I just finished the complete refurbish of a 9 year old Scag 61" Turf Tiger
It had 3000 hours n it and was very used and abused. Today it looks better than new.
I completely disassembled it. Cut out and replaced over 200lbs of bent and twisted steel.
I also added a very heavy duty roll bar since the model I have was not equipped with one.
The new steel was carefully TIG welded using over 20 pounds of TIG welding rod.
And almost 4 bottles of Argon gas.
The frame was cracked in 5 places, those were welded and properly reinforced.
After the welding was completed, I had every piece of metal sand blasted or replated..
When I got all of the pieces back from the blasting operation, I washed all of the parts with phosphoric acid to be sure that all rust spores had been killed.
I used two coats of KBS Rust Seal urethane enamel as a primer to completely seal every surface. I have used it on several other projects during the past 10 years and have been very satisfied. It is self leveling, as a result it was not necessary to sand anything. The KBS simply leveled out all of the sand blasting surface imperfections and provided a wonderful surface for top coating. Following that and within the appropriate recoat window, every thing received two full wet coats of PPG Concept Single Stage Urethane, of the appropriate orange color. All bolts were replaced with grade 8 Yellow Zinc coated Bolts. All new decals were installed. All bearings and seals were replaced. And many of the connectors were replaced with spherical bearing rod ends. It's like a new machine, I love it