Zero turn mulching woes

[bertsmobile1]

No rotary can cut grass then leave it just where it was cut
Todo that you need a scissor action so you are looking at a barrel mower or a sickle mower
The first give the best cut but require a lot of work to keep the cutters sharp and will lot tollerate the smallest of sticks or really tough grass
The second is cumbersome , again requires a lot of work to keep the blades sharp and is easily damaged
Flail mowers are the best all round at this but AFAIK the only small flail is an option on the Husqvarna P524 articulated out front mowers which down here lighten you wallet by $ 30,000 ( aus ) .
Just because you want some thing does not mean that some one will make it for a price you are comfortable paying.
Cheapest solution would be a used Walker or GrassHopper if it has to be a ZTR
Otherwise there are quite a few rear discharge tractor style mowers , with or without catchers .
I think the Stiga's are the cheapest

 

[Rabbit929]

I understand entirely, but respectfully I somewhat disagree.
mom not looking for perfection here, just a reliable decent cut. Nothing golf-course ish.
but as an update, I did put my mulching kit back on, and put the factory blades back on. And the cut is significantly improved at a tall cut down to 3”. A few random stragglers, but it’s at least manageable.
the factory mulch blades gravely/Ariel’s sells I think have such a terrible amount of lift, it won’t pull the grass up to properly cut it. I found I could go over the same spot 4 times and still not get a proper cut. The standard blades do a better job with slight blowout, but I’m ok with that, as installing the side-discharge chute wouldnt allow it to fit through my fence, and would contaminate the flower beds.

i believe when there is a will there is a way, and there isn’t a whole lot of science to a standard mower deck that makes it incapable of providing a perfectly flawless cut like my walk-behind Honda. im even considering measuring my blades and putting my dual blade Honda blades on it, (not xblades, more like twin blades with a few degree offset on top that’s smaller and lighter than the main blade) as that walk behind mulches like crazy.

ive seen a lot with this issue and no solid answer so I could easily say the most solid answer that doesn’t require you junking your brand new mower and buying a $10,000 specialized unit is medium lift blades and a baffled mulch kit seem to work very respectably. The mulching blades seem to pulverize it so much that 90% of your lawn sticks to your deck anyway, making the “free fertilizer” clump scrapings in your garage.

I just wanna mow windrow free, mulching is great and all but I don’t mind longer clippings so long as they are evenly spread and not in the flowerbeds.

 

[Rabbit929]

I have no idea why the website inverted the photo.

 

[bertsmobile1]

I have no idea why the website inverted the photo.

BEcause you took it with a phone & not a camera then probably uploaded it from the said same phone.

 

[bertsmobile1]

I understand entirely, but respectfully I somewhat disagree.
mom not looking for perfection here, just a reliable decent cut. Nothing golf-course ish.
but as an update, I did put my mulching kit back on, and put the factory blades back on. And the cut is significantly improved at a tall cut down to 3”. A few random stragglers, but it’s at least manageable.
the factory mulch blades gravely/Ariel’s sells I think have such a terrible amount of lift, it won’t pull the grass up to properly cut it. I found I could go over the same spot 4 times and still not get a proper cut. The standard blades do a better job with slight blowout, but I’m ok with that, as installing the side-discharge chute wouldnt allow it to fit through my fence, and would contaminate the flower beds.

i believe when there is a will there is a way, and there isn’t a whole lot of science to a standard mower deck that makes it incapable of providing a perfectly flawless cut like my walk-behind Honda. im even considering measuring my blades and putting my dual blade Honda blades on it, (not xblades, more like twin blades with a few degree offset on top that’s smaller and lighter than the main blade) as that walk behind mulches like crazy.

ive seen a lot with this issue and no solid answer so I could easily say the most solid answer that doesn’t require you junking your brand new mower and buying a $10,000 specialized unit is medium lift blades and a baffled mulch kit seem to work very respectably. The mulching blades seem to pulverize it so much that 90% of your lawn sticks to your deck anyway, making the “free fertilizer” clump scrapings in your garage.

I just wanna mow windrow free, mulching is great and all but I don’t mind longer clippings so long as they are evenly spread and not in the flowerbeds.

