OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Repairs and Maintenance Questions on Walk Behind Lawn Mower Frames Question On Scott Bonnar Cylinder Mowers BMS Bedknife Buddy

Hi to All,
In answer to rossf's shout-box question, the BMS Bedknife Buddy can be bought from Better Methods P/L, PO Box 2266
Taren Point, NSW 2229 Tel:(02)95245366

thanks Deejay !
cheers Ross

Hi All,

I'm a new member on the forums, picking up my EBay purchased Scott
Bonnar 45 tomorrow - so I expect I'll have more than a few questions as I get it up to speed!! I do already have a 'dumb' question - what does the 'Bed-Knife Buddy' do and how do you use it? I looked at the photos in the prior post but can't figure it out...

Cheers

Jeff

Hi Jeff, welcome to Outdoorking. The purpose of the Bedknife Buddy is to sharpen the cutting edge of the bedknife, the fixed blade of a reel-type mower. Grass is cut scissors-fashion by the reel blades sweeping the grass back against the bedknife. The top of the bedknife needs to be ground flat and kept flat, and its front edge needs to be flattened in some suitable way and kept both flat, and at right angles to the top surface. You can't flatten the top of the bedknife without removing it from the mower and putting it on a surface grinder, so you protect it by very careful adjustment of the geometry so the reel's blades never actually touch the bedknife, though they miss it by less than 0.001". However the square edge at the front of the bedknife actually contacts grass, and wears away in the process. Occasionally you have to file or grind back the vertical front surface of the bedknife until its top corner is sharp again, instead of rounded by wear. Traditionally this was done by careful use of an oilstone. The Bedknife Buddy is a small tool that attempts to do it without requiring as much skill as an oilstone does.

Remember that the front surface of the bedknife must always be precisely flat along its whole length, and precisely parallel to the axle of the reel. This is very difficult to achieve and maintain, whether you use an oilstone or a Buddy. The advantage of the Buddy is that it keeps the front of the bedknife square to its top surface - keeping the front surface flat and parallel is still up to the person doing the sharpening.

Awesome - Thanks Grumpy.

This is my new beast - looking forward to having a tinker (already read through deejay's maintenance post...

Cheers

Jeff

It looks as if the reel may never have been reground, so you should be able to get a very long life from it before you need a new one (which is expensive). It also has a Briggs and Stratton engine, which is likely to be the original one, increasing the likelihood that your mower has not been used commercially. This again is good news. After you do the basic maintenance, make sure that the reel is not physically touching the bedknife as it rotates. (Don't try to adjust it until you've done some research on the process, though.) If there is no reel-to-bedknife contact, once you've done the basic maintenance you could try using it and getting the hang of it. Once you are through that stage you get to the advanced course: blade adjustment. There is plenty of information on that in past threads here.