How often do you sharpen or replace mower blades?

[Will_C]

I change mine every 15-20 hours. I have 3 sets of Gator blades and I sharpen them on rainy days. I have to get under the deck to scrape it out anyway, so I grab the impact wrench and it takes me less than 2 minutes.

Will

 

[Industrial Toys]

I just sold my sixteen foot PTO finishing mower! One less thing (and a wack of blades).

These guys that remove their blades more often then I change underware, I don't get that. MOST decks arn't that easy to get at. My ten foot mower has side wings that flip up, no problem, except the blade bolts go all the way through the spindles and almost require two people to take the blades off. The front deck gets maybe a foot off the ground so it's a lying down thing. Hardly, a chore one looks forward to.

For the most part, my three spindle decks get lifted in the air with a loader for service. Then they flop around in the wind! Not something you want to do often!

 

[Creamer]

I just sold my sixteen foot PTO finishing mower! One less thing (and a wack of blades).

These guys that remove their blades more often then I change underware, I don't get that. MOST decks arn't that easy to get at. My ten foot mower has side wings that flip up, no problem, except the blade bolts go all the way through the spindles and almost require two people to take the blades off. The front deck gets maybe a foot off the ground so it's a lying down thing. Hardly, a chore one looks forward to.

For the most part, my three spindle decks get lifted in the air with a loader for service. Then they flop around in the wind! Not something you want to do often!

You need to buy easier to service equipment. My three blade tips up to vertical and sets there solid - easy to clean and easy to change blades.

 

[Deere Dude]

Thought of getting mulching blades or high lift blades for a 84" finish mower instead of the regulars blades. Would that that cause more stuff to get sucked up causing more sharpening intervals?? I sharpen now maybe at maybe 40 hours and they are still fair.

 

[LD1]

High lift may cause more suction. But I don't think gators have any more suction than standard blades.

As to blade tips dulling quickest, they are also traveling the fastest. So keep that in mind.

 

[ovrszd]

Is it an absolute known truth about the last 1/16" doing most of the cutting? This is news to me!

All depends on your ground speed and blade tip speed. If appropriately proportioned, yep it's a known truth. The more out of proportion, the less truth.

 

[Creamer]

Thought of getting mulching blades or high lift blades for a 84" finish mower instead of the regulars blades. Would that that cause more stuff to get sucked up causing more sharpening intervals?? I sharpen now maybe at maybe 40 hours and they are still fair.

How often you sharpen depends a lot on what you consider acceptable cut quality and how fast you want to mow. The better commercial guys I know sharpen almost daily as they keep their mowers running hard all day and they keep them moving. They like the mid-mount ZTRs because of the speed they can mow with them without deck bounce (along with the compactness of hauling). But I do not know of any of them that leaves a 1/16" bluntness on the cutting edge. Most go with sharp but I know one who blunts his very slightly.

Of course in my area "commercial" usually means people who mow lawns for industries and in my area that tends to mean a lot of grass area, i.e. acres per site.

 

[SPYDERLK]

All depends on your ground speed and blade [tip speed]. If appropriately proportioned, yep it's a known truth. The more out of proportion, the less truth.

[refresh rate]

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I have never bought new blades. My 6' finish mower is 16 yrs old i think. i probably should sharpen a little more often, but i dont try to keep up with the jones.

 

[QRTRHRS]

I have found a set of blades I really like. I am at 80-100hrs and still havent sharpened them (allthough they are about due). And I am not easy on them at all. Doing alot of construction around my new place and same at the old with living in a woods. Always running over rocks, sticks, dirt clods, dragging one edge into the ground running down the ditch, etc.

After the first season with these blades I took them off to sharpen, but didnt and put them back on as they were still sharp.

They are Gator Magnum blades with Fusion. Standard blades for my ZTR are 2.5" wide and 1/4" thick. The magnums are 3" x 5/16" thk. Fusion is a coating added to the underside of the cutting edge that is like a layer of sintered carbide. Its on the underside so as you sharpen, you dont grind it off. I was really amazed at how well they held up after mowing countless dirt clods and scalping after I had the pond dug.

And I too use a flap disc, but dont leave a blunt edge. If you maintain the 30 or whatever degree angle, they wont dull any quicker per-say. IE: if you sharpen to 1/32 and consider 1/16" as dull. Making them sharp wont result in dulling down to 1/16" quicker. But they will wear down to that 1/32" blunt edge quicker, but from there on, they would dull at the same rate as if you started there.

