OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Repairs and Maintenance Questions On Ride On Mowers Questions On Ride On Mowers Frames Swingback or Bar

Giday. My first post "woopi" i have just been through the process of buying a new mower. I have had both bar and swing back bladed mowers in the past and found the swing back to be the best. I bought a Cub Cadet SLT1554 with bar blades anyway but I was wondering what everyones opinion is on the blade situation is.
Thanks olboy

Olboy,

Bar blades will give you pretty much the same cut as swing back blades and the bar blades will last a lot longer than the swing back type so less changing as you can sharpen the bar blades.

Also with bar blades they will cut longer grass easier. Hope that this is of some help.

This seems to be an area of different opinions.

It all depends on how high you cut the grass. Typically american built machines are designed to cut grass a bit higher therefore they 'vacuum' the top of the grass up for a cleaner cut and have a different blade placement in relation to the cutter deck (if you look from the front of the mowinf deck the bar blade normally sits a bit higher compared to Australian built mowers.

On Australian built mowers, they run a disc and swingback blade setup for a couple of reasons (for lower cut)
* cutter disc gives inertia in the cut,increasing torque
* thinner blade to 'slice' through tougher grasses we have in Australia.

Bar blades do last longer but must keep them constantly sharpened otherwise performance will be poor.

Swingback blades require constant replacement but are generally cheaper to replace

So my opinion is, it depends on how you cut and what height you cut. Hope this helps.

Hi all In my opinion nothing beats the swing backs .Especially on mowers where the disc is on the engine shaft itself. Bent crankshafts are common with mowers like Masports with bar blades but they have probably cone to swing backs now, .One thing in favour of a bar blade is that they are very positive in the way they seem to RAM the clippings into a catcher and will really pack a catcher till there is just NO more room.
Having said that I realize that most riders are using bar blades attached to a jackshaft spindle and the shock of hitting a hard object lying in the grass is not transmiietd to the crankshaft of the engine . so bar blades on riders are sort of O/K
My daughter has a very large area to cut and she bought a Flymo Auto drive about 6 years ago and found the diffence in the finished cut to be far far superior. .I noticed the cut looking a bit rough the other day and asked her husband how long since the blades wer changed and he told me .NEVER, The spare blades I left with them are still hanging on a nail in the shed. I Think the rough looking cut may be caused by a slight variation perhaps in the tyre prssures. It doues not take much for the mower deck to tilt and leave the saw tooth look

Be back later and will add to this tipic when I have had a look at just how the blades are after all these years and will check just exactly how long it was that they wre put on but must be 5 to 6 years Cheers Joe

Replying to Myself again
I forgot to say that I fitted swing back blades to this mower and the differnce in the finished cut was far superior to the finish while it had the bar citters on. Should be going down sometime this week to change the blades Cheers Joe

Just checked the specs on some mowers and your right, minimum cut height on Husqvarna 26mm Cub Cadet 38mm and creenfield 15mm.
That's probably why my cub dosn't scalp like I expected it to.
Olboy

having been to the States on a couple of occasions I watched a contractor outside the hotel at annaheim cut the grass while waiting for a coach., Yhe grass was about 3 inches high and he cut off about a 1/4 inch off ot .It looked nice and level O.k but was waving in the breeze when he left . I dontthink he took the catcher off at all . Thats the way they lokie it over there.
When Wheel Horse folks came here mto Oz to sell their product they were really amazed at how low the grass was being cut and had to get off home and design some stepped down blades as quick as they possibly could Cheers Joe

Thats right Joe!

The other typical problem with American deck design is because they are designed to cut high, they dont have a cutout at the front of the mower. The blade at the front generally misses because the front of the deck "pushes" the grass down and the blade runs over the top of it!

These American units then cut at the 'back' of the deck, the blade has to push the grass all the way around from the 6 o'clock position, thru to 2 o'clock

Australian units with the cutout at the front of the deck allow the grass to be standing when cut, thus allowing the grass to be cut when the blade is at 11 o'clock and saves alot of horsepower