Antiscalp roller on side of deck

[acm8705]

Has anyone fabbed an anti-scalp roller on the side of their deck? If I do it, will it fix my problem.

I just purchased a 52" Scag hydro w/b with 21hp Kawasaki. Excellent machine w/ plenty of power. However, the fixed deck causes problems on small hills. I used to use a 36" Toro w/ a floating deck. My current problem is that the tip of the lowest blade will dip down low into the grass at the bottom of the hill. (Just imagine the hill looks like this\_ and you are mowing right near the point at which the lines meet.) I think part of this problem could be solved if the wheel base was widened to the same with as the blade. This is how my 36" Toro is, the wheels are just as wide as the blades. On my 52", about 4-6" of blade sticks out past the wheels.

Since I can't easily widen the wheel base, the next easiest thing I can think of is putting rollers on the edges of the mower. That rollers won't always touch, only when on an uneven surface and prevent the tip of the blade from scalping. Since it's a fixed deck, I'm not sure if this will work, hence my question.

Alternate ideas would be greatly excepted as well.

[maintenanceguy]

It works, I've got an old 72" scag wb. the tips of the deck dig in all the time on rough ground. The machine is so heavy that once it gets stuck, it's stuck. I've had to dig out the tip before. I'm a big guy and I can't always man-handle it out. I made a simple bracket (had to modify the dischanrge shoot) and added a wheel that's hangs down 1" below the edge of the deck. the wheels just float unless the deckgets low enough to touch. They work great.

I added one wheel to the front of the deck first. It eliminated 80% of teh problem but once in a while the back of the deck would dig in so I added another wheel.

I think they work great.

[acm8705]

Thats really good news. Thanks for the pics! With a 72" I'm sure you had an even harder time than I am with only a 52" deck. Could you post a pic of the discharge side?

[Grits]

I have thought about doing this on my 48. I was not sure it would work. I noticed that the Quick 36 has anti-scalp wheels on it's fixed deck.