here we are Steve's Small Engine Saloon again guys thanks for tuning in I've had
a lot of requests a lot of emails comments on my channel asking for this video can you
show us how to sharpen a lawnmower blade why yes I can I'm gonna do one step better
than that even I'm gonna show you how to sharpen a lawnmower blade and then I'm
gonna show you how to balance it properly too which is very important also the first
thing you got to do to do this job you got to go get yourself some Heineken
unfortunately that's the only beer you can use for doing this job next thing you need to do get
your blade off if you don't know how to get your blade off or even if you think you do go back to
my channel I have a video on my channel called how to install your lawnmower blade properly
that gives you a couple good tips and tricks on how to get your lawn mower blade off and then
also how to put it back on properly so it's not upside-down go look at that get your lawn mower
blade off next thing you need to do is you need to have something to sharpen it with if you got a
big file like a hand file an axe file or something like that don't even bother you need a power tool
of some kind to do this otherwise you're gonna be there all day today I'm going to show you how to
do this with an angle grinder the other thing that you can use for doing this video is a
bench grinder believe it or not I don't have a bench grinder in the saloon but hopefully just
so you know what I'm talking about April do you have that picture of that bench grinder
there boom there you go that's a bench grinder it doesn't really matter how you sharpen the blade in
in respect to how you're actually taking the metal off of there how you're actually sharpening it the
real point is the end result for how that blade ends up next thing you have to do is decide right
now if your blade is actually worth sharpening or not you have a blade that looks like that right
there you see that don't even bother sharpening that thing you put that on your lawnmower you
just converted your lawnmower into a rototiller you got to look down that blade look down it like
it's a gun barrel gun barrel that thing there's my new word of the day right there gun barrel
it look down that thing like that flip it over look down that side again both sides like that
until they look the same to you if it looks the same to you when you gun barrel that thing down
there it's probably straight enough if you don't get it perfectly straight it's gonna vibrate on
you when you're using it the lawnmower buy yourself a new blade if you think your blade is too badly
bent if you're using an angle grinder to do it my favorite way of holding that is just to pinch that
in your in your bench vise again you pinch that in there like that and then you run that blade up and
down here if you don't have a bench grinder if you don't have a bench vise all those you have
is an angle grinder I don't see any reason why you can't just hold that in your hand like that
and just eye protection ear protection gloves probably hold that in your hand and just run
that blade up and down like that as you're holding it in your hand I can't see why you can't do that
give that a shot the key points to sharpening your lawnmower blade is this when I sharpen a
lawnmower blade I try to sharpen it back to what it looked like when it was originally a new blade
now you see how sharp this edge is that is the angle of the blade what they are new this is a
new blade some people will actually sharpen their blade at a steeper angle down like this because it
saves time but you're not getting that original angle that real sharp angle on there you want to
keep sharpening this thing on the top side of your blade only the top side that's the reason
that you have to take it off of your lawnmower to do this if it's on your lawnmower there's no
way to sharpen the top side of the blade without taking it off you can't sharpen the bottom side
of the blade you can't sharpen this thing like a knife where you go on a 45 degree on one
side a 45 degree on the other side shortening a lot like a knife you can't do that if you sharpen
it like that like a knife or if you only sharpen it on the bottom side you don't bother taking it
off what that's gonna do is it's gonna tear your grass off it's not going to slice your grass off
evenly and cleanly it's going to end up ripping or tearing your grass off next day you're gonna
go out on your nice manicured lawn and you're gonna see these little brown tips all over your
grass because they're torn I'm gonna show you a quick demo right here I'm gonna put this in my
vise right now I'm gonna use the angle grinder so you can see how I'm actually sharpening that
keep sharpening it at the proper angle for as long as you need to take off as much material as you need to
until you look at the bottom side of your blade the grass side of your blade and all these little rock chips like this are all gone
all these dings are gone and it looks like this nice and smooth along that cutting edge right there see the difference between those two
good job guys now you got a perfectly straight blade perfectly sharp blade in your hand now when
you were sharpening that blade to get it perfectly sharp on both sides there's a good chance that you
actually ended up removing more material off of one side than the other side your blade might not
be perfectly balanced now it might be heavier on one side or the other the reason that we want to
have a perfectly balanced blade on your lawnmower is because that it'll vibrate if it's not balanced
if it's really out of balance first of all it's gonna vibrate so bad that you're barely gonna be
able to hold on to that thing it's gonna make your hands numb holding on to it second problem
with that is your lawnmower will literally tear itself apart I'm not kidding you're gonna have
broken bolts coming out you're gonna have loose bolts falling out you're gonna have right where
the lawnmower engine is bolted down to the body of your lawnmower the deck of your lawnmower those
mounts will start cracking and breaking you'll destroy your lawn mower after time you want to
balance this blade now this is easy to do here's one right here I know this is new here's a little
blade balancer you can go get one of these from your small engine shop they're cheap I put this
one on I know it's balanced that's balanced never been sharpened I already know it's balanced that
looks great this one here not so much see the difference that's heavier on that side than it
is on this side the easiest way to balance your blade is to just keep removing material off of
the heavy side best way to do that in my opinion is just to keep sharpening it do what you were
doing before just keep sharpening it and keep sharpening it even though it's sharp on that
side you're not worried about that anymore all you're doing is removing more material
keep sharpening it on that side until it's gonna be flat and evened out on your balancer it's as
easy as that now you don't have one of these things you don't have access to one of these
things you don't want one of these things put it aside you're gonna see some videos out there
that are gonna tell you how to balance a blade and they're gonna say pound a nail in the wall
and just hang your blade on a nail to do that well I don't think that's reliable that's my
opinion I'm gonna show you why right now there's our blade right there I know it's balanced we
just balanced it on the balancer you put a nail in the wall you hang it on the wall does that
look balanced it doesn't look balanced to me like you can do whatever you want on that nail and how
is that reliable in my opinion that is a very unreliable way of balancing your blade if you
don't want that specific balancer here's my next favorite way of balancing a blade that is a six
inch extension for a ratchet put that down and put your blade on it right in the center so you
can see through that central hole now grab that extension and just roll it back and forth until
it's balanced you look down through that center hole and you can see whether that extension is
in the dead center of that hole or not that is perfect right there here's the one that's
out of balance we'll do it with that one I roll that back and forth until it's actually balancing and
you can see that there's balance right there but you can clearly see looking through that
center hole right there that the extension is nowhere near in the center of that hole it's
that's more reliable than putting the old nail in the wall trick I'll tell you that so I hope that
was clear enough and thorough enough for you guys I hope I didn't bore you guys to death with that
one but you know me I like to be as clear and as thorough better than the other guy out there
so if you liked it please give me that thumbs up button there and subscribe to my channel if you
haven't subscribed already that'd be awesome till the next episode again guys Steve out