Sharpening Mower Blades?

[Bill Huber]

I use the kinfe sharpener from Worksharp and then check the balance with a fishing line.

[Jim Matthews]

+1 on the mill file in a vise.

I have higher clearance over sandy ground, so the blades last a little longer.
I have substituted a string trimmer for steeper pitches on the lawn - less gas consumed.

I use a walk-behind Lesco and it prefers going straight down hill to sideways along the berm.

[Matt Meiser]

I did some more reading over on the lawn site forum for landscape pros. Seems there's a pretty good mix of bench grinders, dedicated blade grinders, and angle grinders in use by the pros. A dedicated machine isn't in the inexpensive category but looks to me to be nearly foolproof. I still think I might try to build a clone of the Oregon/RBG grinders if I can find a suitable motor at a nice price. But one of those Kalamazoo 1x42 machines would find a lot of use in my shop too.

[David Weaver]

When enco has sales, it costs about $215 or so to get one of those kalamazoo grinders delivered. I've had both the viel tool grinder that LV sells (and if you're budget conscious, you use an AO smith motor with it, or a used similar motor), and the kalamazoo grinder. The rest of the viel grinder is more substantial, but I like the rest of the kalamazoo a lot better - it tracks *much* better and the belt speed is a little slower and better for sharpening things in general, especially if you apply pressure against the platen.

[Ole Anderson]

Thanks guys, now I have to go out and sharpen my blades, I usually don't give it much thought until someone reminds me. I use a bench grinder with a coarse stone on my 48" Z425 (Deere zero turn) blades.

[Phil Thien]

Well all I can say is that lawn guys aren't anything like woodworkers, or else they'd all upgrade to some some sort of replacement blade with carbide inserts, and they wouldn't dare mow the lawn without some sort of dust collection.

[Brian Ashton]

I use a standard grinder disk on an angle grinder. I don't think the average mower has high enough rpms to be affected by a minor imbalance from hand sharpening.

[Joe Kieve]

Sharpen...you mean you're supposed to sharpen a lawnmower blade? I figure Sears knew what they were doing when when they put 'em on the mower! Seriously, ocassionaly I touch mine up with an air powered die grinder.

Joe

[Dave Lehnert]

When will Lee Valley come out with a set of A2 steel blades

[Matt Meiser]

That would make the mower look cheap!

[Harry Hagan]

I use my Ryobi belt sander. The wide bottom plate affords more control in maintaining a straight edge and holding the sander at the correct angle. The variable speed helps keep the heat down. It works great on shovels too. It’s MUCH better than using an angle grinder.


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[Scott T Smith]

Matt, here on the farm sharpening mower and bushhog blades is a frequent occurance in the summer - if not weekly then bi-monthly. Over the years I've tried a lot of different options for sharpening blades.

The fastest and easiest way that I have found is to raise my Scag up on an auto lift, and use a 4-1/2" Makita angle grinder with a flap sandpaper disc (flat) on it to sharpen them in place. I typically use either a 60 or 80 grit disc. The nice thing about this setup is that the flap disc does not heat the blade to the point where it will lose the temper on it's edge (which a regular grinding disk will).

The flap disc that I use is similar to this one: http://www.amazon.com/SAIT-79118-Enc...849053&sr=1-15

Option number to is to do the same thing, except remove the blades from the mower and clamp them in a bench vise.

[ray hampton]

Scott , about sharping the bush hog, can you tilt the bush-hog up on its side or on the end while it are still mounted to the tractor, this would be the quick way to sharper the blades

[Myk Rian]

My brother used his mower for 3 years before he decided to get the blade sharpened. When he was taking it off, he discovered it was on upside-down. He had been mowing the lawn with the back of the blade. He got a free sharpening just by mounting it correctly.

[Scott T Smith]

Scott , about sharping the bush hog, can you tilt the bush-hog up on its side or on the end while it are still mounted to the tractor, this would be the quick way to sharper the blades

Ray, I've lifted the back of them up before, but I don't like rolling underneath it w/o some type of safety. Plus, when I'm underneath it with an impact all of the crud drops down in my eyes.

Instead what I do is to remove the top link, and then use a forklift to raise the back end of the bush hog almost vertical. This makes it very easy to access the blades for removal.

Because of the way that they pivot, it's a bit of a pain to sharpen them on the unit (they don't stay still), so these are usually removed and sharpened on the bench.