# Reel Mower Blade Count and Frequency of Clip



## kur1j (Jul 2, 2017)

Since I'm not going to be cutting at .1-2". Is there any disadvantage to getting a 9 blade reel? How much thicker is a 9 blade than a 11? Any suggestions on where to get one? RR? This is for a John Deere 220c not a jacobsen.


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## Greendoc (Mar 24, 2018)

None I can think of. Only time you want 11 or 14 blades is if you are doing something at 0.1". I converted my GM 1000 to be better suited to mow taller than greens height. That got done with the 8 blade reel and the EdgeMax Tournament bedknife. That is a thicker bedknife than the Microcut.

RR is a great place to get stuff for greensmowers. I just looked. They have the 9 or 7 blade reels for your mower and they have the thicker bedknives.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

Less blades per reel means that you could more closely match the foc to the hoc. What is your target hoc?


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## kur1j (Jul 2, 2017)

@g-man

I was originally going to maintain at like .75 to .9" but I think Greendoc mentioned .5" or so to maintain at so I'm going to try thst and see how it goes.

Unless I missed it I think I can only get a 9 or 11, 14 blade reel on the 220c. The 260c you can put a 7, 9 or 11. The 180c 9, 11, 14 from my understanding.


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## Greendoc (Mar 24, 2018)

For 0.5" a 9 blade reel and thick bedknife is fine. If possible, I would go for 0.4 or 0.3.


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## MasterMech (Sep 24, 2017)

My 7-blade is good to .250" according to Jake. Check the FoC for a 9 blade in your machine's documentation.


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## Greendoc (Mar 24, 2018)

For what we are doing, the fewer blades the better. If the FoC is too high, I have seen it miss grass and not leave a smooth cut. Ideally, FoC=HOC. Too low leads to a washboard appearance. That is most frequently seen with manual push reel mowers running 5 blades on 1/2" Bermuda. I did it setting an 8 blade GM 1000 with a clip kit down to 0.1. That was corrected when I switched to an 11 blade reel. I kept the clip kit for my higher cut lawns, but needed the 11 to do a bowling green.


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## MasterMech (Sep 24, 2017)

kur1j said:


> @g-man
> 
> I was originally going to maintain at like .75 to .9" but I think Greendoc mentioned .5" or so to maintain at so I'm going to try thst and see how it goes.
> 
> Unless I missed it I think I can only get a 9 or 11, 14 blade reel on the 220c. The 260c you can put a 7, 9 or 11. The 180c 9, 11, 14 from my understanding.


That's how it looks to me too. I'd go 9 blade with the "fairway" knife. That combo will cut as low as you'd ever want to go. You will likely see it start cutting more aggressively once you get down under .625.


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## kur1j (Jul 2, 2017)

@MasterMech

What do you mean by start to cut more aggressive?

What metric are you looking at Foc at and Hoc? (e.g. Foc=HoC).

This is a brand new reel so I'm going to do my best at repairing it. I really don't want to spend another 200$ on a reel and spend the time replacing it. It seemed to have been cutting really well (at least to me) before I messed it up.

I saw all of the different bedknifes but It's not really clear to me on how they differ? When I replaced my bedknife I replaced it with the original one that it came with (found it in the manual). The only one I was able to find that was different and had a different description was that there was one that was substantially thicker and it would last a lot longer, but at the cost of being able to cut only down to .3". As for the other bedknifes I'm not sure what the differences are.


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## kur1j (Jul 2, 2017)

@Greendoc I won't be able to maintain at .3 until I do some leveling. I tried .1 and the reel mower was all kinds of eating dirt (jamming up dirt, getting stuck from not being able to push dirt). It was basically bulldozing parts of the yard. I adjusted it and scalped to .3 and my yard looks like a mud pit from the bed knife high pointing all over the yard and road grading my lawn. Not sure how my grass will like being scalped to .3" having to recover from that, then getting lawn leveled and having a drag mat drug all over it, and then rescaled again at .1".

I'm crossing my fingers it doesn't rain in 2 weekends but planning on doing my first lawn leveling project in 2 weeks (i would be doing it this weekend but going out of town unfortunately).

Realistically though, for the type of grass I didn't think it would do well at below .5"?


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## Greendoc (Mar 24, 2018)

0.5 is not that low for 419. I somehow lucked out on my mower setup. Because I wanted the e
EdgeMax hardened bedknife, the thickest one is made to mow as low as 0.1. There is one thinner that is made to mow lower than 0.1". Did not ever think I would be mowing at 0.2 or lower, but scalping down to dirt has been the most effective way to fix lawns with years of thatch.

