I tried to make mower blades that last longer by welding the underside of the blade with various hard face rods. Homogeneous high alloy filler "impact resistant" rod seemed to help some on mower blades.
The chromium carbide crystal hard face fillers "abrasion resistant" rod tend to crack, on a mower blade the crack propagates and breaks the blade. It works great on 5/8 inch thick brush shredder blades, the cracks tend not to form as the thick blades don't really flex and the cracks can't propagate through the thick base metal, thus far, 3 years later.
Well laser edge (fisher barton) perfected what I was trying to build.
They took the chromium carbide crystals and brazed a thin layer on to the under side of the blade. Works best in sandy soil, rocks are hell on them though.
They are pretty easy to find for a kubota, others like my 21 inch 5/8 star blades for my non-kubota application you really have to want them.
I like them because I can mow for hours in very sandy soil and the blades are still kind of sharp. Sharp enough to where if I have to remove a string, baling wire or just retighten them down I really don't want the wrench to slip and bang my hand the exposed carbide crystals. What I used to do was sharpen the blades every time I picked up a length of string, baling wire, barbed wire or after an hour to an hour and a half of mowing, freshly sharp blade would go great for about 30 minutes till they started to get dull again. Yea I have incredibly abrasive dirt.
If you have clay soil or for whatever reasoson your mower eats a lot of rocks then the cheap blades are probably the way to go.
The chromium carbide crystal hard face fillers "abrasion resistant" rod tend to crack, on a mower blade the crack propagates and breaks the blade. It works great on 5/8 inch thick brush shredder blades, the cracks tend not to form as the thick blades don't really flex and the cracks can't propagate through the thick base metal, thus far, 3 years later.
Well laser edge (fisher barton) perfected what I was trying to build.
They took the chromium carbide crystals and brazed a thin layer on to the under side of the blade. Works best in sandy soil, rocks are hell on them though.
They are pretty easy to find for a kubota, others like my 21 inch 5/8 star blades for my non-kubota application you really have to want them.
I like them because I can mow for hours in very sandy soil and the blades are still kind of sharp. Sharp enough to where if I have to remove a string, baling wire or just retighten them down I really don't want the wrench to slip and bang my hand the exposed carbide crystals. What I used to do was sharpen the blades every time I picked up a length of string, baling wire, barbed wire or after an hour to an hour and a half of mowing, freshly sharp blade would go great for about 30 minutes till they started to get dull again. Yea I have incredibly abrasive dirt.
If you have clay soil or for whatever reasoson your mower eats a lot of rocks then the cheap blades are probably the way to go.
