Whenever I see swing back blades crack they crack in a longitudinal direction but what I'm not sure of ,are bar blades meant to be made the same way with the grain of the steel in a longitudinal direction ? The thing is I've had bar blades break on the transverse direction, so obviously the grain is in the wrong direction for safety. I had a newish Victa 16 inch Sprinter and the bar blade broke in the transverse direction and the mower completely destroyed itself , besides the half blade destroying the bases side ,the engine ripped itself out of the bolt holes, completely destroying the top of the base.The running half blade motor was so unbalanced it bent the base all over and bent the crank shaft.
I even asked at the time if it was worth trying to claim for a new mower as the mower and bar blade was 1 year old but people just said I wouldn't get anywhere and they would just say you must have damaged the blade by hitting something ,I had just started the mower when the blade broke, wasn't even cutting grass.
