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Backlapping and Bedknife Adjustment

7289 Views 14 Replies 6 Participants Last post by  Spammage
In some of my previous posts, I had been noticing the yard quality slipping. After scalp and sanding, it was looking great. Lush, dark green...but it seems as though it has gotten a little thinner, lighter green, uneven, and some scalping going on (despite not changing the HOC).

I cut the lawn monday and when I looked at the grass wednesday, the tips were brown and frayed. I decided to backlap the reel and adjust bed knife. The manual isn't really great on adjusting bed knife if it isn't already pretty close (i.e. what if bed knife is 20 clicks off on one side?). So I loosened it about 10-12 clicks on both sides resulting in no contact and a free spinning reel. I then retightened each a click or two until I had slight contact.

Next, I applied ************ compound, removed side cover, and........realized I didn't have the correct tools to backlap with a drill. So I ended up doing it manually the best I could.

After I finished ************ and cleaning the compound off, I did the paper test. It was like a hot knife through butter. Before the paper test was ok - it would cut the paper pretty clean but it took some reel momentum and was hit and miss.

I'm not sure if it was a reel sharpening issue, a bed knife issue, or both. I say this because I loosened the bed knife 10-12 clicks but when I retightened it I only had to click 5-6 times to get light contact...thinking maybe it was too close and ripping the grass?

Either way, I cut today and while it still looks a little off (due to not putting down PGR, behind on frequency, etc.) the actual quality of cut is a lot better.
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Ware said:
On the facing, I've done it both ways, but I assume the thought is if facing created any burs along the edge of the bedknife, backlapping would remove them.
+1 -- I've noticed that if you face after then you will have contact and dull the surfaces quicker than if you backlap after facing.
dfw_pilot said:
I suppose I face my bedknife each time I look at it?
:lol: With my zoysia, I will hit the face lightly every couple cuts and give a more thorough facing along with backlapping about once a month.
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