How to Sharpen Garden Tools : Sharpening Reels for a Push Mower

How to sharpen reels on a push mower; get professional tips and advice from an expert carpenter on sharpening gardening tools in this free instructional video.

Expert: Fred Carson
Bio: Fred Carson has been professionally sharpening tools for more than twenty five years. He runs Carson's Saw Shop in Eugene, Oregon.
Filmmaker: max koetter

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• sharpening
• gardening
• tools
• hoes
• digging
• landscaping
• yard
• work
• lawn
• mowers

[MrAtraHasis]

I used to work in horticulture on a golf course. We sharpened the reel mowers, and the larger blades attached to the back of the tractor in a far less professional way than this guy did. As far as I can see, he's doing a damn good job. Most of it is down to practice, i.e. less time being a smartass on the internet, and more time actually getting some work done

[krienkeb]

Really, the guy shows a how to video, and you call him a moron. Lay off the guy. The video helped out a lot.

[zachdadd]

He would be better off to just spin reel backward and use a lapping compound. If the moron had a finger or guide mounted to lave so he could put angle on the reel one at a time then he could lap the reel in. Another problem is that the reel naturally wears to a cone shape, all he did was make sure the grinder hit

equally on both sides, he basically ground the cone back in to the reel. He should of took meaurements from center of the reel shaft to true up reel and sharpen.

[zachdadd]

Watch his video, he moves the lave at different speeds back and fort, also how does he adjust for stone wear! There is no way to get every blade same length, don't matter if sharp or not, an d he's probably using business card or deck cards to cut with.

[zachdadd]

Ok Einstien do a search for jack metcalf reel service, and see how a reel is susposed to be sharpened. You are the moron, I attend foley united reel sharpening school/seminar every year, you have it completely backwards the first reel mowers invented did not have knifes on them, and the reel did the cuting. The bedknife is usedto force grass in to the reel, and create the scissor effect. The reel needs to free of cone shape and all blades need to equal lenght. Google the jack metcalf reel ser

[handsofmynuttybites]

hes using a lave. that works just fine.

the lave will automatically put the correct edge all the way along,

thats why the cylinder spins whilst being sharpened.

[handsofmynuttybites]

you moron

he is doing it right, the lave does the grinding, you do not make the cylinder sharp, the cutting edge is the bottom plate,

all the cylinder does is push the grass onto the bottom cutting edge.

you adjust the screws after to make the fine alignment, should be able to slice paper,

the lave will automatically make a perfect edge on the cylinder.

it cannot be sharpened by hand.

know what your talking about before you say anything

[zachdadd]

This gut is a complete idiot, how is he going to make sure every blade is the same lenght. A reel mower has gap less that .002 thousand between it and the bedknife and sometime you can run contact. There is no way possible that every blade is going to cut evenly all the way accross, not to mention there is no longer any reief angle put on.

[sylviasvideosfyi]

Eugene Oregon! Nice country! I thought your demo was very good. Thanks for sharing.

[jgodiska]

You cannot sharpen a reel mower by hand. The tolerances between the cutter and the bar are so close. They must be close to exact. If you try it by hand, you will get an uneven grind no matter how steady your hand is.