How to Balance a LawnMower Blade? Pro Tricks to Mow. Lawn mower blade balancing

How to Balance Lawn Mower Blades? (5 Easy Steps)

Your lawn mower is vibrating too much, and isn’t mowing the grass properly? We know your issue and have an idea that it’s pretty annoying. It happens 90% of the time because of unbalanced blades.

Surprisingly this isn’t a big problem; you only need to know about how to balance lawn mower blades, and that’s it. Believe us; it’s not difficult to balance the lawn mower blades; anyone can do it at home with the proper equipment.

Below we’ll help you by answering the question of why the balance of lawn mower blades is important. Then we’ll proceed with the five steps easy guide to balance the lawn mower blades. Let’s dive into the details of blades!

Why is the Balance of Lawn Mower Blades Important?

If you’re listening to the term balancing the lawn mower blades for the first time, you must be thinking of why it is important. What difference does it make if the lawn mower blades aren’t balanced?

The answer to this simple question is that unbalanced blades cause vibration and make mowing the grass difficult. In addition, unbalanced blades put pressure on the engine and the blade shaft, which mostly results in structural damage to lawn mowers.

In short, if you don’t want to face the damage, this is the perfect guide. You only have to follow the steps we’ve written below but before that get all the necessary equipment you’ll need.

Balance the Lawn Mower Blades in Five Easy Steps

Here’s the step-by-step guide about how to balance lawn mower blades.

Step 1 – Gather All Necessary Items

• Balancer to check the balance of the blades.
• Belt sander (you can substitute it with a sharpening stone or grinder).
• Glasses for safety.
• L-type wrench
• Safety gloves.

Step 2 – Remove the Blade from the Lawn Mower

• Ensure that the lawn mower isn’t connected to the electric cord.
• Afterward, remove the blade with the help of an impact driver or wrench.

For a better understanding, watch the video below:

After sharpening the blade again, use the balancer and check whether the blade is stable or not. If not, then again, sharpen the blade from the heavy side but not too much.

Repeat the process until both sides of the blades are balanced. Lastly, reinstall the blade again to lawn mowers.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What’s the difference between sharpening and balancing lawn mower blades?

The process for sharpening and balancing the lawn mower blades is the same. In both situations, you need a sharpener like a belt sander, stone, and so on. First, check the blade’s balance, then sharpen the heavy side to balance the blades.

When should you balance your lawn mower blades?

You should balance your lawn mower blade in two situations first, wherever you feel the vibration and find difficulty in mowing. Second, you should balance the blades after every time you sharpen them.

How sharp should you sharpen a lawn mower blade?

Some individuals think a lawn mower blade should be sharp enough to cut anything it touches. While it’s a wrong misconception, you don’t need sharp edges that can cut anyone’s hand, nor you need a blade that can’t cut anything. The sharpness level should be in the medium zone.

Conclusion

If seen from a third-person point of view, the process of sharpening and balancing the blade is pretty similar. The only difference we’ve found while writing this guide on how to balance lawn mower blades is while balancing; you have to check the balance of the blade first.

Then you have to sharpen the side that’s heavy so that the weight is equal on both sides of the blades. We repeat the process of sharpening on the heavy side until we get a balanced blade. That’s the entire balancing process in brief.

Hey, It’s Noah Smith, writer and founder of this blog and horticulturist by profession. I’m here to make your lawn, garden, and backyard perfectly green and full of beauty.

How to Balance a LawnMower Blade? Pro Tricks to Mow

Do you know how to balance a lawnmower blade? If you want to get a better-looking lawn and cleanly cut grass, then a mower blade is perfect for you. But the problem is about its balanced blade. Those who are new to playing it fall in trouble. Do not need to feel tensed about it if it stops working.

Sometimes it can crush your hands also. Only a balancing blade can cut grass smoothly and let you complete the lawn, cutting chore faster. Just relax and find out the problems and solve them. But do not think that without it you can keep cleaning your garden. In this article, you came to know how to balance a lawnmower blade.

