Sharpened My Peruzzo Ditch and Bank Mower Today

[leonz]

Hello oosik, yes it can be tedious but it's a rainy day or off season job.
Wet grinding is not hard to do as long as you have the proper knife angle
on the tool bed which for me is 37 degrees.

 

[TerryR]

TerryR - did the John Deere help you with your hydraulic system problem?

What happended with your hydraulic system?

Was the issue with your mules pressure relief or the relief valve on the
flail shredder?

Leonz,

What happened was summer -- too hot to work outside and no need to mow -- a planned cruise to Iceland, and Covid that scuttled the trip, in that order. So I've not addressed the issue.

The relief valve on the mower seems an unlikely culprit since is was sitting on my shop floor when I had the most recent issue. But taking it off did seem to greatly reduce the amount of trouble I had, so while wasn't the sole cause, it seems to have contributed to it.

 

[TerryR]

Leonz,
Your post prompted me to call my nearest dealer (30 miles away). He says the 870 isn't known for having loss of hydraulic pressure with age. He says they could test it, but only in their shop.

He suggests replacing the fluid, filter, and cleaning the screen, which I can't remember every having been done. So that's a possible issue, but the problem isn't low flow, but no flow under load. So I don't think that's the real issue unless the break-down of the fluid with age causes the pressure valve to release at too low a pressure. They want $300 to pick up and return the tractor, and probably close to that again for the fluid and labor. I'm not sure I'm up to trying to do it myself.

Most likely I'll wait until I do our fall mowing and see how it does with the relief valve on the mower off again.

 

[TerryR]

Wet grinding is not hard to do as long as you have the proper knife angle on the tool bed which for me is 37 degrees.

Leonz,

I tried wet grinding some years back after you suggested it. That was a total waste of time. Getting the hammer knives off was a real pain, with all the gunk on the threads of the bolts. Then it took forever to sharpen them with the wet grinder. After getting three or four done in an hour, I gave that up as a lost cause. The method I describe in this post worked much, much, better for me.

 

[aesanders]

I’m sure wet grinding is way better in theory, but as tedious as that sounds, I’d likely never do it. Terry’s methods looks like something I wouldn’t mind doing when I do add one of the ditchbanks to the stable.

 

[TerryR]

I’m sure wet grinding is way better in theory...

No doubt that's right. Using an angle grinder does run the risk of overheating the blades, so you have to be careful.

But removing 100 or so blades and sharpening them on a wet grinder, which is by nature very slow, I found was just not workable.