Hi Jim,
What a sterling job you've done on your mower. You obviously are involved in an engineering workshop as this isn't the sort of thing you could conjure up at home in the garage. I'd say a stainless deflector would've been a nice touch and sending the chain case off to a plating shop to be chrome plated. If you polished the stainless and then added the chrome your neighbours would be screaming about the reflection it would cause every time you brought it out on the front lawn. Regardless of what I think it looks smashing indeed and you are probably the first person to ever have build a stainless Model 45.
On to a technical level, If I may say and in a nice way the method you've used with the straight up fitting of the bed knife is incorrect as it should be machined to match the grinding of the reel.
If you speak to any of the respected lawnmower blade sharpening services you'll get the same response. I'm sure that the mower is working but not at it's optimum I'm sure.
I'm looking forward to hearing back from you regarding this.
Cheers,
BB.
