General lawn mowing with 54” deck

Tomtint · Jul 21, 2025

I had a BX22 that had the 54'' deck. The only way it would leave a mohawk like what you have there is if the blades were dull.

Rctex · Jul 21, 2025

jpilk99 said:
Get ready to laugh, but in the last 20 years of owning a few nice riding mowers with 54” 3-blade decks, I hadn’t ever noticed the distinct “line” left between blades (see pics). Why am I just seeing this now?

Obviously the blades can’t overlap, they’d hit each other. Is the deck height so low that I’m only noticing the slight height difference between blade rows? I’m right where I usually have it at 2”.

Only way (it seems) to get a nice even uniform cut is to go up n back over the same cut areas but try and line up so I mow down the raised up stripes…. Again, never had to do that before.

Thanks for any suggestions/answers.

Jay

I take it you’ve had the mower awhile an haven’t done any recent work on it. Take belt off an check center blade spin freely. Only time I had uneven cut the deck needed leveling. And it was uneven on outer part of cut not center

ssuser · Jul 22, 2025

As a couple of others have mentioned, bent blade will definitely do this.

Joelk · Jul 22, 2025

I would check to see if the deck is bent/damaged in the area where the spindles mount. Flip the deck upside down and put a straight edge (the longer the better) across each blade. This will make any misalignment more apparent. If bent, you may be able to straighten it.

jpilk99 · Jul 23, 2025

It is doing well now, thank you all. I believe it was one of the tires was sufficiently under inflated and I did put the machine/deck on ply wood and measured my side-to-side heights and made the same. Front to back was good. Blades good. Mowing: Goooooooooooood. Thank you again.