[Hurryupelectric]

@Turf Tracer, I believe said that 21" is about as ideal for mowing blades as possible. That's why I started the thread with the Wright examples.

 

[Turf Tracer]

I’ve got eXmarks and Wrights in 32 48 and 36. Same deck style on the eXmarks and Wrights same engines same type of blades. Every single 18” blade unit cuts better that the 16” version. That’s enough evidence for me.

 

[Rick1111]

If you just theoretically had a 14" blades in a 3 blade setup vs let's just say 2 18" blades to get a 36" cut (yes I know the blades would be hitting each other but stick with the math). If the rpm of each shaft was the same regardless of which set up... Let's just assume 5k rpm just to give a base line. The tip speed of the 18" blades would be 267 MPH. Run the same calculation on a 14" blade and you get a tip speed of 208 MPH. About a 30% difference which is quite substantial.

 

[Turf Tracer]

The BOP 36” had a 3 x 12” blade set up and ran at crazy high rpm. Cut was good in ideal conditions only.

 

[grass man 11]

I tried to do the quick math in my head. I wasn't sure if it was 25% or 33% between the 36 and 48. Point well made about the different blade sizes, I was aware of this.
Generally speaking a 48" deck is the next size up from a 36" (duh, but just sayin) so I wonder again generally speaking, how much faster is it in practice. Like how sjessen mentioned the clumping that might be a time waster on residential properties where they must be dispersed. Cool topic, I'm glad it's getting hits.

Yes it actually is faster. No I have never seen any evidence to support that a 2 blade 36" clumps less than a 48" , in a substantial way that requires double cutting by the 3 blade unit so often that you would overcome the 25% deck size difference. I'm not saying there would not be a rare situation that the 36 makes a single pass but the 48 makes a double, But rather suggesting that the few times it might happen would not be enough to overcome the general deck size difference, and if it was that means your doing a lot of double cutting and something is wrong with set up in general.

 

[Turf Tracer]

significant difference in Spring here. I won’t even use my 16” blade units in April. Once the growth slows in June it don’t matter so much.

 

[grass man 11]

significant difference in Spring here. I won't even use my 16" blade units in April. Once the growth slows in June it don't matter so much.

But is that because of the blade or because of the blade tip speed being reduced. Is the HP ratio the same?