G'day everyone, first time posting ive been a member for a while, Love my greenfields and searching through the forum over the years I've found alot of usefull info and tips that has helped me repairing and restoring my mowers, currently have a anniversary 11 and 8 in pieces and my every day mower is a 12-32. With the diffuclt task of sourcing parts over the years I've ended up making alot of parts for the mowers in the past when I was buying and selling mowers. Im a boily by trade work for my self and have recently purchased a cnc plasma cutter for the workshop. I'm thinking about venturing into aftermarket parts for the older ride on mowers and not just greenfield, I've started drafting cad drawings of parts for the mowers I have. Was reaching out to see if there's any parts anyone may require? I'm located in Perth but will be happy to ship anywhere in Aus. Let me know if your interested and require anything profile cut or fabricated. Cheers
Hi Boonta92, will keep you in mind in a few months as I may need to have some stuff cut.
One thing I would suggest you look at is a swing back blade conversion kit for a few of the more domestic ride on mowers. Not a big market but it is untapped
Things like the masport/rover mini riders in 30in sizes don't have a solution to mount swing blades. on a 24in micro rider, you can use a ga spares blh5826 and some rover rider blades to make up 24in, but no solution for the 30's. Probably not a massive market but I can think of a few dealers who would probably like them
basically one of these but about 3in longer
When I have some time in a month and a bit, I am quite happy to lend you an old one I have here and a pair of rover blades to you could work out a solution
No worries mate will be happy to help and thanks for the info on the swing back blades. Would be interested in cutting the swing bar adaptors and could cut to any size required quiet easily, feel free to send me a message on here whenever you are ready, cheers bud
My home-made blades are mild steel angle iron, 3 x 30 x 30 mm, and work well but need frequent sharpening which is done after every tankful.
The hardest part of mounting them to the bar blade was drilling the holes.
The blade carrier on the mower shown now has 4 blades and apart from giving a beautiful cut it picks up every loose bit and sucks in nearby leaves and sticks, fills the catcher very rapidly.
The holes in the blades and the shafts of the mounting bolts are frequently inspected for wear. So far the cutting parts wear out before the holes elongate.
My fleet of rescued mowers are mostly used as paddock slashers, our property has only a small area of "lawn" so only a couple get used with catchers but the blades handle mulching rough stuff well.
Public liability and insurance concerns stop me from thinking of giving any blades to friends and others.
Well, as long as it's only you using them and no one else, I still think it's a potential disaster awaiting. I'd personally stick to spending on manufactured items.
Ahh, if only victa had kept producing the thumblatch catcher series, they would be in better shape today!
Unfortunately you are taking a very serious risk using these blades, this coming not just from me seeing home made blades but from an engineering and metallurgical standpoint
You MUST have the grain longitudinal to the blade (direction from bolt to the tip) never transverse (from cutting edge to rear edge).
If its transverse and you hit something, the object can split down the grain exactly like a splitting axe through a piece of fire wood. If its longitudinal and you hit something, the force must break across hundreds to thousands of grain boundaries. If its transverse, you just need to breach a cutting face grain boundary and it will pretty much just 'run' - just like wood with a splitter.
We all know how easy it is cut split wood standing the log on its cut end (with the grain), and how hard it is if you are trying to split it across the grain.
Due to this, angle iron has the grain transverse along its length (otherwise there is a higher risk of cracking when it is folded at the factory) hence you are taking a massive risk of blade splitting in your application, especially as there are rocks involved.
Similarly, there is a major stress raiser condition caused by the hole itself making that the failure area with the least extra force required to cause cracking.
There were victa blades recalled 25+ years ago due to transverse grain – several people were very seriously injured
Cheers mate, appreciate your input. I think we're all guilty of doing something a little dodgy to make things happen when a job needs doing around the house. Myself living on an acreage I've got a few story's of some questionable ingenuity over the years but I would never sell a product to a customer that is not safe or lacks structural integrity. All my products are built with quality workmanship, thorough planning, QAQC, and over engineering of metal components to eliminate steel fatigue, necessary bracing in high stress points and choosing the adequate material size and grade for the job, followed by welding procedures correct selections of consumables such as welding wire and gas. Although there is always a chance of getting a bad batch of materials or consumables which is why I hold premium cover for full liability insurance and product insurance for anything I fabricate or supply to a customer. I'm not a bloke who knows how to use a caddy welder and does cashys on the weekend for beer money, I run a legitimate company and would like to start fabricating things relatable to my hobbies and things i enjoy instead of spending 84 hours a week at local farms repairing the same stuff that got damaged the week before.
Hi Boonta, Only problem I see with this is that anything you make will be one off's. I can't see anything worth the expense being made for the push mower market. The ride on market is where people have to spend money to keep them going but there is nothing I can think of that could be made in multiples, everything is going to be an individual item, and then you have the other issue that everyone here is hunting for the cheapest way to get their machine going again. Anyway good luck with the idea but as I have said here many times this is for me a cost neutral hobby that I would struggle to make beer money from
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.
Yes Mf just snapped after starting the mower ,the mower was still over concrete and hadn't got to the grass.
Originally Posted by Mowerfreak
Is there a way to examine steel to see the grain direction? I can't recall seeing grain on mower blades. Might take a look.
You'd have to take the paint off if a bar blade then polish the steel to a high shine and use a magnifying glass or a microscope to look at the grain direction and if you still can't see the grain use some acid to etch the metal so the grains will appear.
I would say bar blades are meant to be made the same way as swing back blades with the grain of the steel in a lengthwise direction .
Below is a Bar Blade I bent when I hit a drain lid ,it didn't even bend the crank ,it must be an example of the grain lengthwise as it would have snapped otherwise.
I think the Victa bar blade that snapped is another example of China making parts incorrectly or selling parts they know are rejects.
I prefer to take my chances with a small chunk breaking off one of my dodgy mild steel swing back blades and launching itself than half a hardened steel bar heading my way, or wrecking a mower.
BTW in over 15 years of mowing rocky terrain none of my blades have suffered more than a chip or two from the cutting edge.
In my last post I didn't mean the home made blades have lasted for 15 years ! They do wear out from either frequent sharpening, ploughing through ant mounds and sandy soil or grinding down rocks but not from fractures or big chunks detaching.
Maybe being mild steel the direction of the grain isn't such a worry like with hardened steel which is brittle rather than tough.
