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Gator Blades


mark64

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I put a set of gator blades on my grasshopper to try them out on a spot of my lawn where my factory blades have been leaving bunches of grass every time I mow. For some reason this area of lawn is much thicker and grows faster than the rest of my 3 acres of lawn. So far after mowing twice I am very impressed with the job they do.Clippings seem to be cut much better and they are spread out much more even than I was getting from my factory set of blades. Has anyone else run these blades, and what are your opinions? I know I should be mowing with my Allis tractor's, but I still spend 3 hours mowing with my 61" deck on the zero turn. Mark
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I have gators on 2 of the 5 mower i use in my mowing business. I just got me a small ztr and it need gadors and I think it will solve some of its problems. I have found gators will lift the grass better when I mow at a higher speeds. I also have found that gators help get the grass out of the deck faster. Another big plus is there are very hard steel and I don't have to shapen them as much. Mark sounds like you mow a lot of grass like me. I know this is a tractor fourum and the best place of its kind on the Net, but when they say a ZTR will cut your mowing time in 1/2 i have found it to be true. My big Allis(416) 42" cut pulling a 42" pull behind totaling 80" cut with the blade tip speed running faster than factory, I mow about 5 mph 4 gear. That is right at 3 acers a hour, in open ground. My Ariens ZTR is only 40" and can mow the same City Park {one full block} in the same time as my Big Allis set up. And the ZTR will of course be timed closer. I'm hopeing to get a Grasshopper or a Dixie chopper 60"er for next year. But I have been eyeing a Bad Boy mower, they are built well and much better price.
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I put some on my 3410. My deck was clogging up all the time, even in short grass, it has a newer 7000 style deck on it with the smaller opening. I thought gators may help, as my factory blades were worn out anyway. I was not impressed with their cut. They didn't clump the grass quite as much but were barely any better. Also the clippings are much larger. I was told these cut the grass clippings several times but it mowed more like a sickle mower than a lawn mower. The deck also still clogged up a few times in grass not higher than 6 inches. I don't think I'd buy them again. They may work better on other types of decks which have different air flow. As for price mine were about $47 locally but the guy said he was getting me a deal.
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I work for a commercial mowing comany where we run three Scag Turf Tigers. We tried gator blades this year believing that they "mulch" the grass, but they didn't at all. In thick grass they really have trouble getting everything cut, and we were having to double cut all the time to get all the grass. You could crawl throgh thick grass and you would have big stips of uncut grass behind you. Also, they clogged up the decks badly with grass as they were not designed for the 61" decks. We were having to scrape the decks every day so that they would cut. Went back to normal blades and the cut was level and everything got cut the first time. I wouldn't reccomend them
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