How To Balance A Lawnmower Blade-Easy tricks

To keep your lawn perfect, you should know how to balance a lawnmower blade ? When we are going to use a mower, sometimes it vibrates to the point of making your hands numb. The second problem is that your lawnmower is a broken bolt That is coming out. You can have loose bolts falling out. And down the angel of lawnmower both body of lawnmower and the deck of your lawnmower. Those mouths of straw of cracking and breaking. After a time, you will destroy your lawnmower.

You want to balance the blade now. And this is easy to do. We give you the full description of the natural way in below. Just follow our instructions.

Maintenance the Mower Blade

It is who uses this type of equipment at home or at work that is essential for maintaining it properly. It is quite impossible to buy a blade after making a problem. Some lawnmower blade is too expensive. The wrong mower will affect the cleaning. So before work, you should maintain the mower blade balance.

Stay Level

An unbalanced blade will ruin the blade shaft and cause vibration. To ensure the balance, drive a nail into a stud. And then you set the mower blade onto it like an airplane mode. If one side falls, you have to fill more metal from it. Filing it until the blade stays level.

Sharp it First

A dull blade can weaken the plant. So before balancing the module, you should sharpen it first. Removing the plug when you are working with the sword. You can not sharpen this blade like a knife. If you grind it like a knife or you only sharpen the bottom side; It’s going to rip and shred your grass off. We recommend you some way to sharpen it. So that all the little block chips are all gone. It also looks nice and smooth.

• Sharp it with a hand file.
• Sharpe it like scissors.
• Sharpen it from the top side of the cutting edge.
• To sharpen the blade, you may also use an angle grinder.
• Sharpen the angel portion of the blade and check it.
• If there are burrs in the mower blade, then lightly pass them off the backside. And remove them along with the grinder.

Use a Blade Balancer

You first want to make sure that you are at level surface. So, take a blade balancer. You are going to get it from your nearest materials shop. And you linked it on the side or the other side of it out of balance. If you have a hole on the blade, then set it on the blade balancer. It can work pretty well to show you the level. The easiest way to balance your mower blade just kept removing materials from the side. If one side is more substantial, then cut it until it loses its extra content.

Measurement Should be the Same

If you want to know how to balance a lawnmower blade. we suggest you merely grind off material from the cutting edge. Do this job until the blade balances out correctly. Then turn the lawnmower blade one hundred and eighty degrees angle. To keep the same measurement, remember the other trip.

Using a Nail

You should be concerned about sharpening. The easiest way we think you do it is with a nail. Then you set the blade on the pin through the central blade hole. Hang the lawnmower blade on the nail to check the balance. If one side dribbles, then file it until the mower blade remains horizontal.

Using a Magnetic Blade

If you cut your lawn more than twice a week, you should have to sharpen your blade two or three times. Extreme wobbling can damage your mower blade. Mark the central hole on the mower blade and place it a magnetic blade balancer firmly against the tapered cone. The magnet allows the blade to spin freely. If one side is more massive and swings down, it needs to sharp it to remove the extra in a material.

Why Do We Need a Lawn Mower Blade?

Lawnmower blades are cutting the components. In the mowing season, it is the most critical material tool to cut the grass clippings and into the decks. Dull blades can lead to lawn disease, water loss, and grass pull up during cutting.

If you want to trim the grass of your garden as much as your bare, you need a lawnmower blade. Do this job until it turns into smaller pieces. It provides natural fertilization. It also keeps the environment beautiful. It plays off for the homeowner in the long run. So we should know the easy ways of how to balance a lawnmower blade.

Final words

On the above, we discussed a simple way of how to balance a lawnmower blade. It is just a simple task and saves time also. Allowing the plan to heal and recover quickly, you need a lawnmower blade that provides the right balance while you are going to use it. It works well If you get the blade situated evenly with the hole over the tip.

