Rotary Cutter Rotary Cutter Blades

[John Palms]

I have a Howse rotary cutter, 5'. The blades look pretty dull to me. Any thoughts on when to re-sharpen vs. buying new? How do you get the blades off? I'm new at this tractor stuff.

 

[DT86]

How well does it cut? You don't want them super sharp any way.

 

[unbidden]

If the blades are not all dinged and chipped, resharpen is the option I'd use. I do mine my-self as I would guess most here do the same?

 

[bcp]

I looked at some new mowers the other day, while they were standing on end on their shipping pallets. The blades had about 1/16 inch or a little less "flat" cutting edge.

Bruce

 

[sshaw]

I don't know the exact rule for when to replace versus sharpen, but I think some folks say to replace after sharpening removes more than about an inch of blade width. Here's what my blades looked like when I replaced them. I'm told the corner at the tip of the blade is most important, as that's where most of the cutting happens. I replaced these because about an inch of material was gone at the tip.

 

[mikehaugen]

If the blades aren't that bad, I sharpen them with an angle grinder without removing them. As already stated, they don't need to be "sharp" really.

 

[TripleR]

From my Land Pride Manual:

Both blades should be sharpened at the same angle
as the original cutting edge and must be replaced or
re-ground at the same time to maintain proper
balance. The following precautions should be taken
when sharpening blades:
a. Do not remove more material than necessary.
b. Do not heat and pound out a cutting edge.
c. Do not grind blades to a razor edge. Leave a blunt
cutting edge approximately 1/16” thick.
d. Always grind cutting edge so end of blade
remains square to cutting edge and not rounded.
e. Do not sharpen back side of blade.
f. Both blades should weigh the same after
sharpening with not more than 1 1/2 oz.
difference.

There isn't much information on when to replace:

"Inspect cutting blades. Make certain they are
properly installed and are in good working condition.
Replace any blade that is damaged, worn, bent, or
excessively nicked. Small nicks can be ground out
when sharpened."

I tend towards sshaw and replace when worn to the point where I can't get a good square end though I have seen a lot of cutters with much worse blades still in use.

 

[John Palms]

TripleR, thanks for the info. Very helpful. Do you take your blades off to sharpen?

 

[John Palms]

I appreciate all the feed-back. helpful. This was my first question. Glad I found tractorbynet!!!

 

[TripleR]

TripleR, thanks for the info. Very helpful. Do you take your blades off to sharpen?

If they are not too bad, we sharpen them on the cutter with a 4" angle grinder. If a lot of metal needs to be removed, we take them off.

 

[unbidden]

It's a pretty simple removal of the blades on my LandPride RFM, therefore I find it easier to take the blades off and sharpen on a bench wheel grinder. After sharpening I measure blade length and hang the blade(s) on a nail to be sure they are balanced... works for me.

 

[TripleR]

It's a pretty simple removal of the blades on my LandPride RFM, therefore I find it easier to take the blades off and sharpen on a bench wheel grinder. After sharpening I measure blade length and hang the blade(s) on a nail to be sure they are balanced... works for me.

Yeah, on our RFM, we remove the blades, but the Land Pride rotary cutter blades have to be torqued at 350 ft pounds or so and I am getting too old for that.

 

[John Palms]

Ok, thanks!