Mulching Question

[jaclawn]

Here is my problem. I recently put one of my backup walk behinds into service as a dedicated mulcher. I know that it is not an ideal front line setup, but I have several properties that I cannot use a discharge on, and I hope to eliminate bagging them with the use of the mulcher. <p>The problem that I am having is that the quality of cut really suffers with the mulching baffles mounted under the deck. The mower in question is a Toro 36&quot; fixed deck walk behind. I can cut with the identical mower side by side, one as a mulcher, one as a discharge, and the discharge mower will give a much better cut, hands down. <p>I started out with the factory Toro mulching blades. What a joke they were. They would leave about 25% of the blades of gras uncut. This was not acceptable. <p>I then moved up to Gator blades. The cut was better, but still left some to be desired. The clipping management was good, not a whole lot of clumping, however, the sharpness of the cut was not there. There are many baldes of grass that remain uncut, most noticable in the middle of the pass, but they are all over the width of cut as well.<p>I just yesterday, tried a set of high lifts on that mower, and the cut is better, but still as good as the same mower with a side discharge.<p>So, my question to all you guys that mulch on a regular basis, what blade setup are you guys running? Do you tuck the blades up high under the deck, or leave them down, and raise the height of cut with caster washers? <p>BTW- I am cutting 7 day old cool season grasses, when dry.

 

[Guido]

your doing the right thing by adjusting the blades instead of the casters. I know some people adjust the casters, but if you do that and not adjust your rear wheel assem. then you'll have an un-even cut. Maybe lower the blade and then raise your casters and rear wheel assem. I'm not sure if they are the same, but I can pic. an exmark 48&quot; I had and thats how you adjusted it.<p>----------<br>&lt;a href=&quot;http://communities.msn.com/guidosequipmentpics/&quot;&gt;&quot;Guido&quot;&lt;/a&gt;<br>David M. Famiglietti

 

[Toddppm]

I have a 36&quot;Metro+48&quot; Viking both with the factory mulching setup and blades, works fine for us. In tall grass it sucks though, if i pick up a new customer who hasn't cut their grass for a while we charge extra for the first cut. Otherwise we cut just about everyone every week if needed. I tried gator blades on the 48&quot; couple weeks ago, waste of money in my opinion, i took them off after one week and put the regular blades back on.

 

[bob]

Try using 2 blades per spindle. Do a search on this site and you&quot;ll find a lot of info on the subject.