Rotary Mower Blade Sharpness

21hunter

Member
I just operated my new Rhino TS12 batwing mower for the first time yesterday, nice mower. One thing I noticed was that it may have been using a little more horsepower than expected, however I was cutting some pretty heavy grass. I looked at the blades to inspect for sharpness and noticed that they were fairly blunt for new blades. I thought that sharpening them might use less power and improve the cut but I read in the manual that the blades should have a 1/16" blunt cutting edge and should not be sharpened razor sharp. I wasn't thinking about making them razor sharp but maybe a little sharper than the 1/16" blunt edge. Or would that make the blades more susceptible to damage if and object were struck? Is this a safety issue?
Thanks
 
It really depends on what you are cutting. If bushes and small saplings blunt is better. If you mainly cut grass like I do sharper is better it's not as hard on the tractor and it cuts the grass a lot better.
 
All new blades are blunt today. They are afraid you will cut yourself and sue. I just put a new blade on my walk behind mower and the new blade was so blunt I had to grind on it for a half hour before I could get an edge on it. Then I noticed the zero turn mower I just bought the blades were the same way so I'm going to have to pull them off and sharpen them.
 
I was told a sharpe blade will tend to cut a small sapling off and leave a sharpe point that when it drys out will go straight through your rear tire next season,
A dull edge blade will cut or tear the same sapling off more jagged and make it less likely to ruin the tire,
I think the dr is still out on that one, you hit it just right and it will ruin a tire in a heartbeat,
 
I was told, and not by an expert at all, that if you sharpen rotary blades too sharp the edge will roll over and be dull again. I usually sharpen the blade then run a hone over the top to take the fine edge off. That being said, I got new blades for my lawn mower this year and cut myself on them.
 
Thanks for the good advice everyone. I'm cutting only grass with this mower. Yesterday I was using a 656 IH gas tractor and had to slow down
to around 2 Mph in the tough spots. I could go around 4.5 mph in the easier spots. I'll be running it with my Massey 175 Diesel once it's put
back together. Both tractors are at 63 PTO horsepower.
 

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