Mulching blades question

I just purchased the mulching kit for my 42" Raptor. I notice that the blades that come with the mulching kit are not the same as some that I have seen online. I think I may have seen the Gator mulching blades, or maybe another type which appear to have 3 slotted "teeth" (for lack of a better word) at the end of the blades.

My question for those who have also purchased the mulching kit is, will the blades that came with the mulching kit by fine or would the Gator or another brand of mulching blades do a better job? If so, what would the difference be?

Thanks.

If you purchased OEM Hustler mulching kit & blades I'd say you're in business, wise decision, one needs to consider blade material make-up, thickness, weight, etc. when purchasing other than OEM parts.

I installed mulching kit on Raptor SD 54. There is no "teeth" on them, but they are different from regular blades.

All I can say - I can't be happier! Right now in our 60yo neighborhood everybody blowing leafs. I did that before. Now... My regret is that I didn't buy ZTR earlier. In 1 hr you can't see any leafs. Mulches very good. I try to do it when dry and there is no buildup on a deck whatsoever.

Almost all leafs (70%) down and my yard look wonderful. And no days of blowing.. On grass - it leaves perfect cut (by my standards) and if dry - no buildup on deck.

Those will work just fine, Hustler mulches very well!

cell6ida said:

I just purchased the mulching kit for my 42" Raptor. I notice that the blades that come with the mulching kit are not the same as some that I have seen online. I think I may have seen the Gator mulching blades, or maybe another type which appear to have 3 slotted "teeth" (for lack of a better word) at the end of the blades.

My question for those who have also purchased the mulching kit is, will the blades that came with the mulching kit by fine or would the Gator or another brand of mulching blades do a better job? If so, what would the difference be?

Thanks.

Click to expand...

Your mulch kit will work fine, the Gator Fusion blades may improve your cut quality. The nice thing about the gator blades is they will last and hold there cutting edge up to like 40% longer than the regular blades. The teeth on the blades don't actually cut the grass though, it's the angle of the teeth that do the job.

[FONT=Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][SIZE=-1]The teeth angle toward the center of the blade to redirect the airflow and push the grass clippings back over the cutting edge of the mower blade again and again. [/SIZE][/FONT][SIZE=-1]At a maximum blade tip speed of 19,000 FPM the same grass clipping moves across the cutting edge an average of 4 times, resulting in a superior mulch. The teeth on other mulching blades angle out-from the blade, directing the clippings away from the blade's cutting edge, resulting in much larger clippings.[/SIZE]

If you should ever decide on Gator Blades the G3 blades do a nice job but the G5 Fusion is the way to go, it has twice the cutting edge and does a super job mulching.

gator type blades ( and ther are a lot of them out there now) do tend to cut better and last longer particularly if you are being naughty and cutting more that the top 1/3 off the grass.
To work properly you need to leave the grass long enough for the mulched grass to fall into, some thing that a lot of people fail to realise . Runing Gators to a final cut height of 1/2" just won't work.

The only big problem with them is some have a very thin section at the business end of the flute and this tend to break off quite early in the piece leaving the blades badly out of balance.
Oddly enough I have lopped off the other end of the blade , rebalanced them and the owners say they have not noticed any difference in performance.
No rhyme or reason to it, Some gaitors have thin final flute sections, some don't and have a double length final flute section. The exact same Silver Streak blade could be the opposite.

The other thing that many don't seem to understand, and this applies to all mulching blades is they do a lot more physical work than standard blades, cutting, recutting and keeping all that cut grass wizzing around under the deck till it is all chopped up. This means for a lot of mowers and lawns you need to mow that little bit slower than you would have with cut & throw blades.