Sharpen Lawn Mower Blade

It's recommended that your run routine maintenance on your lawn mower once a month.

You want to check the blades, clean them, sharpen them , and perform any other maintenance that you may need to at that time. This is, also, a good time to go ahead and give the rest of the lawn mower a good once-over so that you can clean it up and make sure all the other parts are running appropriately.

When your lawn mower blade and the blades are running in top shape, you'll find a big difference in how your yard turns out after a morning of cutting grass.

If your mower blades are sharp, the blade will easily slice through the grass, but if the blade is dull or getting dull, the mower blade will rip the grass, which can actually leave your lawn susceptible to diseases.

So, when performing regular maintenance to your lawn equipment, you don't want to forget to check the blade of your lawn mower.

If  the blade is dull or lightly chipped, you want to go ahead and sharpen the blade so that you can ensure a nicely cut yard, a healthy yard, and an efficiently run lawn mower.

If the blade is bent or badly chipped, you will want to go ahead and replace the blade, but you'll find that in many cases, you won't have to spend the extra cash to replace your mower blade if you regularly and routinely check the blade.

If you're able to check the mower blade health early, you'll be able to sharpen it quickly before the blade is near unusable and causing damage to your mower and your lawn.

When sharpening your mower blades, there are different tools that you may want to purchase to use. Depending on what you have the money, room, and patience for, it's up to you as to what you want to purchase.

Some people will use bench grinders, whereas others may just purchase a sharpening attachment to fit onto a dremel tool or power drill. And, you have some that will manually file the blade with a hand tool sharpener.

The one thing that you may find, is that it's going to be easier to use a bench grinder if you have a mower blade that's in bad and has been eaten up by rocks and debris. If the blade is too bad, then you may just want to replace it and save yourself the trouble.

Run the blade back and forth on the grinder or attachment. You want to grind out any nicks or surface chips. If the blade is badly damaged with chips that are all the way through the blade, then it's best to just replace the blade.

By running the blade perpendicular on the grinder, you'll get a blunt, straight edge; then grind at the length of the blade until you have a sharp edge, which will achieve better performance.

When you think that the blade has been fully sharpened, you'll want to make sure that the blade is balanced. If the mower blade isn't balanced, then it won't work properly and you can cause more damage to your lawn mower.

In order to balance your sharpened lawn mower blade, you'll want to use a balancer that you can purchase for about $10 or less.

When using the blade balancer, you'll want to place the middle of the blade on the balancer, and when your let go, watch to see if the blade dips to one side or the other. If the blade dips, then you need to sharpen the side that dipped in order to lighten that side. Retest the blade to see if it is balanced; if it is not, then continue to slightly grind down the heavier side in attempts to get both sides of the mower blade of even weights. When the blade is balanced, it's ready for your to reattach it to the mower and tighten the nut in place.

Test your mower before moving onto your next project.