reel mower sharpening?

Many years ago; in my innocence, I bought a secondhand lathe that had previously been used for mower blade sharpening.

Over its working length the bed was nearly 15 thou' concave.

Harsh lesson learned

MichaelG.

If you enquire at a golf club the groundskeeper may tell you where they get their greens mowers sharpened. Be prepared for a shock to your wallet. There are a few people near me doing this type of specialty reel mower sharpening and they do a great job, and the sharp state lasts a long time, but naturally you have to pay for a professional's time and equipment.

My wife used to work in a very comprehensive iron mongers' shop in Marlow, sadly, long gone. They had a department that just repaired mowers. It contained a machine to regrind the cylinders. It closely resembled a lathe, the cylinder being held between centres rotating"front upwards" i.e. contrary to normal lathe practice. On the front was a carriage with auto traverse, mounted upon which was a motorised grinding wheel about 2 1/2" across the face and about 5" diameter.It was rotating against the rotation of the cylinder. It would go back and forth for a while until the noise reduced indicating there was not much to grind, and then the operator turned a handle to put more cut on and so on, until you could hear that all the blades were being ground; quick visual inspection, job done. By contrast, the fixed blade was just resharpened on a bench grinder! The machine was installed in a corrugated iron building. If the mower was in a bit of a state, the prolonged did in made nearly drove the staff in there mad. The principal mower man had had many years of repairing mowers, and said that most people adjusted the bottom blade much too close to the cylinder. They aimed at cutting a piece of paper with the mower; he said that cutting a cigaret packet a better target.

I personally haven't done it, but seen it done in our workshop....

The Mechanical Engineer did it, betwen centres on a large Colchester using a tp grinder....a slowish rotational speed and travel....

I have sharpened many cylindrical mower blades mainly on night shift and in the quiet hours but I did 'em all between centres on a variety of universal grinders. Foremen, supervisors and managers being my best "customers" I always turned down the odd ten bob or so as it ensured a look the other way when I wanted a "homer" doing!

I've never tried sharpening them on a lathe though (not a lot of point if a grinder was available). Bottom blades I did on something like a Cincinnatti T&C grinder using a universal tilting vice and a white cup wheel.

I have to admit though, I never heard of them described as "reel" until I read this thread.

Rik

Edited By Rik Shaw on 16/07/2018 17:41:14

Many years ago a neighbour wanted to sharpen his cylinder mower. He asked me to drill some holes in a file and remove the tang so he could bolt it in place of the mowers fixed blade. It worked very well, sharpened the cylinder blades once a year for many years.

I have also seen the cylinder blades from a "Dennis" mower sharpened in a lathe by normal turning, the blades not being very hard a HSS tool coped well.

John

A good few years ago I used a different brute ignorance & force method that actually worked rather well. I put an aluminium extrusion over the knife, and glued green grit paper to the extrusion, adjusted the mower to just touch the paper, ran it for a few seconds, adjusted the knife again and so on until the reel was all ground. Probably wouldn't work with big nicks out of the reel, but outherwise wasn't bad at all.

Regards

Richard.

Years ago I tried to sharpen my Dad's cylinder lawnmower. Well it took me all day to dismantle it then place it on my old lathe to skim the cylinder and reassemble it. Eventually I devised a thin sheet of metal the width of the cylinder clamped to one of the cross bars that space out the bearing end plates. On the other end of the metal sheet I clamped a parallel, oval shaped sharpening stone that was used for sharpening scythes etc. The plate assembly was pushed up to the cylinder so that the sheet metal acted as a spring. Then by dragging the lawnmower backwards it sharpened the cylinder. This worked very well and I sharpened quite a few lawnmowers. I even thought about making and selling them but rotary blade mowers were becoming the thing. This way saved dismantling and reassembling the whole mower.

Alan

Edited By Alan Jackson on 16/07/2018 18:11:29

Looks like someone had the same idea as Alan **LINK**

I had one years ago when I had a petrol mower.

They have been around for 37 years to my knowledge the link above.
Tried carborundum nosing from work bolted to cutter, didnt work same as revolving the cylinder in a lathe you have no relief just ok for touch ups.

Proper job on a Suffolk Colt 14" in 1989 was £35 ex works and self fit etc.

Buy a goat,simple,cheap and you can even sell the milk !

Might need to be careful with the washing though !

Are the blades just ground as a cylinder or do you use a tooth rest and grind a clearance?

Mike

I worked for a horticultural engineering firm on golf club mowers, to do it properly takes many passes of the grinding wheel until it stops grinding, you don't want the burr on the leading edge. the bottom blade will need to be sharpened at an angle so its cutting on its leading edge and like a previous poster said they actually should not touch. Funny enough the machines are made by a company called Burnard