The whatchamacallit

[kpinnc 12,049]

Left side of the tractor after mowing. The Onan didn't have any accumulation on the flywheel screen. 

Edited July 25, 2021 by kpinnc

[kpinnc 12,049]

Right side. This thing shoots clippings 15 feet or more, in all directions. I may need to make a guard for it...

 

Sorry for all the posts. I keep getting the 8 meg warning on pics.

Edited July 25, 2021 by kpinnc

[kpinnc 12,049]

12 minutes ago, Bill D said:

I love it.  I'll keep looking for a deck to do something like this. 

 

This deck came from an Exmark walk behind. In other words it is a Toro stander. Toro did some silly stuff with thier machines, but they do know how to make a beautiful cutting mower. Pretty sure the 60 inch decks were a Toro creation, and those in my opinion have the best cut of anything WH ever carried.

 

I think about all the walk behind 3 bladed 36/ 44/ 48 decks are very similar. The Scag decks might be an exception.

Edited July 25, 2021 by kpinnc

[Bill D 1,921]

2 minutes ago, kpinnc said:

 

This deck came from an Exmark walk behind. In other words it is a Toro stander. Toro did some silly stuff with thier machines, but they do know how to make a beautiful cutting mower. Pretty sure the 60 inch decks were a Toro creation, and those in my opinion have the best cut of anything WH ever carried.

 

I think about all the walk behind 3 bladed 36/ 44/ 48 decks are very similar. 

My neighbor has a Husqvarna with a 48" fabricated deck.  It has a double pulley on the discharge side that could be swapped to the center.  Something like that may be my best option.

[kpinnc 12,049]

17 minutes ago, Bill D said:

My neighbor has a Husqvarna with a 48" fabricated deck.  It has a double pulley on the discharge side that could be swapped to the center.  Something like that may be my best option.

 

One thing to keep in mind- this deck had like 7 inch pulleys on it, so I put 4 inch pulleys on it to increase the blade tip speed. If I hadn't, the 4.5-ish WH PTO pulley wouldn't have run fast at all. You need to go same size or smaller if you can to get the best performance from a commercial deck. That's probably half of what makes them better to begin with.

[Snoopy11 5,714]

34 minutes ago, kpinnc said:

Right side. This thing shoots clippings 15 feet or more, in all directions. I may need to make a guard for it...

 

Sorry for all the posts. I keep getting the 8 meg warning on pics.

My opinion as follows..:

Don

Edited July 25, 2021 by Snoopy11

[kpinnc 12,049]

Thanks Don. Definitely turned out better than I'd hoped for.

[Snoopy11 5,714]

2 minutes ago, kpinnc said:

Thanks Don. Definitely turned out better than I'd hoped for.

I follow you... in case you didn't notice... so I see everything you do. Just from following you around here... I am learning more about these Horses than I ever knew!!! 

 

Personally, I would like to get a tow-behind mower for my horse...

 

But I can't afford a tow-behind... so... for now with mowing... I will stick with my zero turn...

 

  to John Deere haters...

 

Don

 

[Snoopy11 5,714]

1 minute ago, Snoopy11 said:

I follow you... in case you didn't notice... so I see everything you do. Just from following you around here... I am learning more about these Horses than I ever knew!!! 

 

Personally, I would like to get a tow-behind mower for my horse...

 

But I can't afford a tow-behind... so... for now with mowing... I will stick with my zero turn...

 

  to John Deere haters...

 

Don

 

BTW... I don't always comment... but I am here in the background just the same... learning and soaking everything up!!!

 

Don

[kpinnc 12,049]

3 hours ago, Snoopy11 said:

mower for my horse...

 

But I can't afford a tow-behind... so... for now with mowing... I will stick with my zero turn...

 

 I actually picked up the walk behind for just that- a tow behind mower. I added a hitch and pulled the drive belts off and pulled it all over the place. Gave me about a 96 inch cut when combined with the belly mower!

 

I love my Wheel Horses, but the property I have now is just too much for a tractor by itself. Used to take 10-12 hours on my tractor (or three afternoons), and my zero turn can do it all in about 3 hours. 

 

My WH mowers are for back up at this point. No need to wear them out when I want them around for many more years!

[19richie66 17,508]

Very nice work Kevin. I too lurk in the shadows. 😁

[lynnmor 7,306]

It appears that the cutting edge of the blades are well above the deck bottom, that may be the reason for no clippings on the left side.  Another reason may be the extreme wind caused by the high speed of the blades causes a vacuum high enough to prevent debris from escaping in areas other than the exit port.  You should calculate or measure the blade tip speed, ANSI standards have a maximum of 19,000 fpm for safety reasons, without calculating my guess is that you may be double that.

