G6 blades vs. Scag standard equipment

[primerbulb120]

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.

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.

 

[55TBird]

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.

 

[clay45]

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.

I know it. But then the time to go back over what could've been a single pass will teach you not to put it off. Since we mow mostly horse pasture some of the stuff is pretty tough. Its not the sharpening and balancing so much as its getting set up and me getting down and up. I like the ramps because they leave the space between the front wheels open. Especially handy so I can reach under and hold the blade in my hand while unbolting the top to drop the blade out. The blade, spacer, and bolt all come out still assembled in my hand. On my 52" I have to take care not to pull up on the left ramp all the way. I leave the front wheel at the rear of the dip which positions the spindle just far enough back to be able to wiggle the bolt clear all fully assembled usually in my hand. Once I've dropped all three blades I leave the spindle nuts on top of the deck and take each of the blade assemblies to a mop sink to clean, scrape, etc. before I head to the vice. I find the flap disk easily sharpened any blade I've tried. When we first started to conquer the wild a neighbor bush hogged a few places but didn't do too much due to all the trash, bottles, and metal scap we discovered. I acquired a small Yanmar and purchased a landscape rake and used it to comb out as much as I could. The briars and berry brambles were the worst and a good bit of the weeds were nearly 6 ft tall and very dense. It obscured many bricks, concrete scrap, glass, from view. After combing it out and carrying much over to a burn area I would ease into it with my TigerCat at transport height. While tedious it did great. Never have needed a bushhog again. When I learned my neighbor was shopping zero turns I lent him my SCAG catalog and wrote the dealers address and number that I used. A week later he returned with a Cheetah 61" and listed the finish mower he'd been pulling around for sale. :biggrin: