Balancing Lawn Mower Blades: Nail vs. Balancer
August 16, 2021
In this video
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Do new lawn mower blades need to be balanced?
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Testing the effectiveness of using a nail vs. using a blade balancer
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The cost of a blade balancer
When a mower blade is damaged in any way, it goes out of balance. And damaged or imbalanced blades will cause your lawn mowers to vibrate more and run noisily and inefficiently. However, even new, undamaged blades could become unbalanced. How would you check it?
Most of the time, green industry professionals use nails on the wall to check the imbalance of the blade. But how effective is your nail on the wall compared to an actual blade balancer?
In this video, I’ll compare balancing blades using a nail against an actual blade balancer. You’ll see which offers the best test of imbalance.
Once you balance your blades properly, you will find that your commercial or residential mowers run a lot smoother. As a bonus, I’ll also describe the cost of different blade balancers.
Watch this video and share your thoughts in the comments!
Video Transcript
What's going on, guys—Danny Lanier Lawn Care. Today I want to talk to you about how good your nail-on-the-wall method really is compared to using an actual blade balancer. I've got a blade that's pretty unbalanced, and we're going to test it first on a nail in the wall and then on a proper blade balancer to show the difference. Here I have a brand-new blade, and even though it's new, it's completely out of balance. When I hang it on the nail, it appears level—but that’s misleading. Now we’ll take the same blade and put it on a real blade balancer, and as you can see, one side is much heavier. Just like with a car tire, when a blade spins under your mower deck, an imbalance like this causes vibration. The worse the imbalance, the more vibration you get. That’s why I recommend not relying on a nail—get an actual blade balancer instead.
I've seen them for as low as $50 on eBay, and a new Oregon one runs about $100. There's also the Magnematic version, but the Oregon does just fine. When you use a proper balancer and sharpen the blade evenly, you’ll eliminate a lot of the vibration in your mower. So if you're wondering why your mower vibrates even after checking balance on a wall nail, this is likely the reason. A proper balancer—or even a cone-style one—is much more accurate and inexpensive. Sharpen your blade, check which side is heavier, take off a little more material from that side, and get it level. You’ll notice a big difference whether you’re using a commercial or residential mower.
I hope this helps—thanks for watching, guys! Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe, and I’ll see you in the next one.