[kpinnc 12,049]

5 hours ago, lynnmor said:

You should calculate or measure the blade tip speed, ANSI standards have a maximum of 19,000 fpm for safety reasons, without calculating my guess is that you may be double that.

 

I don't think so. Using the smaller pulley groove on the PTO runs them slightly slower than they did on the original mower. Not to mention I don't like to run my Onan much over 3k RPM. At least not under load. Now if I use the larger groove at full throttle? You might be on to something.

[kpinnc 12,049]

On 7/25/2021 at 9:50 AM, lynnmor said:

You should calculate or measure the blade tip speed, ANSI standards have a maximum of 19,000 fpm for safety reasons, without calculating my guess is that you may be double that.

 

Lynmoor is making me read stuff... Yuck!

 

For confirmation- there are formulas on lawn care sites for determining blade speed on mowers, and the 19,000 fpm is a residential mower ANSI spec. Commercial mowers do not fall under this. Many of them exceed 20,000 fpm. The spec is based on the blade's ability to not shatter when it strikes an object and that percentage of possibility falls off sharply below 19,000 fpm.

 

Best that I can tell, my blades are running about 16,000- using the small groove on the PTO.  Still much faster than anything I've used before from Wheel Horse.

 

[Thor27 767]

That cut is impressive, very nice job.

[Horse Newbie 7,069]

9 hours ago, kpinnc said:

Lynmoor is making me read stuff... Yuck!

Hah...I know what you mean... @lynnmor has helped me on some things on here...I have found that he is more than willing to instruct as needed, but he would also tell me to read the manual, perform a test or function, and get back to him...

It's the give a man a fish- teach a man to fish thing...

Edited July 28, 2021 by Horse Newbie

[Bill D 1,921]

Just found a 48" deck off a Bobcat.  I'm going to try this too!  Wish me luck.

[Horse Newbie 7,069]

1 hour ago, Bill D said:

Just found a 48" deck off a Bobcat.  I'm going to try this too!  Wish me luck.

Dare to go where at least one man has gone before !

[Handy Don 12,227]

2 hours ago, Bill D said:

Just found a 48" deck off a Bobcat.  I'm going to try this too!  Wish me luck.

Measure twice, cut once. Good luck!

[kpinnc 12,049]

4 hours ago, Bill D said:

Just found a 48" deck off a Bobcat.  I'm going to try this too!  Wish me luck.

 

I do sir! And I will say from the start- adapt a regular Wheel Horse adjustment bar/ guage wheel setup. My casters work fine, but actually make it a pain when mounting the deck.

 

I look forward to your build!

[Bill D 1,921]

On 8/3/2021 at 11:35 PM, kpinnc said:

 

I do sir! And I will say from the start- adapt a regular Wheel Horse adjustment bar/ guage wheel setup. My casters work fine, but actually make it a pain when mounting the deck.

 

I look forward to your build!

Thanks.  Any more information you can share about where you sourced your pulleys from, and how you built the tensioner for the deck belt?  Much appreciated.

[kpinnc 12,049]

12 minutes ago, Bill D said:

Thanks.  Any more information you can share about where you sourced your pulleys from, and how you built the tensioner for the deck belt?  Much appreciated.

 

My two outside pulleys were from TSC. The center came from Fleabay. All three were 1 inch bore and 4 inch diameter. 

Tensioner was from an old WH deck. I marked and drilled the holes for it using an old regular 42SD belt mocked up. The only reason I had to change the belt after was because I figured the spring tension backwards... 

Your commercial deck may have a tensioner in place that you can keep. Mine was in the wrong place and I couldn't make it work without adding another pulley. 

Edited August 5, 2021 by kpinnc

[WHX?? 48,815]

On 8/3/2021 at 8:25 PM, Handy Don said:

Measure twice, cut once.

But I cut it off twice and it's still too short 

[Handy Don 12,227]

7 minutes ago, WHX?? said:

But I cut it off twice and it's still too short 

SOOOO tempting to reply inappropriately to that one . Will take the opportunity to retire to laughing-stifled silence!

 

[kpinnc 12,049]

So now that the deck is all worked out, back to what will carry it.

 

Changed the front axle to a 520 flavor. Found some skinny wheels to go with it.

 

Got the "round the world" hood from James this past weekend. I call it that because Richie gave it to me, but he lives about 4 hours away. He gave it to James at the big show to bring it closer, which was about 90 minutes or so away. So the hood traveled from NC to PA and back to NC before I got it. The "network" here is awesome!

 

Now it's time to start working the sheetmetal and tower. Yes- I know the front wheels are on backwards. The seals were already installed, so I will fix them before painting.

Edited August 5, 2021 by kpinnc