Sharpening The Blades

Trying out the hay equipment that had been stored all winter showed that we had neglected to put the final touch up on the blades of the mower. Mike remembered grazing a metal t-post as he was negotiating a turn during the final field of last year but had never gotten around to checking on the blades to see if they were still sharp enough to cut the thick grass for this year harvest. The small test plot showed that the far edge of the mower was not cutting as smoothly as it should.

With everything a muddy mess right now, Mike decided it was a good time to address the blade issue before we got busy in the fields.

Our old mower had a strip of triangle shaped serrated blades that were lowered when the mowing began. The whole strip of individual blades would shimmy back and forth with a sawing motion as the grass would begin moving into the machine when the tractor moved around the field. As the grass reached the pointy tips of the blades and moved closer to the bar, the grass would get cut off as the row of blades wiggled back and forth.

Our new mower, now more than ten years old runs off a different design and only has knife-shaped blades spinning on the bottom edge of six cone shaped domes. Each dome only has two blades each and the spinning is driven by the PTO (power take off unit) of the tractor. The mower makes a high pitched whining sound like a helicopter taking off and is quite loud.  The grass gets cut off by the spinning blades. When one or more blades gets damaged, the grass that went through that part of the machine is not cut smoothly and the strip of uneven grass left behind is noticed after we have the bales picked up out of the field.

With loud rain pelting the tin roof barn, Mike crawled under the mower to begin the sharpening process. It is very close quarters, and very dark in the belly of the machine. Most of the blades just needed a touch up with a sharpening stone, but the two blades on the far outside cone needed to be replaced completely.

Removing the bolts that hold the blades in place took longer than the actual replacement but Mike was able to get the mower ready for the next hay field as soon as the ground dries out enough so that he does not bog down in mud.

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