Where did you get those blades from? I am looking to buy Gator type blades for my zero turn.

 

[Coyote machine]

Post #50, try the internet - it has all kinds of things on places like Google:just one example ~ Amazon.com: gator mulching blades

 

[LD1]

Where did you get those blades from? I am looking to buy Gator type blades for my zero turn.

Yep, it was the internet. Dont remember now. Could have been ebay, or one of the many mower parts sites. Most likely whoever had them the cheapest to my door. It was a few years ago. At the time, there were 4 kinds of gator blades you could buy

Standard blades. Regular old gator blades. 2.5" wide and 1/4" thick.
Standard blades + fusion. With the sintered carbide under the cutting edge.
Magnum blades. Heavy duty 3" wide and 5/16" thick.
Magnum + fusion.

As I said, the fusion coating is on the underside , the side that you dont sharpen. (kinda like chainsaw teeth having chrome on the outside). That coating is ~1/2" of the total width of the blade. So once you sharpen more than 1/2", there will be no more. Just a standard blade.

 

[k0ua]

Doyle: What are you doing with that blade, there, Karl?
Karl: I aim to kill you with it, mmm hmm.

 

[SPIKER]

Hey guys:

I thought of this post again when 2 weeks back one of the large tater sized rocks decided to GROW and on 2nd mow I caught it. The rock was 4 or 5" long and fat in middle & blunt on both ends. well I found some of it and really did some damage to the OLD set of blades that was on the 54" mower. They were still on from last season (maybe 2 hrs mow time on the sharpening from last year & first cut of soft grass this year.) They were sharp enough to split the rock lengthwise !! (red& black granite type stone.) I found the top 1/3 set a few feet outside mower discharge... Other part wasn't anywhere to be found so I kept mowing farther out expecting to find it. Nope didn't see it anywhere & cut was pretty bad for still soft spring grass, so I went ahead and changed to new set of sharpened blades. Finished mowing the yard no problem but the 1st (old original set came w mower) was in bad shape. On to 3rd mow last week and yep found the other 2/3 chunk of rock about 40 YARDS (36 meters) away (yep with the blades as the grass grew up fast enough to cover it.) (I bet the rock was 3lbs when it was original full sized.)



So I since I had not FIXED the first set or had time to stop and buy some more I decided to take a close look at the first (old set) of blades. 2 were bent pretty good and tips were all pretty trashed & one was mashed back better than 1/2" or so. humm (no pics of before :/ ) so I had Mig Welder out already when doing some exhaust work so what heck figured I would clean em up a bit with grinder and then weld up the damage.

Here is what I did and some after pics (cell was not handy and was in hurry to get back to mowing.)

Using a heavy copper bar (one end left over from OLD blown 600 amp fuse when I did industrial electrical work.) Clamped it to bottom of cleaned up blades which covered 4" of tip (damaged area well.)



I ran from 1 to 3 passes of beads down the blades to fill in all the damage and build out the blades back to "near original" shape.


Bottom side w copper bar the weld will not stick to it and it leaves flat surface to WELD against. This makes building up the area easier as seen in pics above & below is bottom of blade after welding this blade was least damaged of bunch & only single pass other two had 2 and 3 passes.




Then took them to the hard 4-1/2" grinder disk to clean them up.


After grinding I could see that two blades were warped and since I had the NEW set off I checked them & all 3 had some issues so a quick run thru the press to fix them.




The end result of the 3 blades after welding, sharpening straightening and ready for running.



So far they seem to be holding edge about as well as old blades did & if I have to do it over I will try some 7018 or hard-surfacing rod in the stick! I have mowed once with them & edge is not razor sharp so some of the weld tip has worn away & do admit it was done for time savings as only place to "RUN" and buy some is probably 45 min away. time took was about same but price was less If/When I do buy new blades going for the Gators for sure & BTW still need to FIX the new blades which are not in the have to weld it up range but will need a good hard grinder to fix. all good enough for farm grass...



Mark

 

[Sawyer Rob]

I do a similar thing with the weld, except I use a thick carbon plate. You can start the weld on the carbon plate, then go right on to where you want the weld to be. Same thing, the weld won't stick to the carbon plate...it works pretty good.

