Posted: 9/10/2013 10:33:41 PM EDT
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Do any of you guys actually bother with this ? I was sharpening the blade on my push mower this evening and my neighbor pops his head into my basement. I did not blade at 45 because he does this often and I have known him 40+ years (he is a old coot). He proceeds to tell me I need to balance my blade.
I have heard about this before but this is no commercial mower and I always just use the bench grinder and put an edge on the blade. He swears I will bend the mower shaft. Owned this mower for YEARS and several other ":nice riding mowers" and never balanced a damn thing. Am I going to mower operator hell ? Or is the old coot just starting shit as usual. I do like the ancient feller but he can get buck wild at times. |
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Hell yes I do. It's easy. Put an appropriate size washer in a vice and carefully center the hole in the middle of your blade on the edge of the washer to test balance and grind accordingly. With painstaking care you will be able to get it very close.
My Honda mower was $600 6 years ago. No way I'm going to let an imbalanced blade shake it to death.. |
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Screwdriver through the spindle hole works as well.
Just make sure one side of the blade isn't heavier than the other, and remove material from the heavy side. Imbalanced blades can be hell on cranks, but it really tears the shit out of spindle bearings. It's worse when the blades are getting near their end of life, and are worn, ground back quite a bit, The coot next door is old school. Humor him, and have him show you how he balances them. |
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I do know how to balance blades. My main question would be is it really needed ? I buy new blades that are out of balance and I always have to sharpen new blades because they come dull right out of the package. I hear about all the horrors but have not experienced any. I will say my mowers are not worked hard and possibly this is why I never have had any issue.
I grease and change oil as required but I just never bothered to balance any blades. Not disputing any repercussions. I just never had any failure because of balancing. |
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Just buy a new mower blade. My wife runs over shit and doesnt think anything about it. She comes and tells me the grass looks funny. Bent blade. 38 bucks for two.
I would imagine a new blade is 15 bucks . I do alot a sharpening for a living. Not worth the balancing stuff. (Iam not trying to be a dick) make sure your mower is level on all four sides. 
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Quoted: Just buy a new mower blade. My wife runs over shit and doesnt think anything about it. She comes and tells me the grass looks funny. Bent blade. 38 bucks for two. I would imagine a new blade is 15 bucks . I do alot a sharpening for a living. Not worth the balancing stuff. (Iam not trying to be a dick) make sure your mower is level on all four sides. I bought an extra set of blades for my mower. Saves time: - I only have to climb under the mower once. - Most of the time I spend sharpening blades is getting the equipment ready. It doesn't take much more time to sharpen four blades rather than two. - If my wife ruins a blade, I have a spare... |
| +1 for screwdriver through the hole. As soon as you hit a rock your blade won't be perfectly balanced, so close enough is good enough. Lowe's sells some pyramid looking piece of plastic that you can set your blade on to see if it is balanced if you want to be more accurate. |