Mowing faster

oil pan 4 · 11-11-17, 06:05 PM

When mowing my fields occasionally I mow over some barbed wire or baling wire, which wraps around the blades.
Have to go back to the garage and take the blades off to clear out the wire.
While I have the blades off I usually sharpen them.
The freshly sharpened blades allow me to go 2 to 3 times faster. But only for 10 to 15 minutes max then I look back and a bunch of weeds and grass are left sticking up.
Then I'm back to a crawl, as to give time for the blades to just beat the grass and weeds into submission.

So I figure blades that stay sharper longer are the way to go.
First thing I did was search around. Didn't find much. I did find that standard blades are .125 to .135'' and that the heavy duty ones are .187'' inches.
Can't buy them so I will have to make them. Mower blades are fairly hard steel already but not nearly as hard as chromium carbide hard facing rod.
The smallest hard facing rod I have is .125 inches. So I would probably burn through a standard mower blade. Just need to make sure I have 187 thickness and go from there. I think all I will be able to do is build the blade back up with wire feed welding then weld the underside with hard face rod.
Any blades I weld on will have a heat sink on them so the welding heat only effects the area immediately around the weld it's self. That way the heat can't spread put and ruin the heat treat and temper of the rest of the blade.

I also have a brush flail shredder on my tractor, it needs new blades, the replacement blades are usually around 1/2 to 5/8 inches thick, I can just weld those up easy. Build up the bevel with oil pipe line welding rod (11018) which i have and is used commonly as cheap hard facing rod. Then weld underside of the blade with real hard facing rod.

I figure if I can keep the blades sharp I can just about cut time, fuel, number of blade replacements and oil changes in half or better. So its worth looking into.

I'm going to start small with my little 4hp push mower. It likes to have a sharp blade. Then scale it up to the riding mower and then the tractor.

11-11-17, 06:05 PM	#1
oil pan 4 Land owner Join Date: Nov 2012 Location: NM Posts: 1,026 Thanks: 12 Thanked 127 Times in 107 Posts	Mowing faster When mowing my fields occasionally I mow over some barbed wire or baling wire, which wraps around the blades. Have to go back to the garage and take the blades off to clear out the wire. While I have the blades off I usually sharpen them. The freshly sharpened blades allow me to go 2 to 3 times faster. But only for 10 to 15 minutes max then I look back and a bunch of weeds and grass are left sticking up. Then I'm back to a crawl, as to give time for the blades to just beat the grass and weeds into submission. So I figure blades that stay sharper longer are the way to go. First thing I did was search around. Didn't find much. I did find that standard blades are .125 to .135'' and that the heavy duty ones are .187'' inches. Can't buy them so I will have to make them. Mower blades are fairly hard steel already but not nearly as hard as chromium carbide hard facing rod. The smallest hard facing rod I have is .125 inches. So I would probably burn through a standard mower blade. Just need to make sure I have 187 thickness and go from there. I think all I will be able to do is build the blade back up with wire feed welding then weld the underside with hard face rod. Any blades I weld on will have a heat sink on them so the welding heat only effects the area immediately around the weld it's self. That way the heat can't spread put and ruin the heat treat and temper of the rest of the blade. I also have a brush flail shredder on my tractor, it needs new blades, the replacement blades are usually around 1/2 to 5/8 inches thick, I can just weld those up easy. Build up the bevel with oil pipe line welding rod (11018) which i have and is used commonly as cheap hard facing rod. Then weld underside of the blade with real hard facing rod. I figure if I can keep the blades sharp I can just about cut time, fuel, number of blade replacements and oil changes in half or better. So its worth looking into. I'm going to start small with my little 4hp push mower. It likes to have a sharp blade. Then scale it up to the riding mower and then the tractor. Last edited by oil pan 4; 11-12-17 at 09:12 AM..