Leaf mulching

[Moparfanforever 844]

Looks like your deck is a 42" deck and mine is a 48" deck. 

 

I haven't used any other blades other than the WH blades and can say they do a good job of chopping up leaves. I really never worried about it since I till the leaves into my garden. 

 

Obviously, you can't run your bagger when the leaves/grass is wet, it will clog the chute. And, if you are doing a lot of leaves, the bag's fill up fast. 

 

You can make a pretty big pile of mulch using the bagger, I use that in my garden to put around my garden plant's to help control the weeds and hold in the moisture. 

 

If I ever find another powerflo bagger for sale ,I will be buying it, that is how much I like mine. 

 

I hope it works out for you if you decide to use it. 

[Evguy 556]

7 hours ago, Snoopy11 said:

It should work... but your leaves will be in bigger pieces using this method.

 

Even if you can't find blades like I posted, as long as your blades are good and sharp, you should be good to go...

 

Don

I’ve had good luck with regular blades. Both electric horse and John Deere, keep chopping till nothing left. 
Pulled some serious amps on the electric 🤣

with large piles.

[WHGuy413 2,683]

On my wheel horse with leaf vac set up I use just my normal mower blades. They work great to mulch up the leaves and cut the grass. But the blade style that @Snoopy11 shared with you at the beginning of this post are what we run on all our commercial mowers at work. They work amazing and the leaves that you are chopping up will be fine little pieces.

[Horse Newbie 7,057]

5 hours ago, Snoopy11 said:

Horse Newbie has a cub or two tucked in his barn as well

Yes sir I do… I keep all of my livestock under cover…

[Sutty 96]

12 hours ago, Moparfanforever said:

I have the same bagger that you have. It has regular Wheel Horse blades on it. I bag the leaves and put them on my garden and till them into the garden in the fall. 

 

Nice to see the same equipment in action. Thanks for the pictures. I think I'll just try the normal blades, for now, and see what degree of mulch I get. As I mentioned, my current mower gives little to none, but there seems to be a consensus building that normal blades with this deck do a pretty good job.

[Sutty 96]

11 hours ago, Moparfanforever said:

Looks like your deck is a 42" deck and mine is a 48" deck. 

 

I haven't used any other blades other than the WH blades and can say they do a good job of chopping up leaves. I really never worried about it since I till the leaves into my garden. 

 

Obviously, you can't run your bagger when the leaves/grass is wet, it will clog the chute. And, if you are doing a lot of leaves, the bag's fill up fast. 

 

You can make a pretty big pile of mulch using the bagger, I use that in my garden to put around my garden plant's to help control the weeds and hold in the moisture. 

 

If I ever find another powerflo bagger for sale ,I will be buying it, that is how much I like mine. 

 

I hope it works out for you if you decide to use it. 

 

Yes, it is the 42", according to the manual I found in here, and my vague memory. I'd still like mulching blades, but I'll give it a go as is. Thanks for the reply.

[Sutty 96]

10 hours ago, WHGuy413 said:

On my wheel horse with leaf vac set up I use just my normal mower blades. They work great to mulch up the leaves and cut the grass. But the blade style that @Snoopy11 shared with you at the beginning of this post are what we run on all our commercial mowers at work. They work amazing and the leaves that you are chopping up will be fine little pieces.

 

That's interesting to read that they actually do a great job. I have tried and tried to find a UK source of a mulch equivalent, for the 106636 set, and so far no luck. I've emailed a couple of suppliers, so I'll see what they come back with. The size, by all accounts is 13-7/8". I'll confirm that on the bench this afternoon, when I get it up for a little TLC.

[Sutty 96]

Best laid plans, and all that. I have an old car that I intend to do up. It is a runner, but it hasn't been run for too long now, and it wouldn't turn over. That car is in the garage, right next to the deck, and until I can move the car, the deck will remain trapped. The car has been on charge for a couple of hours now, and even with the charger on 'fast charge with start' it won't turnover enough to start. It is turning over though now, so we're getting there. I only have it on normal charge, in between attempts, so as to not hurt the battery, any more than I already have, by having let it drain too far. I had intended to keep going in and running it, regularly, but you know how it is. 

 

Don't really want to drag the car out, as it would be much harder to get back in, with it being up hill on the way in. I did manage to remove my dozer blade attachment, and put my lawn wheels back on the horse though, so not entirely wasted afternoon. I was intending to get the deck on the workbench though. I did try to lift it out, but damn, that thing is heavy, so I decided on patience. If the car doesn't start, I will tow it out with the horse, with the car hand brake on a little, so it will stop when I stop, when I get on the downhill stretch, outside the garage.

[Sutty 96]

Car started like a champ, after another hour or so on charge. Not a hesitation. Deck not on the bench, who was I kidding. Not a prayer I can get it up there on my own, and no point asking Mrs S to help, lol.

 

It is leaning against it though, and I have the blades off, so I can manage with it there.

 

 

Blades are all 13-7/8" long, with 3/4" centre holes.

 

 

 

Shown below is a typical blade edge. Won't need much doing to them other than the removal of a little grasscrete. It seems amazingly sharp to me.

 

 

That's looking right down on it, and you can see how good it is. It actually feels sharp to my fingers.

 

As I said, they all measure 13-7/8" in length, with a 3/4" hole, and I have found a replacement mulching blade in stock in the US at least. No luck in the UK yet, but I'm still trying. This is the US one I found, just to check you all agree it's the right thing. I've sent them a message to see if they will ship to the UK, and how much that will cost, in case I get no good responses from the UK suppliers. If they can't, or it's a ludicrous cost, it might be snoopy to the rescue.

