I bought a new craftsman lt 1500 (made by Mtd) last fall, I'm getting about 3 mowings from the blades then they're shot, have to be replaced, I said something about this to the folks at the local sears(where I bought it) they said I needed gator blades (I mow about 5 acres of yard, some of it is sandy, a gravel driveway, usually pick up and throw a few rocks while I'm mowing, my lane to the driveway is 1/4 mile long) any way, I put on gator blades they made 1 (ONE) mowing and those blades were shot, bent up dulled up in bad shape, my Question is this....in looking for some new blades I saw that the blades were kinda thin as compared to some blades I saw for a snapper mower that were (looked to be approx. 1/4 inch thick!!) does any one know of any thicker heavy duty blades that I might be able to adapt to this mower/deck??? I looked on ebay and found some for sand....they were flat blades with 4 sharpened edged, basically just flip the blade over and continue on when they got dull, and I think they were thicker material than the OEM blades or any others I found...BUT I wasn't able to find the sized I need for the craftsman mower...any ideas??? $50 for blades every 2 or 3 mowings is kinda hard to do??!! I've got a 19 year old John Deere F 525 48 inch cut, 3 blades, the blades are thicker and last 2 years of mowing before I need to replace them!! I really expected better from the craftsman, I've had MTD machines before and I was very pleased with them, I'm kinda disappointed with this one, I like the tractor part but the blade part is unsat.