using other brand mower blades
Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2022 4:04 pm
So around here, it's leaf season. And the leaves seem like they are thicker than ever before.
One of the things I try to do every third day or so is to blow off down my driveway and from the street across a little strip of grass and down into a creek bottom area. Once the leaves get down into the bottom area they are as good as gone. So you have to blow them up and over the street curb and then three to five feet horizontally across a grass strip, whereupon they flutter down into the creek bottom.
And I was watching a recent YouTube video on one of my favorite channels Diesel Creek and he had this huge turbine leaf blower mounted on a Ventrac tractor. And that thing was pretty amazing. And it made me wish that I had a more effective blowing machine.
I have a backpack blower. And of course with the mower deck on the Ingersoll, you can to some degree suck up the leaves in your path and eject them out the side.
But I recently had experience with a mower deck using high lift blades, and that is way more effective at clearing leaves from the mower deck path.
So I said all that to say this: I want some high lift blades on my Ingersoll 4020. After a bit of searching, it appears that high lift blades are unavailable.
So I ordered a three pack of high lift blades for a Deere "7 iron" deck from a Z810A zero turn. They're 17" long with a round 7/8 center hole.
My plan was to machine the proper oblong rounded slot into them, to match a later series Ingersoll blade.
But I realized that I can save myself time in the long run by fabricating three adapters that will minimize the machining I have to do on new blades, and can even allow me to mount Case-pattern blades if the need arises. Though I don't know if there's any such thing as a right hand blade with the old style mount pattern.
And as it turns out, these new blades are HIGH carbon steel. Very, very difficult to machine. To enlarge the center hole out to 1.25", I had to use a boring head with a ceramic cutting insert, and it dulled three of them. To drill the 3/8" holes 2 5/8" apart, I had to use sharpened carbide masonry bits, and I ruined one of those too. So you definitely don't want to do any unnecessary machining on these blades.
The adapter is a 3/16 plate that's 3.5x 2.5. I bored the 1.25 center hole and the two 3/8 bolt holes. Then I machined round bar stock to 1.25, and ran a parting tool about halfway in, creating 3 disks that are 1/4 thick. Then I fed that bar end-long into the bandsaw, which served to cut off a woodruff key-shaped slug.
I then plug welded a pair of those slugs onto my adapter plate, so now when you slide the adapter plate in place, the slugs engage with the spindle adapter.
Finally I welded in bolts in the 3/8 bolt holes. The bolts stuck upwards into the 3/8 holes in the blade, locking the new adapter's rotation to the blade's rotation.
So the factory spindle adapter turns the new custom adapter, and the custom adapter turns the blade.
I'll report back later how it works and sounds and performs.
Bob
One of the things I try to do every third day or so is to blow off down my driveway and from the street across a little strip of grass and down into a creek bottom area. Once the leaves get down into the bottom area they are as good as gone. So you have to blow them up and over the street curb and then three to five feet horizontally across a grass strip, whereupon they flutter down into the creek bottom.
And I was watching a recent YouTube video on one of my favorite channels Diesel Creek and he had this huge turbine leaf blower mounted on a Ventrac tractor. And that thing was pretty amazing. And it made me wish that I had a more effective blowing machine.
I have a backpack blower. And of course with the mower deck on the Ingersoll, you can to some degree suck up the leaves in your path and eject them out the side.
But I recently had experience with a mower deck using high lift blades, and that is way more effective at clearing leaves from the mower deck path.
So I said all that to say this: I want some high lift blades on my Ingersoll 4020. After a bit of searching, it appears that high lift blades are unavailable.
So I ordered a three pack of high lift blades for a Deere "7 iron" deck from a Z810A zero turn. They're 17" long with a round 7/8 center hole.
My plan was to machine the proper oblong rounded slot into them, to match a later series Ingersoll blade.
But I realized that I can save myself time in the long run by fabricating three adapters that will minimize the machining I have to do on new blades, and can even allow me to mount Case-pattern blades if the need arises. Though I don't know if there's any such thing as a right hand blade with the old style mount pattern.
And as it turns out, these new blades are HIGH carbon steel. Very, very difficult to machine. To enlarge the center hole out to 1.25", I had to use a boring head with a ceramic cutting insert, and it dulled three of them. To drill the 3/8" holes 2 5/8" apart, I had to use sharpened carbide masonry bits, and I ruined one of those too. So you definitely don't want to do any unnecessary machining on these blades.
The adapter is a 3/16 plate that's 3.5x 2.5. I bored the 1.25 center hole and the two 3/8 bolt holes. Then I machined round bar stock to 1.25, and ran a parting tool about halfway in, creating 3 disks that are 1/4 thick. Then I fed that bar end-long into the bandsaw, which served to cut off a woodruff key-shaped slug.
I then plug welded a pair of those slugs onto my adapter plate, so now when you slide the adapter plate in place, the slugs engage with the spindle adapter.
Finally I welded in bolts in the 3/8 bolt holes. The bolts stuck upwards into the 3/8 holes in the blade, locking the new adapter's rotation to the blade's rotation.
So the factory spindle adapter turns the new custom adapter, and the custom adapter turns the blade.
I'll report back later how it works and sounds and performs.
Bob