Contry to what you think there is a massive amount of science & engineering in a mower deck .
Not that long ago you could get proper decks for domestic ride ons that would bag or throw or mulch perfectly
But Joe Public just would open their wallets far enough to make it profitable for mower companies to off 3 or 4 different variations of their deck in each cutting width.
SO JoePublic got what he deserves, junk.
Quality mower makers like Walker, Grasshopper . John Deere & Toro sell the deck as an individual item on all but their junk grade mowers for cheapskates .
Now because they decided to make only1 deck style in each size for the domestic ranges they make a UNIVERSAL deck to supply with them
Universal in this case is exactly what it says
Equally poor at catching , bagging or mulching
A couple of European mower companies do domestic mowers with rear catchers & counter rotating blades because Europeans will pay the extra for a quality product that does the job properly where as USA citizens by & large will not
Controlling the air flow in direction , velocity & quantity is very difficult on a pressed deck & near impossible with a fabricated deck
So without trying to sound abusive it is a case of pay up or shut up .
Add to that every lawn is different and when mower shops made good money, the sales staff would ask the customers about the type of grass, the topography of the yard, the type of soil before suggesting the best mower for their yard
but now days the profit is not enough for the accountants that run most mower franchises to offer proper pre sales customer service. particularly now days when pepole seem to think they have a God given right to suck the good sales staff for their knowledge then buy off Amazon because they can get it cheaper from a vendor who does absolutely nothing to help people get a mower that well suits their needs .

 

[Rabbit929]

Yeah that about sounds like the world we live in.
as an industrial maintenance tech and millwright myself, what would be a good deck to imitate if I were to modify mine? You‘d think a $4000 gravely, (which from my understanding was high end) up until I saw what grasshopper wants For their units.

I don’t even know what kind of grass I have. All I know is it’s green. Couldn’t care less. I just cut it, weed it and water it. I’ve never been one to blow a fortune to have the best lawn, I take care of it for simplicity.

BEcause you took it with a phone & not a camera then probably uploaded it from the said same phone.

I never even knew they still sold cameras.

 

[bertsmobile1]

When you look at the price of some thing, forget about the $ numbers and convert the price into what you are really using to buy it with, hours of your labour.
So as a millwright divide the mower price by your charge out rate then think what sort of job you could have done in those hours .
Dads original walk behind cost near 2 months wages , now a self propelled walk behind start from 1 days wages
Should I expect the same quality & longevity as dad got ?

No idea about modifing your deck
The physics are a lot more complicated than most would think and way beyond my pay grade
The only thing I could suggest is shifting the side blades in a little then fit longer blades so there is more overlap but the blades must then be timed so they don't hit each other
The decks that do not leave windrows have timed blades with big overlaps
On a 3 blade beck, the left & right run parallel with the front 90 deg out of phase so the blades can not strike each other
So the belt must be toothed like an engine timing belt and the pulleys the same.
So a trip to your local engine wreckers for some toothed pulleys and a double pulley on one spindle to take the V belt off the engine
Naturally that means no internal baffles unless the front blade is moved forward so by then you are making a complete new deck.
Older decks were longer front to back to allow for more overlap

Other option on 2 blade deck is to use a double V belt with the belt routed in a figure 8 so the right blade spins counter clockwise then cut an outlet in the rear of the deck
Walker have all of their decks IPL's on line so you can download & perouse them during your lunch break for some ideas
Husqvarna decks usually pull air in around the spindle then draw it up at the blade tips .

 

[Rabbit929]

good information. But here’s my area of thinking:

a regular single blade pusher typically Cuts pretty awesome. Nothing special, just a round deck and blade On the crankshaft.

a regular stamped deck seems to cut slightly better due to the rounded nature of a stamped deck.
a welded deck is stronger, a little odd in the airflow department but a little grass sticking in the corners can achieve a similar result. The reason i say “there isn’t much science to it” is just because these aren’t exactly engineered to the extent of a Tesla, Wexxar, or BluePrint automations machine, they just cut grass.

