The Craftmans Shop > New from Old
Rebirth of a 6 Foot Flail Mower
jcs0001:
Andrew
Beautiful job. You sure are one persistent gentleman, working through all those interruptions to finish a big project. It would have driven me (even more) mad . :D
John.
awemawson:
... not so sure about persistent - more anal :lol:
Well when I re-fitted the labels i'd removed before grit blasting, I realised that one was missing - probably fell off years ago, but it left four irritating holes that annoyed me !
... so google research - what was it. Well some of these flails had a label there that was the original selling distributor, and others just bore the name of the flail 'Turner Turbomower 72HD in rather florid handwriting. Having now repaired the chiller on my laser engraver hopefully I could make something similar.
The eventual label was on 1 mm stainless sheet using the 'Dry Molybdenum Di-sulphide' process that I detailed in my 'Laser Marking Steel' thread. However it wasn't without it's problems. First try was on aluminium (like the originals) but it just rubbed off. Then I tried galvanised steel with the same result. I was beginning to doubt the process, and even dug out the original form tool I'd previously marked, and marked another face of it successfully. Hence moving to stainless steel.
Another issue I had was the scanning speed of the laser. It should go at a controlled speed while the laser fires, and faster when not firing. However with the program speed set to 3 mm / Sec it was actually doing 15 mm / sec firing and 3 mm /sec when not, the result being that that label took 6 1/2 hours to produce :bugeye:
Another issue was that the 1 mm stainless ended up dished from heat of the laser but I reasoned that as the corners were raised, they would pull down flat when riveted, and this proved to be the case.
... more investigation needed but at least those holes are now filled :ddb:
AdeV:
Looks like it needs a wash & wax already! :lol:
Seriously nice work again, though. Are you sure you don't want to play with a lathe again?
awemawson:
Kind offer Ade, bu I'd hate to deprive you of all that fun :lol:
awemawson:
Resurrecting an old thread, but this is the logical place to put this information:
Flail has been working exceedingly well, but one job that I never did do when I rebuilt this mower was to sharpen the swinging flail arms. There are 52 of the little blighters, and they should present a flat cutting edge to the grass. Age has taken it's toll and they were all somewhat rounded off. Of course getting at them is not easy as they are enclosed apart from where the grass touches - it needs either turning on it's back or standing on it's end.
So with some extremely dodgy rigging I got the flail stood on end allowing access to the 'underneath' - I kept the fork lift attached - 'just in case' as this animal is heavy.
Nothing too complicated, no primary and secondary angles - just hold the swinging flail steady with a welding clamp, tickle it with an angle grinder and move on to the next. Somewhat monotonous but an hour and a half saw them done and the flail back on terra firma.
Did it make a difference? To be honest it's hard to tell - I suppose it must have but the trial cut of the paddock that I've just done didn't seem a lot different to me :scratch:
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