 

https://www.agrisupply.com/toro-wheelhorse-mower-blade/p/58033/

 

If anyone has a better suggestion, US origin or otherwise, I'd be happy to hear about it.

 

Thanks again.

 

Andrew  

[Moparfanforever 844]

Yep,them decks are a little heavy!!

 

Why don't you try your old blades first before spending your money on the new blades, the old blades may work for you. 

[Sutty 96]

I've hurt my wrist, just moving it to there. Not sure if it will be one of those that will be gone tomorrow, or one of those that will be miles worse the following day. Time will tell. Already seems to be easing, so hopefully the former.

 

I will give them a try, for sure, based on the several comments that these decks, with original blades, already do a good job, but there's also the comment from WHGuy413 that in a commercial environment, that type of blade does an amazing job, and that's what I'm looking for.

 

As I said, my cub cadet, deck and blades, barely reduces them at all, so it will be interesting to see, if and why there might be a difference. It could be that the fan impeller on the horse deck breaks them down a lot too and the Cub cadet has no such fan. The blades themselves are like fan blades, and the three of them together produce a very powerful lift action. Sucks them in from beyond the width of the deck, so they must be effective at lifting. Maybe too good, and the leaves just pass through the blades too quickly, who knows?

 

I will probably get through this year without them, as it's really getting on now, but what I'm really hoping to achieve is not having to run over my lawn exit area so many times. If  specific mulching blades reduce the volume by a factor of two, or more, that would be a very significant benefit. Blade cost is not too bad, and I could wear that, just to experiment. Shipping, on the other hand, is too high, in my opinion. One firm already got back to me, and it's just shy of $100, just for the transport, USPS. Might be next year when I get them anyway, lol.

[Sutty 96]

On 11/7/2022 at 5:23 PM, Snoopy11 said:

SNIP

I have found that... if you mulch the leaves VERY fine before attempting to capture them, they will take up much less room.

SNIP

 

Well, this turned out to be the key, but I was a little at a loss as to how to achieve that. Thanks though Don, because those words were still in my head as I rode around.

 

I fitted the wheel horse with the deck and bags, and tried it out. Of course, it worked like a champ, even after not having been run with that set-up for 15 years. I had more difficulty than I would have liked, fitting the deck, but that was just fuzzy memory and I got there in the end. Scooped up 2 lots of double bags of leaves, in that config, running round in a low gear, with high revs, so as to be slow over the ground but have high blade speed. I then did a run round with the cub, taking a similar approach. Very little mulching with either, and I would suggest a similar weight per volume of leaves from them both, with the Wheel horse just having the edge.

 

When I went round with the cub, I overfilled it, and it blocked, but I noticed that in that blocked state it was hacking the leaves into tiny pieces, and shoving them out of the side into lines and I remembered what Don had said. So, instead of emptying it and unblocking it, I left it like that, and ran round the whole lawn I was dealing with, making nice little strips of mulch. I then went to empty it, and unblock it, bit of a pain to do so, but worth it, because, when I returned, I was able to vacuum up all of the strips of mulched leaves, from the front lawn, with a single bag full. Weight per unit volume was way up, using this method. I've taken photographs, of the difference, but not sure how well they will come out. I'll have a look in a minute, and shove them in at the end of this post, whether it's obvious or not. 

 

All I need to be able to do is block the chute with some sort of baffle, which will prevent it actually picking up and then remove it to pick up the lines of mulch. I'll have to get my thinking cap on as to how to achieve that, but it will be preferable to having to unblock it.

 

Obviously, mulched and collected in one go would be a big bonus, and if those blades really do that, then it has to be worth getting them, but in their absence, I can manage with a baffle, or even with overfilling it and then unblocking it, until I have the baffle sorted.

 

Wheel horse

 

Cub

 

Cub Mulched

 

A nicely shaped piece of polystyrene jammed into the exit chute might be one quick and dirty method, to stop it picking up. Can't hurt, the worst that could happen is it would burst out and be pushed into the basket. Blocking it at the basket end should be adequate, because if there's no airflow, then it can't pick up to block the chute prior to that, or I wouldn't think so. I'll let you know tomorrow. 

 

Thanks all.

 

Cheers

 

Andrew

[953 nut 55,120]

I use a 42" rear discharge deck and a leaf sweeper. This is one of the areas where the composting of ground up leaves begins. They will be turned over a few times this winter and in the spring all three partly composted sites will be combined and piled up to finish. Nothing fancy but it works fine.

 

Edited November 11, 2022 by 953 nut

[Sutty 96]

I have an area similar to that, below. It is in the field, behind the trees from the lawn.

 

 

Was spread out a little far, encroaching on the field grass, which is cropped for hay, annually, so took the deck off and refitted my plough blade today, and pushed it back a bit. It would have been more effective with the tractor wheels fitted, but I was lazy, and left the lawn wheels on, causing me to keep slipping, as it built up in front of me. Quick job for tomorrow I suppose.

Haven't made a baffle for the cub cadet rear discharge chute yet. Can't find anything appropriate, but I'll keep thinking. Lawns are pretty clear right now, but very surprisingly, for mid November, there is still an awful lot of leaves in the trees, still to come down.  

 

Edited November 12, 2022 by Sutty