But the blades still dull and need to be sharpened. If the edge was harder, they would not dull as fast. I have a relatively small yard, and I still need to sharpen blades every 3-4 cuttings.
cs
Are you hitting stones or dirt a lot? That seems very excessive. Problem with hardening the blades, is that they'd then be brittle. So, instead of rounding off, they'd fragment. Either way, not what you want. I think it's a better approach to figure out why you only get 3-4 cuttings out of a set of blades; mine usually go a season, mowing about 4-5 acres with a 3-blade deck.
If you are serious about "fixing" the wear problem, I would look into a rod that Lincoln (and probably others, too) have on the market, which I believe is called "Abrasoweld" or something in that order. It's used to "build up" plowshares, etc., that have contact with the earth. It resists wear from the dirt. You could lay a bead of that on each cutting edge, then sharpen and it probably would last a while longer. HTH Ken.
If you want to hardface your blade this is the place to lay the bead. It will make them self sharpening. /---------------------------------------------------------- /-----------------------------------------------------------
No. I have a relatively small yard. My entire lot is 7k sq feet and subtract off the house and driveway, I'm probably only mowing 4k square feet. I can cut it in 30-40 minutes with a toro self propelled walk behind mower. My blades are soft steel and I sharpen them with a file. I need to keep the blades fairly sharp becuase this mower is only 3.5HP and I can tell a big difference with sharp blades on a dense lawn.
My $2 mower gets sharpened every spring (yesterday) when I pull it out from under the canoe and change the oil. This year I even cleaned the points and spark plug because it wasn't starting on the second pull last fall. I gave the lady $2 for it seven years ago and installed a new carb diaphragm and pop riveted several bits of sheet steel (old computer cases) on to reinforce the shroud since then - some day I may even paint it. Gerry :-)} London, Canada
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