N750A
New member
I have a Woods RD990X finishing mower that I bought new and have used for years to mow a grass airstrip. The blades are slightly dull - if I slow down, it still mows OK but the cut is a little ragged if I try to speed up. They haven't been removed in years, so when I recently tried to remove them for sharpening, it was very difficult to remove the bolts holding the retainers that allow the pins that the blades pivot on to come out. I finally got the bolts and retainers out but the pins would not drop out - they are apparently rusted in place. I tried everything - penetrant, tapping, heating, etc. but they simply won't come out!
My next plan was to simply remove each entire spindle assembly so I could put the pin in a hydraulic press and push them out. However, the pulley retainer on the top of the spindle seems to be rusted in place, too! I could get the large spindle nuts and the 3 smaller bolts retaining the pulley out easy enough, but you're supposed to run 2 of them back in through threaded holes to push the retainer collar off the pulley - all that accomplished was snapping the bolts off since the pulley retainer collar wouldn't budge.
The worst part is that there are 3 spindles and I see where this is going - lots of broken bolts!
So, as a last resort, I need to figure out some way to sharpen the blades on the mower. That's normally never a good option since you can't balance the blades. However, it looks to me it's either this or buy a new mower! I know I could get in there with one of those grinding stones with a nylon angle guide, Dremel stones, etc. but in my experience none of those work very well - I normally use an All-American Sharpener jig with an angle grinder and flap wheel and it works great - but you have to get the blade off the mower!
There's very limited access to the area above the blades since they're fairly close to the deck. I know I could draw a file down each blade and sharpen that way, but it'll take forever to remove much material. Since the blades aren't damaged at all and still cut fairly decent, I wondered if I could sharpen them with an angle grinder and flap wheel by lightly grinding the underside of the blade just enough to slightly sharpen it by reducing the radius of the rounded-off edge? I don't think it would take much to get them back to cutting a bit better/faster. The flap wheel would be many times faster than trying to sharpen the blade with a file!
John
My next plan was to simply remove each entire spindle assembly so I could put the pin in a hydraulic press and push them out. However, the pulley retainer on the top of the spindle seems to be rusted in place, too! I could get the large spindle nuts and the 3 smaller bolts retaining the pulley out easy enough, but you're supposed to run 2 of them back in through threaded holes to push the retainer collar off the pulley - all that accomplished was snapping the bolts off since the pulley retainer collar wouldn't budge.
The worst part is that there are 3 spindles and I see where this is going - lots of broken bolts!
So, as a last resort, I need to figure out some way to sharpen the blades on the mower. That's normally never a good option since you can't balance the blades. However, it looks to me it's either this or buy a new mower! I know I could get in there with one of those grinding stones with a nylon angle guide, Dremel stones, etc. but in my experience none of those work very well - I normally use an All-American Sharpener jig with an angle grinder and flap wheel and it works great - but you have to get the blade off the mower!
There's very limited access to the area above the blades since they're fairly close to the deck. I know I could draw a file down each blade and sharpen that way, but it'll take forever to remove much material. Since the blades aren't damaged at all and still cut fairly decent, I wondered if I could sharpen them with an angle grinder and flap wheel by lightly grinding the underside of the blade just enough to slightly sharpen it by reducing the radius of the rounded-off edge? I don't think it would take much to get them back to cutting a bit better/faster. The flap wheel would be many times faster than trying to sharpen the blade with a file!
John