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How to Sharpen a Lawn Mower Blade – Follow These Simple Steps

We can’t count the number of times we’ve been asked by neighbors or colleagues about the best way or how to sharpen a lawn mower blade. Sharpening a lawnmower blade doesn’t require a ton of skill. While years of practice make you better, anyone can learn the basic principles needed to complete the job using any of several tools. We set up this handy lawn mower sharpening guide to work with several different methods. Check out our introduction and then look over the tools you might have on hand to get that lawnmower blade sharpening job done.

Why Sharpening Your Lawn Mower Blades Makes a Difference

I’ve known friends who have never sharpened their lawn mower blade…ever. Apparently, if the mower does something to chew the grass down to 2.5-inches or so, that’s all they require. And it may be natural to think that a blade spinning at just under 200 mph wouldn’t need to be terribly sharp in order to cut grass. You’d be right. However, a sharp lawn mower blade slices through the grass. With a clean cut, your grass stays green and you avoid that unhealthy brown or burnt look that plagues so many lawns—even when they get plenty of water.

Check out the photo below and see if you might start to get the picture:

For professionals and people who want their lawns nice, healthy, and as green as possible, knowing how to sharpen a lawn mower blade makes the difference. This goes double for grasses like Fescue which tend to grow very straight and require frequent cutting.

In the professional landscaping world, some professionals sharpen their zero-turn lawn mower blades every other day. When your business is nice-looking lawns, you need to do everything in your power to ensure you keep them healthy.

How to Sharpen a Lawn Mower Blade With an Angle Grinder

As we mentioned earlier, you can sharpen a lawnmower blade using any number of tools. One of the easiest (and quickest) involves using an angle grinder. Of the people I’m aware of who already know how to sharpen a lawn mower blade, most use an angle grinder. The reason this works is that lawn mower blades don’t need to be razor-sharp. They do, however, need a clean cutting edge—preferably at the proper angle. This clean edge lets the blade slice, instead of chop, through the grass at high speed. It’s the difference between cutting carrots with a knife and a piece of 1/8-inch steel swung wildly through the air

Step 1: Position the Mower on Its Side

The first step may seem obvious but we’ve been around for a while…and we’ve seen some crazy stuff. In case it isn’t already clear, don’t sharpen the blade on the mower. For one, it doesn’t give you enough room to maneuver the grinder. Second—the majority of the work needs to take place on the top side of the blade. Third, it’s dangerous since there’s no good way to keep the blade from spinning around on you.

To remove a lawnmower blade, first, get the mower into a safe position. For a gas mower, remove the spark plug wire to ensure the motor cannot fire. Then turn the mower onto its side (carburetor/air filter side facing upwards) to expose the blade. Turning it this way helps keep the engine from flooding and oil from leaking.

Step 2: Remove the Blade from the Lawn Mower

Use a 1/2-inch impact wrench if you have one. While this may have been an obscure tool for a consumer to have just a few years ago, manufacturers are bringing cordless impact wrenches more and more into the mainstream. So grab a grinder if you have one. If you don’t, use the longest ratchet you have with the appropriate socket. If it’s still not budging, use a piece of 2×4 or similar material and tap the ratchet handle with a hammer via the wood (so you don’t damage the tool). Be careful as the ratchet can easily slip off the center bolt.

Step 3: Secure the Blade in a Vise and Sharpen

Secure the blade in a vise with the sharp portion of the blade positioned accessibly towards you. Using a small angle grinder, sharpen the lawn mower blades using a smooth, steady motion along the length of the sharpened portion of the steel. You want to match the existing angle of the blade, not create your own angle. This ensures the blade continues to maintain its proper lift and functionality.

Remember, the goal of lawnmower blade sharpening…is to sharpen the blade, not recut a new edge from a block of flat steel. Work with the metal! Try to remove the same amount of metal from each side of the blade so you maintain the balance of the blade. See our section below on balancing the lawn mower blade before you finish.

How to Sharpen a Lawn Mower Blade With a Bench Grinder

Knowing how to use a bench grinder to sharpen lawn mower blades helps you in a number of ways. For one, a bench grinder makes it easier to maintain the sharpening angle on the blade. You no longer need to rely on your hands to steady the grinder. Instead, a bench grinder gives you a place to rest the blade against and set up your angle. Let’s assume you already followed the steps above to remove the blade from the mower.

