believe most finish mower blades are a little thinner. If you have a loader, it's easy to lift the deck with the loader and use an angle grinder, dremel tool or other means of sharpening the blades on the deck. Taking them off is a little more involved and you will need large sockets and probably a breaker bar or impact wrench to do so. However, it's always prudent to check the torque on the nuts holding everything together on a regular basis. With all the vibration these mowers experience, bolts can loosen and blades can come off. I don't think you'll have any major problems and here's to your having a great looking lawn/pasture/field. John

texbaylea · Jun 27, 2004

I take a different approach perhaps. My place is totally sand so I just replace blades every year and believe me they need it. A sharpening does not last long and toward the end of the season the cut does look a bit ragged but I simply cross cut in a couple of days and it looks pretty good. Now I am not going for the manicured look and since my wife does not let me mow until all the wild flowers have gone to seed, it is fairly tall by the end of spring. Even with new, sharp blades it will take me 3 cuttings to start looking good. I still have a lot of clearing to do so I don't plan on getting too frantic about it until the clearing is done.

chim · Jun 27, 2004

Frequency of sharpening is directly proportional to the number of times you scalp a spot or hit rocks /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

I have a rotary cutter and a couple RFM's, and the blades on my rotary cutter are much beefier than on the RFM's.

I have sharpened the blades while still mounted, but prefer to remove them. With an impact wrench, it's pretty easy to get the blades off and on. An angle grinder is my tool of choice, although I have used a bench grinder a couple times....................chim

ipwanab · Jun 27, 2004

I cut about 5 acres each week with a 5 ft RFM. My tractor now has 150 hours and the blades haven't been sharpened or replaced (yet). The cut looks very good, even now with that many hours. I live in Southern Indiana so our grass is probably similar. I did hit a clump of dirt last year and saw a big woosh of dust but thought everything was OK. The next week the long belt on the RFM flew apart. (I guess the heat and stress of the previous weeks dirt got to the belt.)I also got into some fence wire and had to stop and unwind it from one of the blades, but other than a small nick the blade looked ok. I push cut a tremedous amount of grass at my residence and have been through the blade routine and now believe I have spent too much attention on blades and no longer get to excited unless the grass looks ragged. Incidentally i checked on a set of blades for my RFM this week(Woods) and the weren't very expensive.

Gary_in_Indiana · Jun 28, 2004

You sound like you're where I was a couple years ago. Here's what I did and, while not perfect, it's worked pretty well.

I used my rotary cutter and cut everything down as low as I could, which was far lower than I ever wanted it cut wiith the finish mower. That cutting found every high spot and piece of wood, fencepost, rock, chunk of concrete and some other things of indeterminant nature. /forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif With that done, using the finish mower was fairly uneventful, which is what you want. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

As to sharpening, I probably don't do it often enough. I am getting better though, and now want to do it after every ten or fifteen acres mowed. In my case, that's every two or three mowings. One thing that's helping me do that is an extra set of blades. I wish I'd done that sooner. I can simply change the dull set for a fresh sharp set when I need to now and then sharpen the dull set at my leisure rather than be faced with either mowing with dull blades or having to sharpen my blades before I start.

If you're going to sharpen them yourself, make certain they're balanced when you're done. You don't want them unevenly weighted and that's easy to do if you have a knick on one side of one. You'll tend to grind that one more and it'll be lighter than the other side.

Good luck with your finish mower. I hope this helps. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

chim · Jun 28, 2004

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( If you're going to sharpen them yourself, make certain they're balanced when you're done. You don't want them unevenly weighted and that's easy to do if you have a knick on one side of one. You'll tend to grind that one more and it'll be lighter than the other side. )</font>

I picked up a shortcut to balancing since getting the mig welder. It's pretty easy to add some metal to the back side of the light end of the blade..................chim