1.) If you have a tool rest on the grinder, set it so that it is at the angle of the existing ground face of your blade. (It is impossible to correctly sharpen a blade without the rest, so make one up or buy one if it's not there.) 2.) Use a wire wheel to remove all grass clippings from blade. 3.) If severely nicked up, hold the blade's ground edge perpendicular to the grinding wheel and grind off the edge until you get a smooth blunt edge. Do this to both cutting edges. 4.) Standing to the side of your grinder, slide the blade from the inside of the wheel toward you (toward the outside of the wheel) as it rests on the tool rest, grinding along the existing ground face. Use a light, fairly quick stroke each time, so the blade does not dig into the wheel. You do not want any bluing of the metal, because it will lose its temper. Repeat this motion until the blade has been ground to a new edge. You can test for a perfect edge by holding the backside of edge (the part that would face the ground) up against the wheel with the edge up. As the wheel skims along the backside of the cutting edge, if sparks jump easily over the new cutting edge, it is sharp as can be. Do both edges this way. They will be very sharp, so be careful. 5.) Using a balancing tool or setting the blade on a round axle or chisel at the mounting hole, see if the blade tilts one way or the other. On the back of the heavy end of the blade (the part that would face the ground), grind off a small area of metal as far out toward the edge as you can. Balance again. Keep grinding a small bit off the flat of the back of the blade until it balances. 6.) Yer done! Clean under mower or deck with scraper, and mount it up. This is all lot easier to do than to explain. Once you get the hang of it, it all becomes automatic. I've ground hundreds of blades in a repair shop this way. They cut great!
|