Step 1: Set Your Table Angle to Match the Existing Blade Angle

A bench grinder reverses the process of sharpening. Rather than move the grinder across the blade, you move the blade back and forth across the grinder wheel. Most bench grinders feature a table that tilts. Using this you can really get consistent results using this method. Set the angle of the table before you turn on the grinder and begin sharpening.

Step 2: Start the Bench Grinder and Slide the Blade across the Table

Be sure not to over-sharpen the lawn mower blade when using a bench grinder. You only have so much steel to work with before you have to get a new blade. You also don’t need to do much more than put that edge back on. Use quick passes back and forth when sharpening. This helps keep you from heating up the steel and eliminating the hardening process. This helps you keep that blade edge sharp for longer periods of time.

How to Balance a Lawn Mower Blade

Regardless of how you sharpen a lawn mower blade, you want to finish by balancing the blade. When you remove metal from each side of the blade, you affect the blade’s balance. Just like your car—which needs all four wheels properly balanced—lawnmower blades must also be balanced. If not, it can cause excessive vibration and reduce cutting efficiency.

Step 1: Create a Balance Point

Hammer a 16D or similar nail into a stud in your shed or shop and hang the blade from its center point. In theory, you could simply hold out a nail and do this step by hand if needed. Some blades are harder than others to balance due to the nature of the center hole. The easiest to balance use round holes.

Step 2: Mark the Heavy Side

If it stays balanced, you’re all done. If not, mark the blade on the heavy side with a Sharpie marker. I typically mark the actual sharpened edge so I have something to remove.

Step 3: Continue Sharpening and Re-measure

Next, grind away some more metal off that side. Be sure to maintain the same cutting angle. Just do a little bit and then re-check your blade balance.

Regardless of which grinder method you use, balance the blade each time you sharpen it before mounting it back on the lawn mower.

Other Tools and Methods to Sharpen Lawnmower Blades

Save yourself a lot of headaches and don’t use a file to sharpen lawn mower blades. You don’t need to have that level of accuracy, and it’s just slower and more work than you need for this process. Regardless of what anyone says, you won’t get a nicer-looking lawn or longer blade life from manually sharpening the blade with a file. Use one of the grinding methods above and git ‘er done!

For commercial users who do a lot of lawn mower blade sharpening, several companies make tools that can help speed up the process…potentially. We tried a tool from Noracore called the Easy Mower Blade Sharpener (EMBSX). It uses a die grinder, mirrors, and a camera connected to your smartphone to let you sharpen blades on a zero-turn mower without removing them. While it has some potential, it also had difficulty getting to that center blade on 3-blade ZTs. It’s clearly an innovative tool. In fact, it won a 2019 Pro Tool Innovation Award. In the end, you’ll need to determine whether it might be easier just to jack up the mower and pull the blades.

Other systems include jigs for quickly setting and maintaining angles on even complex mower blades. These help you maintain that proper edge—which can vary between 30 and 45-degrees depending on the blade. If you do a lot of sharpening, find a system that optimizes your time to save you the most money.

Some Considerations

Regardless of how you choose to sharpen a lawn mower blade, be sure you wear proper personal protective equipment (PPE). Protect your eyes, hands, and ears whenever working with grinders. Grinding mower blades takes very little effort. It’s a great entry-level task that almost anyone can tackle.

Let us know what you think in the Комментарии и мнения владельцев below. Do you have a preferred method for sharpening lawn mower blades? Which method works most consistently in your experience? We’d love to hear from you.

Clint DeBoer

When he’s not playing with the latest power tool, Clint DeBoer enjoys life as a husband, father, and avid reader—especially the Bible. He loves Jesus, has a degree in recording engineering, and has been involved in multimedia and/or online publishing in one form or another since 1992.

