Bush hog - sharpen or buy new blades?

denglish

Member
I just got this bush hog from a small town. It looks like it saw a lot of use, but still works well. The chain guards are missing from the back, but are present on the front. I used it to mow a thicket of sumac down and it worked great for that. Then I mowed some grass, and it did a good job, but in some places it left some stranding. I think I might as well service the blades. Do you typically sharpen, replace or do nothing with your bush hog blades?
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for grass, or light stem weeds sharpen them up, sharp, now if your going to be primarily in the heavy type stuff and small saplings, leave them blunt, so they shatter the trunks preventing re sprouting
 
Sharpen if they are not curved much at the tip. The sharpened edge must be straight to cut grass well.
 
Take a look at what new blades look like. If yours are mangled, bent or otherwise deformed, for what they cost, just replace them.
I do both, will sharpen them until they are beat up too much. Thing is, it always seems I'll find a rock or something no matter how careful, or keeping it up high enough to avoid. I replaced the blades in '16 or 17' and looking at them now, time to replace. I hit a few things along the way, and though it seems with care I use when mowing, should never happen. Hopefully with the next set or with a new mower, I'll avoid such things. This one has a lot of hours on it, been looking for a replacement, preferably new. Fields are clean, but one does grow a small crop of rocks sometimes, frost or what have you, have to remember not to cut so low.

Heavy thick grass, good to have sharp blades, brush, saplings and other, keep the blunt edge they come with new. Look at the profile of a new blade, you'll see its flat, not pointed and knife like sharp on the cutting edge.

Also, blades need to be balanced, so if you sharpen, you want to be cognizant of that. Beyond that, the mower needs to be adjusted to the tractor correctly, level side to side and lower in the front by an inch than the back to get optimum performance.
 
Not sure if your blades are the problem but when your tires run outside the width of cut you will have unmowed grass that won't get cut because it's been mashed down by the tires. That leaves you with moving your wheels in or get a wider mower.
 
Like Billy said, if their not worn out sharpen them! One thing though, real sharp blades will leave brush stumps that are more
likely to puncture a tire. I hit so many rocks that I have kind of given up sharpening ours. Run the tractor wide open, it
will do a good job with dull blades!
 
I went back and looked at the areas I mowed and the sumac saplings really were shattered very nicely. In some grassy areas the grass was nicely cut and in others it had some that looked like it could have been mowed over again, but that may have been because I had the front too high. I also crawled under and looked at the blades, not closely enough, but enough see they are dull, but not rock-chipped or obviously damaged. I think I'll give it another try and play with the deck height and see what I get. I have a big bunch of poison ivy that has sprouted in a shady area where I'm trying to grow fescue. I'll give the mower another try over there and see how it goes.

Also, I looked online and new blades are $70 from JD. That's not too bad. First though, I need to buy an overrunning clutch and put that on. I had one on there but stupidly bent the end of it, being a dumb-*ss. Fortunately did not damage the shaft or seal though.
 

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