How do you sharpen your blades

[mucksiegooma]

I hand file mine still on the deck.

I have been doing that also for years, since I got my first lawn mower in 1974. On the heavier blades for my John Deere I also file, but if I get a big nick in the blade, I resort to a four inch flat grinder. If I don't hit any rocks, a file works fine, doesn't take off too much material. Blades last longer. I still have the original blade from my 1975 Lawn-Boy mower.

 

[Teds]

Toro has some good info in sharpening. At least as important as a sharp blade, is a straight blade, and a balanced blade.

With respect to standard push mower blades when material needs to be removed I get the impression it should be removed from the end of the blade? The square or 90° part??

 

[SidecarFlip]

I don't. I buy a new set every spring. Made some dandy knives from the old ones.

 

[mucksiegooma]

Great! I'm interested in knives but am not a maker. Good use of old blades.

 

[Teds]

Maybe this has been mentioned but I found a noticeable difference in the thickness and quality of the steel in OEM replacement blades, and construction. They hold an edge longer, and mulch better. It's always nice to save money but crappy parts are usually a source of frustration.

 

[ellaryk]

I've never sharpened the blade on my mower, because I only bought it brand new last year, and due to the fact I use it so little, it'll probably be years before I need to sharpen it.

I'll probably use a hand grinder to sharpen it when I need to.

You should sharpen your blade every year. It definitely dulls after a season's use and can be gouged when you hit rocks or branches with it.

 

[judgecrater]

I started using a bench grinder but find it easier to use an angle grinder with the blade in a vice.

 

[Barbqman]

I have a Craftsman PTY9000 42". My lawn is about 10,000 square feet and is surrounded by about a thousand oak trees. That means that not only do I need to mow the grass in the summer but I have an outrageous amount of leaves to deal with in the fall and lots of twigs and small branches Whenever the wind blows. I pull a Cyclone Rake behind my lawn tractor to pickup the leaves...around 5-6 times every autumn. So I can't get away with not sharpening my mower blades. Here are some of the ways I've done it over the years:
1. Ignored the problem until the blades were so bad I had to install new ones. (Not a very good idea)
2. Used a bench grinder with wheels so small that I couldn't get a full pass on the blades without tipping them up. (This sort of sucks)
3. Used a hand-held angle grinder with the blades held in a vice. (I'm no too good at keeping the right angle)
4. Installed an 8" wheel on my Radial arm saw with a box under the wheel so I could lay the blade flat and move it under the wheel to grind the correct angle. (This worked OK but scared the hell out of me because I had no guard and the rotation speed was way too fast)
5. Put the wheel on my SouthBend lathe and held the blade by hand. (Not too bad but still no guard and hard to hold the angle)
6. Made a jig to mount the angle grinder with a plate angled for the correct edge angle. (Hard to hold the blade correctly against the flap wheel)
So far, nothing works very well. :frown:

 

[birddog2790]

I also use my radial arm saw. The back of the motor shaft (opposite the blade) is threaded to take a Jacob's chuck. To this I install a 6" wheel which has a 3/8" shaft. I made a simple wooden fixture to hold the blade at the factory spec angle. Set the fixture on the saw table and pull the wheel parallel to the blade barely toughing the cutting edge. May be overkill but I had everything but the fixture anyway.

 

[RustyAllen]

I have 5 old garden tractors that range from 1971 to 1976. I use 3 of them very regularly. The mower decks are heavy and time consuming to pull off for cleaning and blade sharpening, but it gets done every Spring. I leave the blades mounted and use a small angle grinder to sharpen the 3 blades on the 48" decks. In the 48 years that the '71 has been used, it has had 3 sets of blades. We don't worry about the exact angle of the sharpening, just take out the rock, tree branch damage and they'll cut just fine. I have 2 sets of new blades for whenever the old ones need replaced. The 2 tractors with mower decks have never been painted and one has been showing signs of wearing through or rusting, but that's life. We don't try to impress ourselves or the neighbors by buying something new every time we change socks.