Zero turn mulching woes

[bertsmobile1]

You just don't seem to get that $ 4000 is peanuts when it comes to ride on mowers
The good ones start at $10,000 and go up to $ 30,000
And not every mower deck combination will cut every type of grass
It is very difficult to make decks that do work properly on every type of grass and physically impossible to make a deck that will cut perfectly as a bagging, throwing & mulchjing deck.
Any by the way, a lot of push mowers leave stragglers behind as well although this is down the reduction in blade tip speeds particularly on the bigger 20" o 24" decks
Profit margins are very low at the bottom end so they are not going to spend $ 500,000 designing a perfect deck
If you don't like it then that is just tough luck.
You got the wrong mower for your situation .
And if you can not see that the air flow charactersitics under a 2 or 3 blade deck will be vastly different to the air flow under a single blade deck then there is nothing I can do to rectify that.
The days of making quality products for peanuts is gone, not that it ever existed .
I am actually sorry that your mower has not lived up to your expectations but if you had of asked here first they you would have got an honest appraisal.
When faced with the alternatives of spending $ 2,000,000 on dvertising to convince you that a particular mower is perfect ans spending the same $ 2,000,000 in reserach & design, well the advertising wins out every time .
That is the nature of a capitalist market with little consumer protection and a market that can not make an informed decision because the true facts are never revealed to them.
Mass market mowers are made to make profits for shareholders not to cut every bodies grass perfectly.
If you want top quality then you have to pay top dollar it is as simple as that .

 

[MParr]

I’ll say this one more time. With a Gravely or Ariens 42” deck, you do not have many blade choices.Why? Because, most 42” mowers require 2 blades. Ariens/Gravely are one of very few companies that use 3 blades on their 42” mowers.

 

[mmoffitt]

Rocket Science...cut and recut...repeat again if necessary...and if all else fails have another beer

 

[Rabbit929]

You just don't seem to get that $ 4000 is peanuts when it comes to ride on mowers

you just don’t seem to get I never purchased a commercial golf-grade mower, not need to. All I asked was how to make the deck work without needing the side discharge. that is all.

i found the factory mulching blades are just junk. Not enough lift to cut. The mulch kit with standard blades does good. Haven’t tried it in heavy brush yet but not too worried.

theres what, 8 billion people in the world now?
and every last one of them needs to spend $20,000 on a lawnmower or else it’s junk?
i didnt buy the gravely because it was advertised heavily, I bought it because my Ariens RapidTrack snowblower is a beast of a unit and I like a lot of the Arians products, but the dealer only had a gravely in a 42”. Still a better unit than my white outdoor, but I had bigger lawns then and didn’t bother with mulching.

we Are not reinventing the wheel here lol. Can calm down with that ”spend a mil-or bust” mentality. I can fabricate blades, just thought someone here might have a few tips and tricks rather than just buy a mower that costs more than my truck. that’s just flat out dumb.

 

[bertsmobile1]

SO you bought by brand name & reputation of a different product rather than properly researching your purchase and then found out what you bought was not the right mower for you then blame the mower company .
In this case then all I can say is have fun playing around making your own blades and fixing the problem that Gravely either can not or will not fix
When you come across the perfect blade then patient it and sell the design to Oregon and you will make enough money to buy a $ 20,000 mower plus a new truck .
The foundation of a capitalist demand economy is the market ( that is you ) is fully informed so they can make an informed decision about what level of perfection they are willing to pay for .
IT happens in Europe but not in the USA because of advertising & very weak consumer protection.
It happens down here because of strong consumer protection although the US imported mowers take a lot of effort to get the facts you need but you can get them .

You were told what is needed to get a perfect cut in so far as deck design but do not want to do that .
So have fun in your shed
I like messing around with things too which is why I fix mowers for a living

 

[Rabbit929]

SO you bought by brand name & reputation of a different product rather than properly researching your purchase and then found out what you bought was not the right mower for you then blame the mower company .
In this case then all I can say is have fun playing around making your own blades and fixing the problem that Gravely either can not or will not fix
When you come across the perfect blade then patient it and sell the design to Oregon and you will make enough money to buy a $ 20,000 mower plus a new truck .
The foundation of a capitalist demand economy is the market ( that is you ) is fully informed so they can make an informed decision about what level of perfection they are willing to pay for .
IT happens in Europe but not in the USA because of advertising & very weak consumer protection.
It happens down here because of strong consumer protection although the US imported mowers take a lot of effort to get the facts you need but you can get them .

