I sharpen approximately every 3rd mowing of my place. Lots of sand in the dust out here. I prefer to drive up on ramps with front end leaving clearance for my left side spindle bolt. I drop all blades and set in vice. Use flap disc to sharpen and balance each blade. I use a putty knife to scrape the sides clean too. Check underside of deck and scrape if necessary before greasing spindles and reattaching blades. I use a Ryobi 18v electric cordless impact driver to spin the nut off/on.
Uh....
Unfamiliar with the term, I looked up "flap disk" and that is what I have always used on my angle grinder. A disk with layers of sand paper....the grit determines how much I take off. Is there a flap disk used on something other than an angle grinder?
The cordless impact driver sounds like a good idea. I do have an impact wrench I use with a compressor, but cordless would save time. I've always just used a couple of big sockets and breaker bars. I suppose if you use it it must have enough torque.
The ramps might help too. My problem is that I'm old and getting down on the concrete floor (and getting back up) is hard...so I tend to put off sharpening the blades.
What I really need is a magic wand. Bipity bopity boo. *poof* Done.
Good luck trying to sharpen G6 blades with a file. It would take me about 3 hours to do mine if I tried that. :laughing: I use an angle grinder with a grinding wheel. Flap disc works okay for normal blades, but for G6 you need a grinder.Any tips on sharpening?
A buddy of mine says he sharpens his blades before every mow! (But then he is one of those guys who if you said you caught a 10 lb. bass he'd have caught a 20 pounder.) I think he does have one of those mowers with the tilt-up deck in the front, so I guess he can sharpen without taking them off. Still...every time? Just shoot me.
I use an angle grinder...not sure if that is a common practice or not. I hope nobody is going to tell me they use a file.
I also assume that since Scag sells the thing to keep your blades from turning that that would be useful. That would've been handy on my last zero turn mower.
Mine is an 18v Bright green Ryobi cordless impact wrench with a Harbor Freight Impact deep socket (15/16") . Because my mower tends to push the ramps away on smooth concrete I use a Heavy solid rubber wheel chock on the back of each ramp to keep it still while I climb up, set my parking brake, and the quickly dismount and move each chock behind a rear wheel.
Being an 18v cordless electric it doesn't have the power to tear up anything on my spindle bolts. I don't need any backup to remove or reinstall my blades. Makes it a fairly quick process. Getting up and down are problems for me as well.
The ramps sliding away is exactly what happened to me when I tried that a while back. It also seemed like the ramps wound up being in the way since they were behind the front wheels. Not to mention getting them down off the hook on the wall and putting them back up. I'm not usually lazy but sharpening blades is so easy to put off until next week.