Now I’m not looking to go back into a full-blown lawn business, just figuring picking up a few lawns and do it for cheap for some elderly neighbors is all. Think of it as none profit.

as for modifying the deck, I don’t think a timing belt and interference blades would be good, from both a cost and safety standpoint. And the sheaves plus hubs for that type of setup are much larger and thicker than standard v-belt sheaves.
I was thinking more-so cut the rear of the deck to allow rearward discharge, and maybe inverting the direction of the center blade.

if I were going full commercial a $15,000 mower is a nice investment, but for regular at home use I looked at a 36” Ferris for $7,500?!?! that’s insane, especially after I put over 800 hours on a cheap no-name “white outdoor” brand stamped deck with a 24hp tehcumseh,(?) motor, mowing ditches and cutting half a foot of grass on the regular.
$4000 is already too much for what I do but what can I say, I wanted to enjoy mowing again and I use it to move trailers around the yard, pull small trees, etc.

 

[bertsmobile1]

Cutting the rear out for rear discharge will only work with counter rotating blades and finding left hand cut blades is not easy
I think there was a CH series Husky ( + derratives ) a couple of JD's and a Toro that had counter rotating blade thus a left hand cut one .
And the science involved is really intensive, like what angle to set the flute at and how long and where to start it on the blades.
Getting good airflow with a 2 blade fan is not easy, just the same as a 2 blade aircraft propeller really needs a variable pitch and that is only doing on thing, pushing air back .
People expect a mower blade to lift the grass up so it can be cut then cut it at an even height then either recut in and allow it to drop to the ground or throw it out the discharge chute .
So at the same time the blade has to lift the whole blade of grass then dump the clippings that weighs at least 1/3 of the full grass blade
And you think this is simple
You have obviously never had to work with dust extractors or air pump discharge equipment
IT is immensely complicated .
Everything is dead easy to do if you are not the person doing it
Even then the same blade can give totally different cuts on different grasses
Several of my contractors will use different blades at different time of the year because the grass cuts differently .
A rotary mower is nothing more that a mechanised sythe and nota particularly good one at that ,

 

[Rabbit929]

And you think this is simple
You have obviously never had to work with dust extractors or air pump discharge equipment

I did work with dust extraction equipment, in fact I rebuilt more that 50 of them, in an industrial application of course.
im sorry but yes, I do actually have a lot of expertise in that specific field. I don’t think it’s immensely complicated, as the dust extraction systems however are, but they work efficiently.
what I’m saying is, an engine one a frame with 3 spinning blades should be able to meet satisfactory results, without having to invest in commercial grade power-house equipment.
keep in mind a lot of us are just trying to cut the lawn. Hassle free. So if $4000 can’t do it, what the hell can?
so if a $4000 mower is absolutely incapable of what a $100 push mower can do, why are we all not running those?

in my case, 1.5 hours push mowing, or 15-20 minutes on the zero turn, but the zero turn can make a clean cut because it doesn’t have a permed deck designed for a specific blade of grass??
thats asinine. It should cut it no matter what it is. I’m not cutting a billion dollar property here, I’m chopping down a rough, never aerated lawn that is mostly grass, weeds, and clover.

im all for professionalism but this ain’t it. Just trying to focus on a reliable cut without a windrow Is all.

could I hire it out to a prI with a capable machine? No.
do most people consider the best machine for triple the price to cut grass? No.

what I’m saying is, how do you take what you got and make it work. “But a better machine“ isn’t an option for 98% of us residential guys, when the machine we have is more than capable. You can’t tell me that not a single US citizen is capable of haveing a nice lawn without careful selection of a European machine. Though I do agree, from what I saw per your recommendation, they have some nice machines. But it still only cuts grass. The science hasn’t changed, it shouldn’t be that difficult. i have a machine at work that I built and tuned that can erect 30 boxes per minute. I’m sorry if I seem salty but I can have a nice lawn unless I buy an exmark?! No wayyyyy

i appreciate all your professional info. I really do. But what do us non-commercial guys do when we just wanna cut it without buying something that costs us 1/2 our car? It’s just a lawn mower. It mows lawns. Just want to make what little time I have off valuable enough I don’t have to make 3 passes or mow ever day just to keep it up.