More idle curiosity

[Chuck(G)]

Just curious.

[Chuck(G)]

When I cut the lawn (once per year), it's not just grass--it's about an acre's worth of brush, small trees, etc. Goats would probably be the best choice.

A couple of the neighbors use those DR mowers with the small blade spinning in front of the engine, driven by a belt. They always fussing with the things.

I just got a First Act (or whatever the house brand was) 5 HP 20" mower, replaced the rear wheels with some big pneumatic tires and the front wheels with some large spoked ones. I roll right over gopher holes and downed branches.

But the blade gets dull after one tank of gas, so I pull out my file and get it to "drawing blood" sharp again.

There's enough hills and trenches that I'd probably end up under the mower if I used a riding model. Not to mention the boggy areas where springs come to the surface...

[Chuck(G)]

Chuck,

How many acres are you mowing?

Have you considered shopping for a (NICE used) zero-turn...like a 5'-cut John Deere, Dixie Chopper, etc.?

bloke "maybe $5G used for a NICE Deere"

Only what the county says I have to! (wildfire prevention--summers in the PNW are very dry).

About 2 total--the rest is wooded and grass doesn't grow there. I could not in my wildest dreams justify a $5K mower that I'd use once a year. Well, maybe if someone was giving one away on Freecycle... My neighbor's offered to bring his tractor+sickle mower over, but I'm a glutton for punishment.

Besides, the two or three days of a three or so hours work helps me keep my svelte figure...

[Rick Denney]

I have my tractor serviced once a year, and they sharpen the blades for me at the time. We mow about three acres, and use the tractor to cut down the undergrowth at the edge of our wooded areas. And this being Virginia, we grow rocks like wildflowers.

We mow about 30 times a season, and then use the tractor to sweep up leaves and pine needles (into a Cyclone Rake). The blades take a beating.

Rick "who services the tractor every hundred hours or so" Denney

[Tubaryan12]

Chuck,
I don't know if you were joking about the "drawing blood" sharp statement in your post, but I just read in Family Handyman magazine that the blade should be sharped to "butter knife" sharpness. They say that sharpening it too much makes it go dull faster.

http://www.rd.com/familyhandyman/articl ... 1&pageNo=1

[Chuck(G)]

Chuck,
I don't know if you were joking about the "drawing blood" sharp statement in your post, but I just read in Family Handyman magazine that the blade should be sharped to "butter knife" sharpness. They say that sharpening it too much makes it go dull faster.

http://www.rd.com/familyhandyman/articl ... 1&pageNo=1

That's interesting! But I don't get it from a purely intellectual standpoint. Af some point, my nice sharp mower blade will become dull as a butter knife, at which time it will last just as long as one that started out dull as a butter knife, no?

Anyway, it's just a few strokes with a file while the blade's on the mower--I'm not taking a chunk out of the blade each time.

Just about done for this year--got a little bit left to do today and I can think about this again in 12 months.

[windshieldbug]

...kinda like the "hot water turns into ice cubes faster" theory...??

I think that's because since the mollecules are heated, they are less dense, therefore there's less of 'em in the same space, therefore there's less of 'em to freeze, therefore they freeze faster.

I doubt your lawnmower blade gets sharper if it's hotter,

But then, I'm more dense, regardless of temperature!

[Rick Denney]

...kinda like the "hot water turns into ice cubes faster" theory...??

The idea is that a sharp blade is thin at the edge and is therefore subject to chipping. A chipped blade requires more than a pass or two from the file to make it sharp again.

And there's a limit to how sharp it can be with enough of blade angle to make it tough against chipping.

We have lots of rocks here and I'd rather they mash the blade than chip a big hunk out of it.

My mowing deck has three blades and getting to them for sharpening is a three-hour job of removing the deck. For me, durability is a higher priority than absolute sharpness.

Rick "whose blades do need sharpening" Denney

[tubatooter1940]

Dull blades bruise grass as they cut and brown the cut edge eventually.
One has to mow much more slowly with dull blades, so taking time for a bit of filing may speed up the job if large areas need mowing.

[Chuck(G)]

The idea is that a sharp blade is thin at the edge and is therefore subject to chipping. A chipped blade requires more than a pass or two from the file to make it sharp again.

No rocks here; at worst, I'll hit a molehill and create a cloud of dust. There is the occasional small branch that I may have missed in my walkaround, but they tend to cut pretty cleanly as does the brush that's sprung up (mostly hawthorn and roses and oak suckers). I've noticed that a very sharp blade tends to cut more cleanly and evenly.

There are some who are perhaps wondering how I can get away with a once-a-year mowing. It mostly has to do with weather patterns in the Pacific Northwest. Around here, it stops raining sometime in June and doesn't pick up again until mid-to-late October. If you've got grasss and don't water it during the summer, it'll go dormant right after seeding out. Which is when I cut. Dormant grass is brown, and that's the way it stays untl about November (the best time for planting grass out here).

You might think that this would be a terrible place to grow grass--but the reverse is true. The Willamette valley grows most of the nation's grass seed.

Anyway, the grass is mown; I've got a nice tan and my wife arrived home yesterday after a week in the San Juans and told me that it looks great.

So I'm happy.