Shopping Sprees are Dangerous

[elitelawnteam1]

Just got back from mowerworks, picked up a 36" belt drive, another 52" prostance w/ no flat front tires (the last one the dealer had). The other prostance we bought last year went in for some no flat front tires (they have a problem staying on the bead) 2 Stihl BR 550s and a FS90R.

Got 3 pairs of stihl sunglasses free

Set us back about $10,500.



Now all thats left to do is disable the operator presence safety switches.

[Armsden&Son]

Nice, what type of mowers are those? I can't tell from the pic

[mow king]

Originally Posted by Armsden&Son

Nice, what type of mowers are those? I can't tell from the pic

Look like Gravelys to me.

[elitelawnteam1]

Originally Posted by Armsden&Son

Nice, what type of mowers are those? I can't tell from the pic

They're Gravelys. The old style prostance is boss! we were so lucky to buy the very last one the dealership had. My dealer has literally sent out a scout to go find more of these brand new, they're trying to buy as many as they can, because these sell VERY fast. Unfortunately Gravely went to a toro grandstand style of stand on that's not as compact as the older style prostance.

[dstifel]

All that for 10k sounds like a steal to me. Congrats!

[elitelawnteam1]

It was an AWESOME STEAL! lol, we love our dealer, they've been good to us. Now we just have one old, lonely Ferris in the fleet that will probably get replaced eventually but for now I told my boss he should keep it because it hasn't had a single problem, and it's a hydro, and I don't want to downgrade to a new belt drive I hate belt drives with a passion! I'll get some shop pics when I get the chance.

[TriCityLawnCareLLC]

All looks good. Disabling the safety switch doesn't sound like a good idea to me-especially if you have employees, but to each his own i suppose...

[elitelawnteam1]

Originally Posted by TriCityLawnCareLLC

All looks good. Disabling the safety switch doesn't sound like a good idea to me-especially if you have employees, but to each his own i suppose...

I agree, but to a point. Every time I have to move lawn furnature, dog toys, etc. You wear out the pto, But when we have to bag properties (we have a lot that do) we have to switch off the pto. Dumping a bag with the blades on is very dangerous, but just moving things in front of the mower, or just stepping off for a second, isn't really a big deal.

CP is a very safe company, but in this case it's a tradeoff between productivity and safety. I personally am glad they get disabled because otherwise I forget to set the brake and turn off the pto when I step off, then the whole damn mower shuts off. It gets annoying after a while.

[TriCityLawnCareLLC]

Originally Posted by elitelawnteam1

I agree, but to a point. Every time I have to move lawn furnature, dog toys, etc. You wear out the pto, But when we have to bag properties (we have a lot that do) we have to switch off the pto. Dumping a bag with the blades on is very dangerous, but just moving things in front of the mower, or just stepping off for a second, isn't really a big deal.

CP is a very safe company, but in this case it's a tradeoff between productivity and safety. I personally am glad they get disabled because otherwise I forget to set the brake and turn off the pto when I step off, then the whole damn mower shuts off. It gets annoying after a while.

I do understand your reasoning-it does become a drag to move things. I know for us, the bigger obstacles we will go through before we mow and move them.
dog toys and what not, we can usually reach down or use the extended grabbers to move.

The bagging while the blades are on is the exact reason I won't let me employees run a mower with no safety-it's not the only reason but it's the reason that turned the light bulb on for me as to why the safety features are so important.This past fall we were on the last property of the day and i was using a lesco hydro walk-behind that lost the safety features when the motor was swapped out. We rarely rarely use this mower but for whatever reason (that i can't remember) we were using it along with a rider to bag the grass on this property. I noticed the grass was getting clogged in the accelerator and so i (without thinking to disengage the blades-idk how this happened, but it did) i took the catcher of and put my hand near the discharge shoot to get the clogged grass out. By the time i realized what had happened it was too late. My hand went into the blade. NOW it was by divine intervention and divine intervention only that i didn't lose any fingers. I was wearing gloves and somehow that protected my hand. It was swollen, black and blue and nasty looking for a while- I was lucky, not everyone get that chance.

Anyhow, I've had the Lesco on CL for sale all winter, if a machine doesn't have safety features, I don't want it. The ways you could get hurt (by not having safety features) are unique and limitless, you never what or how it can happen. We all have those day (as did I) where we simply make a mistake.

It sounds like you've done this for a while now, but please be careful. Once you or an employee gets hurt you'll always play the "if only i hadn't..." game. Best of luck to yah man!

[ed2hess]

So you are going to drive out to the field and start mowing without doing a complete inspection of the equipment. The lowest level guy at the dealer puts these things together....and some are shipped without oil. At a minimum grease the unit. And don't you break in your new motors, or do you just go flat out mowing. Need to break in without load at low and high rpm for several hours. But I guess that is just old thinking.