I highly doubt you need aftermarket blades. I'd get a second set though. There's nothing like using sharp blades and I rotate a set about every 2, 2.5 months or as needed. Battled lots of fungus this year, and dull blades were probably contributing early on.

After that, I've had the blades sharpened twice this year.

 

The gator blades are better than original on the recycler, in my opinion.

 

The gator blades are better than original on the recycler, in my opinion.

Did you use them on the regular recycler or super recycler?

 

Not the super.

 

Personal experimentation is cheap. You can probably get a set of the Gator blades for less than $30 and see for yourself. I don't have this mower but do have these blades on both my dual blade 33" and single blade 21" mowers. My goal this year was to not pick up a single grass blade nor leaf and these blades have made this possible. My former-owner abused grass doesn't look great yet (still learning tall fescue doesn't spread like blue grass) but here in my 2d floor home office I can see all the leaves on several neighbor's lawns and none on mine. Last year I had to hire a guy to rake up all the leaves!

You sure you want this mower? It's a competent mulching mower but I don't want to mow 12,000 ft with a 21" walk behind mower. Much more than an hour or two and I no longer "enjoy the mow."

-- Chuck