Leaf blades

[MyGrassHasCrabs]

I have a yard full of trees and a wife that insists on a lawn, although the two are becoming more incompatible as the trees have grown over the past 25 years.

Too many leaves to mulch in-place in our yard and still have grass.
There have been many discussions and a few attempts to devise a "skirt" that surrounds the mower deck such that you'd keep the high-lift blades at the highest setting (usually 4") and it would still pick up leaves. None of the attempts I've seen have borne fruit, though, and it's still a painful process to deal with leaves every fall.

So, at this point, I have resorted to a couple of helpers. One is a leaf vacuum, such as the pull-behind Trak-Vac I have used for many years now. It sucks the leaves up through the mower deck (yes, the deck must be engaged too, so there's still spinning blades involved and either setting the cutting height lower than 4" to get all the residue) and into a spinning mulcher driven by a 9 HP B&S engine, then into a 55-gallon rubbermade drum that has to be emptied very often depending on leaf density. There is another option called a "Cyclone Rake" (https://www.cyclonerake.com/) that has gotten excellent reviews, but I've never tried it.

The second tool is one that I bought last year - I call it "The Beast" - it's the Echo PB-9010T, 220 MPH 1110 CFM blower. It's expensive (around $700) but makes (relatively) quick work out of a mountain of leaves - a real time saver, although it is a "beast" in more ways than one.

Good luck from a long-time leaf wrangler with no magic solution (so far).

 

[JimP2014]

Thanks for the reply MyGrassHasCrabs!

I call it leaf farming.

I was out yesterday testing a simple idea and that was to raise the discharge chute about 6" (so it is an angle up ) to get more leaves flying out from under the mower deck. Not enough leaves, not that I want leaves. Some years we get lucky with a nice wind driven rainstorm out of the East or NE.

I see what you have, " the Echo PB-9010T " for me the more stuff means the more stuff to repair, so swapping or modifying mower deck blades in the long run is the best solution for me. Your luck may vary. Someone posted Gator blades and I might go this route. I have no problem with keeping leaves in place ground up, I just figure this would somehow break the LT2000 again in some unforeseen way. In a previous post I think Forest said the new spec and new bolts for 19.5HP B&S is around 20 ft. lbs. <--- this might be key to all of this so far no white smoke.

Thanks for the info,

Jim

 

[MyGrassHasCrabs]

Jim,

If you're ok mulching in place, give these blades a look. I've had them since the beginning of the 2021 season and mowed and mulched a couple of acres a week during the season - the thing that is new to me is that these have kept a great edge without sharpening. I have used lots of other blades and sharpened at least a couple of times per season, but these hold an edge like none I've ever used on my JD LA105.

Amazon.com

Rotary Copperhead Mulching Mower Blades Fit John Deere Models D100 LA100 Replaces OEM GX22151 GY20850 For 42 Inch Deck (pack of 2)​

 

[JimP2014]

Jim,

If you're ok mulching in place, give these blades a look. I've had them since the beginning of the 2021 season and mowed and mulched a couple of acres a week during the season - the thing that is new to me is that these have kept a great edge without sharpening. I have used lots of other blades and sharpened at least a couple of times per season, but these hold an edge like none I've ever used on my JD LA105.

Amazon.com

Rotary Copperhead Mulching Mower Blades Fit John Deere Models D100 LA100 Replaces OEM GX22151 GY20850 For 42 Inch Deck (pack of 2)​

View attachment 71968

Thanks I will check these out.

 

[Chuter]

Interesting discussion, but I think putting paddles on the blades will try to send air, and therefore leaves off the tips of the blades, rather than out the chute. The two or three blades will fight each other rather than direct the flow out the chute. I think the typical blower is fully enclosed except for an inlet near the center, and an outlet at the edge, like a squirrel cage fan. It doesn't run leaves through it, it runs air through it and chases the leaves away. To approximate that with a mower deck, you'd need to enclose the bottom, and maybe only use one blade. And provide an air inlet. A better approach may be to just use your deck as is, but don't run over the leaves, just chase them with the discharge air. Like cleaning a sidewalk. At some point, you are still going to overwhelm the ability to chase leaves, and have to pick them up. At least I always did with a hand held blower. And with the mower deck you lose the ability to cycle the air flow up and down. I've never used one of those fancy walk behind blower, but I have to believe they work similarly. But what do I know. To settle this, somebody's going to have to build one! Not me, by the way.

