Re: sharpening a plow

Posted by IHCPloughman on February 10, 2010 at 10:21:03 from (129.186.104.38):

In Reply to: sharpening a plow posted by msb on February 09, 2010 at 18:15:00:

Mattcatlin said: (quoted from post at 02:15:00 02/10/10) I am going to try and pull a old Dearborn 2 bottom 16 inch plow to turn under an old grass pasture with a 8n Ford. I have the draft control properly adjusted and loaded tires. Soil is sandy silt loam, no clay. Is it worth my time to try and sharpen the cutting edges of the shins and shares with a grinder? Should I disc the grass first? This will be my first experience plowing, hope I have enough power to pull it.

You can sharpen both throw-away lays and blacksmith shares with an angle grinder. I don't know what it takes to keep a cast iron share going. They were an eastern thing and I have no experience with them. Grandpa commonly ground on the shares to keep them going between trips to the blacksmith. A share could have enough suck to dig down to china, but if there is a sled runner, the plow won't even go in the ground.

First off, don't grind on the shin, just the cutting edge of the share. As the share wears, it will develop a "sled runner". It will be more obvious once you have the plow in the ground and things get shiny. You will see the edge that actually does the cutting, and the sled runner will be the shiny metal underneath the cutting edge that is riding the plow out of the ground. What I do is begin grinding a quarter to half inch away from the cutting edge on the back side of the share, and grind until the cutting edge becomes sharp. It doesn't need to be razor sharp, that will be too fragile. What you are doing is creating suction on a micro scale (within 3/4 inch from the cutting edge). "Suction" that manuals talk about is on a macro scale. You can look down from the end of the landside to the point of the share. If the is any amount of suck, you're good to go. You don't need much at all.

Now sometimes the sledrunner under the point of a blacksmith share will require way too much grinding. In that case, the point will have to be bent down.

Sharp coulters are always a good thing. And I wouldn't do any discing or tillage prior to plowing. Cleaning the rust off the moldboards will help also.

This post was edited by IHCPloughman at 10:22:09 02/10/10.

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