SR

 

[RobertBrown]

I think it depends on where you live.
Down here we have some very substantial grasses, that grow quickly. Most often the grass here will be wet when mowing because of the dew and frequent rain.
I have checked my blades after a couple of hours (3 blade finish mower) and found them to be pretty dull, but there is no way I'm sharpening blades once a week or even every month.
I generally sharpen twice a season and try not to look at the ends of the grass.

 

[k0ua]

I am proud of you for fixing that blade. I have a bent one just like that, but I don't have the press.. I need to get one. I can weld up the edge. I had to go and shell out the money for those dang expensive blades.. I have already "sharpened" the new one on some of my early season rocks.

 

[SPIKER]

I think it depends on where you live.
Down here we have some very substantial grasses, that grow quickly. Most often the grass here will be wet when mowing because of the dew and frequent rain.
I have checked my blades after a couple of hours (3 blade finish mower) and found them to be pretty dull, but there is no way I'm sharpening blades once a week or even every month.
I generally sharpen twice a season and try not to look at the ends of the grass.

Yes, this grass up here is soft enough in spring but buckhorns are like wire & much of this place is filled with that AND hard to cut rocks

Property is OLD farmstead with junk all over (junk yard for most part) things I've hit in terms of most destructive to mower.

Mid size car shock (broke spindle & warped blade)
3/8" log chain ~40 feet long, bend shaft & broke spindle.
2" bent blade & took off edge pretty good
Stump bent spindle
1-1.5" square tube w 3" channel welded on one end. (that one was mine & made to hold dump wagon in dumped stage to work on it.)
the regular spring crop of rocks and washed up rocks along drive & creek are all there too.

I do a similar thing with the weld, except I use a thick carbon plate. You can start the weld on the carbon plate, then go right on to where you want the weld to be. Same thing, the weld won't stick to the carbon plate...it works pretty good.

SR

Not sure where I would find a carbon plate, have heard of it & thought the carbon might flake off & would seem soft...

I HAVE the copper bar (in fact a good bit of it) so it was what I had my hands on. I have some buss bars out of old blown up sub station fuse disconnect that are 3" x 1/4" plus in 12 to 24" long.

I am proud of you for fixing that blade. I have a bent one just like that, but I don't have the press.. I need to get one. I can weld up the edge. I had to go and shell out the money for those dang expensive blades.. I have already "sharpened" the new one on some of my early season rocks.

Thanks I bought the HF press as I had always done stuff the hard way or paid for it to be done. It wasn't priced too bad & had a 25% off too I think out the door I spent under 150 with a few others things with it.



The rocks really grow well in this Ohio weather (freeze/thaw cycles) Jun and had dang near 30s for lows early in week... Broke more records for lowest HIGH temp we barely notched 50F for first part of the week... But then we have broken records for low/cold temps for last few years pretty consistently...


The other day I snapped a pic of my creek bed, yep the bed was bone dry for May 26th, low on rain for the month and really low on temps. As a kid they said plants were safe after Mothers Day. in last 10 years we have had hard frosts well after it so old wifes tail is not working there.

empty creek (yes it has been dry in Aug-Sept and once even in end of July but not this early in my 15 years here.)






Mark

 

[sixdogs]

SPIKER--very creative work on those blades. Nice job that I'll bet was pretty difficult.

 

[Fire Quacker]

Scags Turf Tiger, I quit sharpening a few years back and started putting on new blades each year. I mow once or twice per week, 3 acres, 7 months per year. I buy the factory hardened marbain blades, I have on occasion used them into the second year before changing. They last 3 or 4 times as long as the aftermarket inexpensive blades; they run about 10 bucks a piece vs 6 for the cheapo's, my mower is pretty tough to change them on so when I take them off they don't go back on; hate to be wasteful, but...

Ok, I gotta ask, having never heard the term "crawfish mounds" does this refer to mole hills"?

We are not that far apart geographically, and we have a lot of southern colloquialisms here in southern Missouri, but I have never heard of "crawfish mounds". :confused3:

Nope. I'd link a pic but not sure of all the forums TOS yet, probably better to Google "crawfish mounds". They're around farm fields and ditch banks, some people call them "crawdads", look like miniture lobsters. As for the moles, my bird dog keeps the our yard a mess digging them up in their runs.