Thanks to Volfandt

Lockport · Jun 30, 2007

If you have never had Gators, they are the Cat's Pajamas of mower blades.

As Gator doesn't make them for the BX series, it has been years since I have been able to use them and they are really top notch performers. By request, Vofandt sent me this link to the procedure he used to adapt them for his machine. And many thanks to Volandt for the detailed instructions.It starts at post #72

Here is a pic of mine installed.

milkman · Jul 1, 2007

Because of Volfandt's thread and his satisfaction, I installed a set of the Gators about a month ago. I'm still on the fence, one reason, it's been really dry her so the grass just stopped growing so I haven't used them a lot. My thoughts so far, they are about the same price as the Kubota blades so I lost nothing by giving them a try, I have noticed that they seem to pick up the gress better than stock blades, going through an unmowed field they pick up the stuff mashed down by the front tires, with the stock blades there would be two strips of bent over weeds and grass left behind. It seems that the Gators need to be really sharp to work well, I have to sharpen them every time I mow or the finish look drops quickly, but with the lack of rain the grass looks crappy already. Conclusion, I like the way they pick up the grass, don't like that they need sharpening so often. I'm not overly excited with them, but I'll probably order another set when these wear out, now we'll see what they do when the leaves start to fall, I may get excited then if they chew them up really well.

Volfandt · Jul 1, 2007

Another satisfied customer

Except'n you're really not my customer and I don't make a red cent off of 'em, oh well I'll take the kudo's anyways

Glad you were able to do the mod and they work out for you.
But to be honest, I read of this modification from another poster and unfortunately I've since forgot his moniker. I am but a humble messenger

We're in the midst of one of our worst droughts on record so my grass has only required mowing every 8/10 days and with the combination of my grass not getting over 4" tall and these gatorblades doing such a good job of chopping up the clippings that I've only run the cyclone rake once this mowing season. The bad side effect of this is next yr's compost yield will be very lite.

Conclusion, I like the way they pick up the grass, don't like that they need sharpening so often.

I haven't had to sharpen mine yet. That KY bluegrass must be some tuff fescue

Snatchface · Jul 1, 2007

Looks like they make them for the 54" deck without needing the adapter. On the mowerparts website it says that the product was added 6/1/07. Just ordered 4.

milkman · Nov 5, 2007

I just finished tearin' up some leaves with the Gator Blades, I made a block for the discharge side of the deck and set the height one step higher than I normally mow and I like the way these blades shredded the leaves in one pass. When I was using the stock blades, I would blow the leaves into a windrow and then run through them over and over again till they were chewed up enough that they wouldn't blow all over the yard again, with the Gators, I ran over it once and it's done, when the leaves are all down, I'll put the bagger on and be done with the leaves, much less hassle than what I've been doing. I'm sold on the Gator Blades, now they need to make a set with the holes to match the BX deck without making spacers.

samofsweden · Nov 5, 2007

Volfandt!, Im very impressed that you take your time with all these pics and good text and shear all your knowlegde, thanks alot, very impressing! Thumbs up! (exuse bad spelling if so, Im swedish...

)
/Sam

Adam23 · Nov 5, 2007

Does this same fix apply to the "B" series 60" MMM or do the blades not need the modification for the gator blade? I cannot find the size for the mounting hole for my deck and would rather not have to tear into it to know if I would need this modification verses being able to use the blades stock like the ZTR's are able to do. I have these same gator blades on my JD STX38 lawn tractor and I love them. They work great. Thanks for the info!

dannydan3 · Nov 5, 2007

You really don't have to sharpen them all the time do you? I get a whole season out of my Kubota blades, still nice and sharp.
Also, Volf, do you see that these throw more clippings and leaves out of the chute? I have so many leaves that I can't chop them into powder, that stuff just clogs my lawn to death. That's why I took off the mucher attachment.

Using stock blades gets the MMM to heave clippings and choppings a respectable distance, but if you noticed that the Gators are better at this, I am all over a set.
Thanks!

Adam23 · Nov 5, 2007

Danny - I can only asume how well they work on a Kubota 3 blade MMM. My experience with these blades are on a 2 blade 38" deck on a John Deere 12 hp gas lawn tractor and I can say that they chop the @#$% out of leaves. I mowed over a large cluster of leaves with my Kubota 60" MMM the other day and mentally said to myself that I wished this deck had the Gators on it. I can mow over an area COMPLETELY covered with dead leaves with the gator blade JD and it will chop the leaves into dime sized choppings in the first past without question. If I went over it again it would chop them into very small bits that disinigrate in no time at all. I absolutly love those blades and would love to equip the Kubota with them.

Are these things a direct bolt on for the "B" series decks? Are the "B" series decks take the same blades as the "BX" series?

Volfandt · Nov 5, 2007

I'm on my 2nd season on them and haven't had to sharpen them yet. Granted I haven't done much mowing this past season as we're in the worst drought we've had in over 100 yrs but with that said they do seem to hold their edge very well. at least as well as the std's.

I like to compost most all my clippings so the method I use isn't what one would want to do if you wanted to just mulch up/scatter the clippings.
With that said they do distribute the clippings very well and more times than not the clippings being shot out the chute are cut down alot smaller than they would otherwise be w/std blades.
What I do is I mow in the same direction working towards the middle & side discharge the clippings into several wide windrows then hookup my cyclone rake and collect up the windrows as a final step. This way the clippings are cut down smaller which gets more into the hopper, helps the composting process better amd I don't loose any manuverability when mowing by having that long cyclone rake trailing behind me.
There are times when I keep up with the cuttings and there isn't enough clippings to worry with collecting up. In this case I just side discharge into the next row I"m going to cut and by the time I get to the middle those clippings have been cut up small enough to not be an issue.
There are other times when I want to get that "stripeing" look when I cut every row in the opposite direction than the previous and this leaves little to no discernable clippings. This method takes longer so I don't do it much but it does leave a neat stripped look to the lawn.

As for leaves, they definitely mulch them up better but it'll take a few passes to get the last windrow broken down.
Heres a few pics I took when mulching up the leaves just before I hooked up the cyclone rake to pick them up. The last pic is supposed to be a shot of the fine particals of leaves being discharged but the shutter speed really wasn't fast enough to show it good enough to make them out. But if one looks hard enough you can make out how small the clippings are that are just past the chute as compared to the large uncut leaves in the next uncut row.
I still recommend them for side discharge and bagging, but since I've not tried them with a mulching kit I'll have to leave that assessment up to those that have.