Clint’s career has covered nearly the entire realm of audio and video production. After graduating at the top of his class with an Associates Degree in Recording Engineering, he began working for the famed Soundelux studios in 1994, one of the largest post-production companies specializing in audio for feature films television. Working on a myriad of feature films, Clint honed his skills as a dialogue editor, foley editor, and sound designer. Years later, he moved into the expanding area of video editing, where he served as the company’s senior AVID video editor for three years. Working for such clients as Universal Pictures, Hollywood Pictures, Paramount Home Entertainment, NASA, Universal Studios, Planet Hollywood, SEGA, NASCAR, and others, Clint DeBoer dealt extensively with client management as well as film video editing, color correction, and digital video MPEG compression. He also carries several THX certifications (Technician I and II, THX Video), and is ISF Level II Certified. After founding the CD Media, Inc. publishing company in 1996, he went on to help start or grow several successful online publications, including Audioholics (as Editor-in-Chief for 12 years), Audiogurus, and AV Gadgets. In 2008, Clint founded Pro Tool Reviews followed by the landscape and outdoor power equipment-focused OPE Reviews in 2017. He also heads up the Pro Tool Innovation Awards, an annual awards program honoring innovative tools and accessories across the trades. Crediting God and his excellent staff for the success of what is now the largest power tool review publication in the industry, Clint DeBoer hopes to see continued growth for the company as it rapidly expands its reach. Pro Tool Reviews critically reviews hundreds of hand tools, power tools, and accessories each year to help inform users about the best and newest products in the industry. Reaching everyone from the construction industry professional and tradesman to the serious DIYer, Pro Tool Reviews helps tool consumers shop better, work smarter, and stay aware of what tools and products can help put them at the top of their game.

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Unbalance Educational Bulletin

Too much unbalance causes damaging vibration when the blade is at its operating speed. The following diagrams and information will provide the basics of understanding unbalance so that you may better service your lawn mower blades

ROTATION CENTER versus MASS CENTER

ROTATION CENTER (center of rotation) is the lawn mower blade’s center of rotary motion. The rotation center is shown in the image below at the center of the cross-hair.

MASS CENTER (center of mass) is the middle point where all the weight of the blade is concentrated. It represents the unique point in a body that describes its response to external forces and torques. Steel is not evenly distributed,machining and sharpening are not 100% consistent, therefore the mass center and rotation center are rarely in the same place. The universal symbol for a “mass center location” is a circle with two filled opposing quarters, as shown below.

If the mass center and the rotation center are in the same place (as shown below) the blade below is statically in-balance.

Unbalance Units of MeasureIf a blade has an unbalance moment of 3 ozin it means that there are three ounces of weight one inch away from the rotation center. For example “ounce inch” is a measure of torque just like “foot pounds” or (lbft), when using a torque wrench. When unbalance is calculated the unit of measure is “ounce inch” (displayed mathematically as ozin). In the metric system it is “gram millimeter” (displayed mathematically as gmm).

What is Horizontal Unbalance?

This blade is a larger view of a horizontal unbalance condition.This is most often caused by inconsistent wear and sharpening.

The above blade shows the mass center symbol to the right of the rotation center. Image “A” shows this blade on the MAG-1000 in the horizontal position with the mass center to the right of the rotation center. This condition will cause the right-side (heavy side) to rotate clockwise and come to rest as shown in image “B.” The mass center could be to the left of the rotation center which would cause it to rotate counter-clockwise.

A = Start position (horizontal) (3 o’clock and 9 o’clock)B = Rest position (vertical) (12 o’clock and 6 o’clock)

What is Vertical Unbalance?

This blade is a larger view of a vertical unbalance condition.This is most often caused when the mounting hole is not stamped in the center of the blade.

The above blade shows the mass center symbol below of the rotation center. Image “C” shows the blade on the MAG-1000 in the vertical position with the mass center to the right of the rotation center. This condition will cause the right-side (heavy side) to rotate clockwise and come to rest as shown in image “D.” The mass center could be to the left of the rotation center which would cause it to rotate counter-clockwise.

C = Start position (vertical) (12 o’clock and 6 o’clock)D = Rest position (horizontal) (3 o’clock and 9 o’clock)