 

[JimP2014]

Interesting discussion, but I think putting paddles on the blades will try to send air, and therefore leaves off the tips of the blades, rather than out the chute. The two or three blades will fight each other rather than direct the flow out the chute. I think the typical blower is fully enclosed except for an inlet near the center, and an outlet at the edge, like a squirrel cage fan. It doesn't run leaves through it, it runs air through it and chases the leaves away. To approximate that with a mower deck, you'd need to enclose the bottom, and maybe only use one blade. And provide an air inlet. A better approach may be to just use your deck as is, but don't run over the leaves, just chase them with the discharge air. Like cleaning a sidewalk. At some point, you are still going to overwhelm the ability to chase leaves, and have to pick them up. At least I always did with a hand held blower. And with the mower deck you lose the ability to cycle the air flow up and down. I've never used one of those fancy walk behind blower, but I have to believe they work similarly. But what do I know. To settle this, somebody's going to have to build one! Not me, by the way.

Hi thanks for replying and I read your reply so think of this if you're just using high lift blades and your lawn is basically cut but you're going over say a thin layer of leaves the leaves will shoot out of the discharge chute there's no doubt about it they shoot out maybe a couple feet maybe more depending on how dry they are and all these other factors so it works with no modifications so you're implying that with some modifications you can't increase the distance those leaves are being thrown you're basically saying it would work in the opposite direction and I don't buy that.

Jim

 

[JimP2014]

Hi thanks for replying and I read your reply so think of this if you're just using high lift blades and your lawn is basically cut but you're going over say a thin layer of leaves the leaves will shoot out of the discharge chute there's no doubt about it they shoot out maybe a couple feet maybe more depending on how dry they are and all these other factors so it works with no modifications so you're implying that with some modifications you can't increase the distance those leaves are being thrown you're basically saying it would work in the opposite direction and I don't buy that.

Jim

I mean maybe take the blade and curve the surface to some angle so basically a high lift blade the main axis of the blade and the blade itself let's say is parallel to the ground clearly speaking what if you just tilted it slightly doesn't have to be 90° perpendicular but just say 20°. What would happen I think it might improve the amount or should I say the distance the leaves are being thrown and that's really what my objective is. So 20° means assume the angle right now of the high lift blade is 0° and just tilt it 20°. That's what I mean.

Jim

 

[JimP2014]

I mean maybe take the blade and curve the surface to some angle so basically a high lift blade the main axis of the blade and the blade itself let's say is parallel to the ground clearly speaking what if you just tilted it slightly doesn't have to be 90° perpendicular but just say 20°. What would happen I think it might improve the amount or should I say the distance the leaves are being thrown and that's really what my objective is. So 20° means assume the angle right now of the high lift blade is 0° and just tilt it 20°. That's what I mean.

Jim

So initially my post was about the something like this exist and apparently it doesn't but my idea was take a typical flat blade that spins parallel to the ground and then rotate to last say 8 in on each side of a single blade maybe you go 20° clockwise maybe you go 20° counterclockwise maybe you do a split where one side goes 20° clockwise the section immediately below it goes 20° counterclockwise you know maybe someone who works with like WindTunnel software I'm guessing I don't actually use that but see what would happen or build it but I assure you regular high lift blades can clean say 200 by 100-ft section of lawn perfectly without a single leaf any place but it takes forever and I was hoping that something was out there that could just move them a lot quicker out of the discharge shoe and further for each pass.

Jim

 

[JimP2014]

So initially my post was about the something like this exist and apparently it doesn't but my idea was take a typical flat blade that spins parallel to the ground and then rotate to last say 8 in on each side of a single blade maybe you go 20° clockwise maybe you go 20° counterclockwise maybe you do a split where one side goes 20° clockwise the section immediately below it goes 20° counterclockwise you know maybe someone who works with like WindTunnel software I'm guessing I don't actually use that but see what would happen or build it but I assure you regular high lift blades can clean say 200 by 100-ft section of lawn perfectly without a single leaf any place but it takes forever and I was hoping that something was out there that could just move them a lot quicker out of the discharge shoe and further for each pass.

Jim

And just another thought about this project so you could just ignore the fact you have 20 horsepower riding mower that can spin blades incredibly fast and basically cut through high grass or anything so you just put that aside and you go and grab a 5 horsepower mounted on your back leaf blower now why would you do that you could take advantage of the power you already have maybe get rid of the blades but you have a spindle on either side and you have an enormous amount of horsepower but you can't figure out how to blow leaves out of that shoot not I don't work in engineering for this kind of design but it's just crazy that someone can't figure that out they have to resort to getting a backpack leaf blower which is five times less power than the power in a riding lawn mower engine on average let's say.

Jim

 

[JimP2014]

Or the other idea would be the way a leaf blower actually does work so you have an engine and must power some sort of fan and that fan blows air through a tube and that's what moves leaves.

So instead of using some sort of modified mower blades that rotate and take advantage of the horsepower from the engine of the riding mower and somehow Force air out of the existing mower deck chute. So it would be something like taking a leaf blower turning it on its side I suppose squishing it and have a tube that would attach to the mower deck frame right where it exits for the grass clippings so on mines on the right hand side and it's an opening and then the plastic chute fits on top of that so the blades are never exposed.

Jim