What gets me is that you can purchase a blade that will mulch by using the "fins" or teeth on the back of the blade but does not affect the cutting edge. Sears could use a blade like that instead of the "wavy" blade.
I just ordered replacement blades for a craftsman mower. I am getting him the gator mulching blades which I assume are the ones you are talking about. I think Stens makes the raptor blades which look to be about the same. AYP pn 180054 replaced by Gator 95-915. The gator blades are heavier & cheaper than OEM blades.
I never even knew that if you sharpened a blade, you had to balance it. How do you do it? How long does it take?
The secret here is to sharpen the blades before they become really dull. When deciding weather to sharpen or toss I take a few things into account. Is the blade worn down to the point that I can no longer determine the bevel? If so, I toss it. Sharpening that blade is going to take a long time & create alot of heat which will take away the strength of the blade & cutting edge & be difficult to balance. On the high lift blades (the ones with the piece bent up), I inspect the area where it bends up to see for excessive wear. Alot of the blades are thin & when used in less than ideal places will wear out. Sandy soil especially will have a sandblast effect on them.
There are many ways to sharpen blades, from expensive blade grinders down to the ordinary hand file. If you use your mower in ideal conditions & sharpen regularly, then a hand file with the blade in a vise is all you will need. Balancing should hardly be a concern because you aren't removing very much metal at all. For others, I find an angle grinder the easiest & fastest method. Just clamp the blade in a vise & follow the same bevel on the blade. Sharpen with the leading edge up. Meaning, your sparks should be going down toward your feet. (not the best explanation /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif). A bench grinder can be used but with the design of most of the blades nowadays, (wavy, high lift etc.) it is hard to follow the edge. Balancing can be done with expensive magnetic balancers or with something a simple as a nail or something similar. Just place the center hole on the nail & see if the blade stays horizontal. If one side goes down then that is the side that you have to grind a little more. For the star shaped blades, you can use the little cone shaped balancer that Slam was talking about.
I have been told by elderly people that the best way to sharpen bush hog blades is to take them off, heat the cutting edge up with a torch, and beat them down with a hammer. Is this true?
Hmmm, never heard that before. Brush/bush hog blades are different than mower blades. They are designed to mow/chop everything. They really don't have a sharpened edge on them. They actually swing around & will bounce back if they hit an immovable object, as you probably know.
Last thing (finally, you say /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif)The blades are probably one of the least attended to parts on a mower, (well, with some we can add oil, air filter, fuel) Without sharp blades your grass will be more torn than cut & will have brown edges. Mower will work harder. I just replaced a bearing on a Honda riding mower deck. When I removed the deck at the persons house, I said, wow looks like your blades are shot. She said, you know, we never had a problem with this mower since we bought it in 1987. Those are the original blades, never even had to sharpen them. /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif OK, enough for this time...
