I bought an old IH 1300 mower with 9 foot bar. Went through it replacing grease zerks and lubricating everything. Set it up on my Kubota M8200 and adjusted everything according to the operators manual. Bought it for mowing pond dam and around my pond banks. Manual says it will cut at most any angle. After mowing with it for about an hour it sheared off the rivets in the arm that drives the knives. I didn't hit anything and was mowing slowly, much more slowly than when I used to cut hay with a sickle bar when I was a kid. I could not put the inner shoe on the ground because of the angle of the dam and the pond banks. The outer shoe was hanging out over the water so there was a pretty good curve in the cutter bar. Seems to me that the curve of the bar would put the knives in a bind and could cause those rivets to shear off. I can't run the outer shoe on the ground and still mow my pond banks or it would be running in the mud and water. The angle of my pond banks change from almost flat to 30 degrees or more as I go around the pond.
Do both shoes need to be on the ground to cut with this mower?
Do both shoes need to be on the ground to cut with this mower?