You were told what is needed to get a perfect cut in so far as deck design but do not want to do that .
So have fun in your shed
I like messing around with things too which is why I fix mowers for a living

I don’t blame the mower company, and I don’t think I got the wrong mower. i bought a mower. It mows.
cuts decent enough for me with factory blades and the mulch kit, solved my problem as I stated in a previous post. Idk man i just dropped in for some advice thinking I’d get better than “you bought the wrong thing, go back and buy a $20,000 mower, even though the $800 craftsman lt1000 everyone has does just fine.

I think your feeling a deeper rooted problem blaming it all on capitalism, when capitalism is the reason you have a job in the first place. i fix mowers for fun. Golf carts, skid steers, motorcycles, anything with and without an engine. To each his own bud but if you want to buy a $20k mower to cut a 1/4 acre lot is none sense.
you mentioned you fix mowers for a living, I take it you sell these units too? Makes sense.

 

[bertsmobile1]

There is nothing wrong with Capitalism per say
There is nothing wrong with Socialism per say
Even communisum has good points
And dictatorships can also work well
Provided all of them are moderated and regulated

The big problem with capitalism as practiced in the USA is from President Regan on each successive president has diminished the regulation role to the point that US companies can run rampant as the only customer protection now days comes from the courts via greedy lawyers.
If we did not have compulsory voting and a Senate that is only elected 1/2 at a time here then we would have been in lock step with the USA but fortunately this did not happen.
The USA passed the very first anti monopoly laws in the world and your economy flourished because of it but for the past several decades it has become stagnant relying on exploiting 3rd world countries to prop it up and has allowed big players like MTD & AYP to gobble up all of the smaller ones particulalry by selling mowers below cost to deprive them market share .
If I bay a mower in Europe it has a durability index attached to it so I know that the expected service life of the mower is 1 year through to 25 years and in most cases there will be durability indexes for each of the major parts , engine & transmission as well .
For US made products the only pointer to the durability is the length of the warranty.
For capitalism to work, at each production level there has to be sufficient players in the market to prevent any single one becoming dominant and the market . ie YOU have to be given access to all the information needed to be able to make an informed decision.
And it is the job of government, who make the rules to ensure this happens .
The only place this happens and is enforced is on the stock market which shows what the governments are really interested in,,, MONEY and nothing else.

And I work for myself and have done so since 1982 so I do believe in the value of small business .

 

[Rabbit929]

that’s great, but im not interested in getting too political because as an American, I’m not happy with the state of America in its current state. As are many Americans. Do we think europe is better? No, they got the good parts from us.

the oldest democracy in history was in Rome, at 110 years or so. America has surpassed 240 years. We are due for a collapse. Most of us know it. But still, I could go on for years about that kind of stuff but I’m just talking lawn mowers. Simply cutting grass with a spinning metal blade. Nothing more.

I would be interested in talking about the state of the world elsewhere but here I just asked what was the best way to make a decent cut with a lawn mower.

as for the rest of the stuff, Nancy pelosi, speaker of the house is now one of the most successful stock traders in the world.
we know they are full of shit and everything about them is bullshit, just miss the days when people would assassinate people like this but again, its doomed to fail. We all know this and I personally have walked away from it and instead just stock up on food to cope With it when it really does officially hit the dirt.
but until then, I just hope to cut the grass is all.

 

[bkeller500]

Focus on the problem.........lifting the grass.......clipping the grass........keeping the grass elevated......recutting the clipped grass........and dropping the recut grass uniformly across the cut area. The more grass that is introduced to the cutting blade area...the more that can fail due to the restricted air flow...........the only option is to reduce the amount of grass in the deck at one time in order to accomplish the mulching task. A high lift blade will likely introduce more lift and then keep the cut grass in suspension for recutting.....but will the recut grass be able to exit the deck as those high lift blades rotate at full rpm? If you are going to mulch, you are going to have to cut less off each time and cut more often. Take a 4" piece of string or sewing thread and toss it in the air......then take the sharpest knife you have and try to wack the string or thread and recut it. Now try to do that with thousands of strings whirling in a circular pattern at high speed. If your grass is to be cut at no more than 1/3 it's length.....assume your grass is 6" long and you cut it to 4" ......now you have thousands of 2" clippings you want to recut......Even if you could cut them in 1/2 to 1" clippings..........will the 1" clippings decompose more quickly than 2" clippings? In theory mulching is a great idea....in reality it does not work well. Just my opinion.