Rotary Cutter I love changing bush hog blades

[Kyle_in_Tex]

While we are talking about changing the blades I wanted to comment on the blade edge. I have heard on this forum over and over that they come blunt or not real sharp. I can tell you that the woods 1/2" x 3" blades come very sharp. It sure made a big difference in the way it cut my pasture.

Yeah, sharp blades do a great job while they are sharp. My problem is they don't stay that way for long on my place.

A buddy told me that he's heard of guys welding a piece of tool steel on the leading edge. Has anyone ever heard of this? He thinks they mill the blade and then weld it in place. I'm not sure how hard or soft the welding would make it Rockwell, but I'd think you wouldn't want it too hard. I don't guess that most anything would NOT survive baseball sized rocks....

 

[have_blue]

Yeah, sharp blades do a great job while they are sharp. My problem is they don't stay that way for long on my place.

A buddy told me that he's heard of guys welding a piece of tool steel on the leading edge. Has anyone ever heard of this? He thinks they mill the blade and then weld it in place. I'm not sure how hard or soft the welding would make it Rockwell, but I'd think you wouldn't want it too hard. I don't guess that most anything would NOT survive baseball sized rocks....

My Woods bush hog blades used to stay sharp a pretty long time. I had to do a quick touchup after each mowing, about 8 acres. My Bush Hog Squealer blades get dull much faster. There's no excuse for that, and I'm disappointed.

Never-Seez is the stuff! I used to work in a huge manufacturing plant, and 1 operation had a big boring tool that would rub against a stop plate and gall real bad. Someone got the idea to use Never-Seez, and it worked great. By the end of the day, the machine operator was silver from head to toe. We called him "tin man".

 

[dirt ditch]

It is to bad Schulte cutters are larger than most of our tractors can handle. They have done away with the keyed blade bolt and have gone to a pentagon blade bolt. Slides in and out with ease. Wish other manufactures would follow suit.

 

[Timbow]

Spent two days trying to remove brush hog blades. Bend my ｾ inch breaker bar using a 6 foot cheater and a propane torch and could not budge the nuts. Used impact hammer on nuts. Used penetrating oil. Heated nuts with propane torch. I borrowed a 1 inch breaker bar nuts would not budge, actually bend the 1 inch breaker bar. Got online and read this forum. I took the tractor, bush hog, 1 inch drive sockets, breaker bars and jack stand to a welder fabricator down the street had him heat the nuts cherry red using welding torch and was finally able to get nuts off. I put a jack stand under the blade and lowered brush hog down on jack stand. Heated the blade mounting bar cherry red and was able to drive out bolts with 12 pound sledge hammer. From the time I pulled into the parking lot it was 30 minutes to get blades off. I paid the welder $30 for his time and use of his sledge hammer. Examination of the bolts revealed that they were over torqued on installation. I then went to the bush hog dealer and bought a new set of bolts for $32. I plan on contacting Bush Hog to get reimbursed for bolts in that they were improperly installed and was a defect in manufacture. Question which brand of never cease should I buy?

 

[gwdixon]

Question which brand of never cease should I buy?

Not sure you want to use "never seize" on those bolts. Maybe it would be OK if it is a castle nut with a cotter pin through it. (A machine shop could do this for you if you really want.)

If the blade comes off there is the possibility of serious damage to people or property. The nuts are almost made to seize a bit with the lock washer.

Just torque the nuts down to what they are supposed to be. A decent air impact wrench will work just fine. Plus, if it is put on with an impact wrench it is usually easy to get off with the same wrench.