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Thread: Does anyone make a good 21” lawnmower blade anymore?

  1. #1
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    Does anyone make a good 21” lawnmower blade anymore?

    When I was a kid many moons ago, I used to mow a lot of the neighborhood lawns with my trusty Toro lawnmower. As I remember, the catch bag was larger, and the Toro would easily fill it full. Today I have a Troy-Built that barely will fill a smaller bag half full before I need to empty it. I’m assuming the old Toro had a better blade design than today’s blades.
    Are today’s blades all the same?
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  2. #2
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    My folks had a Toro in the mid-1960s...as I (dimly) recall, it supposedly had a different deck design to create some kind of vortex effect, probably a special blade to go with it. But yeah, it truly sucked up the clippings.

    Or I could be hallucinating.
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  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bruce Page View Post
    When I was a kid many moons ago, I used to mow a lot of the neighborhood lawns with my trusty Toro lawnmower. As I remember, the catch bag was larger, and the Toro would easily fill it full. Today I have a Troy-Built that barely will fill a smaller bag half full before I need to empty it. I’m assuming the old Toro had a better blade design than today’s blades.
    Are today’s blades all the same?
    Look into Gator brand blades. They are game changers in my opinion. They are made by Oregon. They show a 21" for a Troy Built but I don't know if it's the correct blade or not.

  4. #4
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    I think the last several mowers I've had - Honda (2), Toro (2), John Deere, Craftsman - were designed primarily to be mulchers, with bagging as an option. The deck design more than the blade. The Hondas having two blades, in fact, to chop things up finer.
    < insert spurious quote here >

  5. #5
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    Blades matter, but it's the mower design more so than simply the blades that determine how good it gets up everything. My Wife is a dog breeder of Havanese. They have long hair, and will drag anything in the house on their fur. We have two grass dog yards, so I've gone through multiple mowers until we finally found the ultimate.

    For years we used a not high priced bagging mower, followed by a 13hp Billygoat blower to clean the yards.

    When the last mower played out, we decided to spend more money on one. The Snapper Hi Vac mower is as much vacuum cleaner as it is a mower. It cleans the ground in one pass cutting the grass better that I ever did following with the Billygoat. It really is like it's been gone over with a vacuum cleaner.

    The blade is belt driven, geared up to spin much faster than the motor. That helps, but the deck is designed in a spiral up shape to the chute that directs everything into the bag.

    It comes both manual start, and electric start. My Wife wanted the electric start, so that's what we bought. I thought electric start was a little silly at first, but now believe it was worth the extra cost. If you're getting up leaves with it, the bag fills quickly, and you have to cut the mower off to empty the bag, or it will cover you with whatever it's picking up. That means starting, and stopping the mower multiple times, so the electric start saves a lot of effort and sweat.

    The price is a bit ridiculous for the amount of mower, but after the first use, we both decided it was well worth it. All other baggers are wannabes.

    https://www.snapper.com/na/en_us/pro...awn-mower.html

  6. #6
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    Gator for sure...
    --

    The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lee DeRaud View Post
    My folks had a Toro in the mid-1960s...as I (dimly) recall, it supposedly had a different deck design to create some kind of vortex effect, probably a special blade to go with it. But yeah, it truly sucked up the clippings.

    Or I could be hallucinating.
    The old Toro's with the whirlwind deck were fantastic with a bag

  8. #8
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    I've been experimenting with blades on my big lawnmower for a couple of seasons now. The blades I like best are the Cub Cadet Extreme 2-N-1. This blade in the link is not exactly like the ones I like because mine are 1/4" thick and 25" long. They have the mulching teeth, but also a turned up lift wing on the end. They chop as good as a mulching blade, but also pull the grass up for an even cut, and throw it more than flatter mulching blades.

    They turn leaves into finely shredded pieces, and everything gets thrown to the side. I didn't even start the Billy Goat blower last year. I blew the leaves away from the house with a handheld, and then shredded, and threw everything out of the yard.

    I'm not sure how they would work with a push mower, but I expect pretty good.

    https://www.cubcadet.com/en_US/blade...2-04308-X.html

    I tried Gator blades on the last bagging mower we had, but they didn't have much lift to them, and left a lot on the ground. They do a fine job of mulching, but you need lift for bagging.

  9. #9
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    The deck might not be the best design but there is no blade that will maximize it's abilities more than these. Plus they hold an edge better than anything I have ever used before.

    https://www.oregonproducts.com/en/pr...ulchingblade-p

  10. #10
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    Those look pretty good. I might be remembering what I thought were Gator blades incorrectly with our last push mower. The ones I didn't like were green. The ones I did like were black, so they may have been the Oregon Gator blades. I just remembered them as Oregon blades.

    My Cub Cadet sold me some extra blades when I bought the mower and said they were Gator blades, but I don't think Oregon makes them that big, and those blades didn't have good life. The Cub Cadet Extreme ones lasted twice as long, and needed sharpening less often.

    In any case the turned up wing on the end is very important for bagging.

  11. #11
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    I was wrong about Oregon not making that size. I did a Google search for 25" mower blades, and they did come up. I did not like these blades as much as the Cub Cadet branded ones. The wing on the end of the CC blade is longer, and they only have one mulching tooth. I believe these were the blades my dealer sold me as extra blades.

    https://www.oregonproducts.com/en/ga...5%22/p/396-743

  12. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tom M King View Post
    Those look pretty good. I might be remembering what I thought were Gator blades incorrectly with our last push mower. The ones I didn't like were green. The ones I did like were black, so they may have been the Oregon Gator blades. I just remembered them as Oregon blades.

    In any case the turned up wing on the end is very important for bagging.
    My son got some bright green ones from somewhere and they don't work as well on his John Deere.

  13. #13
    The Snapper High Vacs from the mid eighties (the ones with the vertical pull rope B&S engines) out bagged any other mower I ever used. Still do to this day. However I no longer bag any clippings. The mowers I now use are dumpster rescues. Clean the water out of the carburetor, use them a season, and sell them off the next spring.

  14. #14
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    Thanks all, there’s a lot of good info here. I’ve learned that there are 3 general blade types: regular/standard, mulching, and high lift. I have the regular/standard and know that it doesn’t do well with my mower. I’ve also learned that the mulching blades perform great in wetter, more humid climates but are not as effective for use in the desert southwest (Albuquerque).
    That leaves the high lift blade. The hunt is on.

    Tom, that Snapper looks like the perfect solution but overkill for my small patch of grass.
    Please help support the Creek.


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  15. #15
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    My Honda has worked well for me for about 13 years now. It's of the double-blade type.
    Ken

    So much to learn, so little time.....

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