If you want to mow crazy low, that calls for a thin bedknife with what is known as an aggressive angle. That bedknife tilts down into the grass more than a standard one. I am not that familiar with JD greensmowers and their set ups. My current set up on the GM 1000 includes the 11 blade reel, aggressive bedbar, EdgeMax Tournament bedknife and the clip kit. I did try puttng the stock less aggressive bedbar and fairway bedknife. Setting it below 0.3" caused it to high center on every imperfection in the ground. I changed it back that day.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

We have hijacked this thread. Maybe we should move this conversation to a new thread.

This chart has the HOC descriptions for JD.


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## MasterMech (Sep 24, 2017)

kur1j said:


> @MasterMech
> 
> What do you mean by start to cut more aggressive?
> 
> ...


By cutting more aggressively, I mean that the reel is picking up more of the leaves and standing them up in front of the bedknife before cutting. Especially on a fixed head walk-mower, the more we raise the front roller, the more "rake" we introduce to the overall stance of the mower. This puts the blades of the reel somewhat deeper into the turf than the actual height of cut, which occurs somewhat behind the 6 o'clock position on the reel.

On a floating head mower like the JD 220e, Toro Flex series, Jake Eclipse units, or any tri-plex/fairway mower, the bedknife attitude ("aggressiveness") is adjustable by manipulating the front and rear roller height to give the desired HoC while maintaining the desired bedknife attitude. The bedknife attitude and distance behind center are also controlled by the dimensions of the knife itself, and with some makes, the bedbar/bedshoe (device that you screw the bedknife to) utilized.

All three major greensmower manufacturers put out a ton of information regarding mower setup. Most of the info is focused on putting green setups and ultra-low HoC performance. But the concepts explained apply to higher HoC applications as well. I know Toro's reel setup literature talks quite a bit about fairway mower setups, which is what most closely resembles what most of us are trying to do on our home lawns. If you can study the literature and the equipment, look for what's different on a trim and surrounds reel mower vs a fairway or tee and approach mower vs a greensmower.


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## Greendoc (Mar 24, 2018)

Good explanation. The more aggressive bedknife angles help with mowing taller grass than a green as well. I find that I miss less grass overall with an aggressive angle vs if the bedknife is presented more parallel with the grass. The aggressive angle also helps with getting hung up on bumps in the lawn.


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## kur1j (Jul 2, 2017)

@greendoc as in helps in a good way or helps in a bad way? As in with the more aggressive cut you don't get hung up as many high spots?


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## kur1j (Jul 2, 2017)

@MasterMech

From this link.
http://www.deere.com/en_US/docs/pdfs/parts/golf/bedknife_compatibility_chart.pdf

It looks like the standard bedknife (which is what I have)and the fairway low-cut have the same angles and grinds. What are the differences in those two? It's hard for me to tell the differences in this and what i reallly should be looking at. I'm just wanting it to be beefy enough that if i hit a twig or something it doesn't mangle the bedknife and that it will support going as low as i intend.


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## Greendoc (Mar 24, 2018)

kur1j said:


> @greendoc as in helps in a good way or helps in a bad way? As in with the more aggressive cut you don't get hung up as many high spots?


Aggressive cut and slightly thinner bedknives go over uneven lawns easily. However, our mowers are not chipper shredders. What I do is walk the lawn before mowing, looking for sticks and rocks, or else anything I do not want going through the mower.

I just looked at the chart of bedknives. What would be similar to the Tournament Cut EdgeMax that I use would be the ET11066 bedknife.


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## MasterMech (Sep 24, 2017)

kur1j said:


> @MasterMech
> 
> From this link.
> http://www.deere.com/en_US/docs/pdfs/parts/golf/bedknife_compatibility_chart.pdf
> ...


The only difference I can gather from those specs would be that the "fairway" knife is a bit thicker overall. There could be other differences like the distance behind center that aren't listed on that chart. If you buy the low cut fairway, snap a couple pics side by side and edge-on for comparison with your standard knife.

If .500" is your target, and your lawn isn't fairly level, I'd go with the low fairway knife. (ET17532)


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

I have a bedknife that was on my 220E with a 14 blade reel when I bought it. I'm not sure what the part number is, but it is thin, very thin. I'm also pretty sure it was treated to increase the hardness.


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## MasterMech (Sep 24, 2017)

g-man said:


> I have a bedknife that was on my 220E with a 14 blade reel when I bought it. I'm not sure what the part number is, but it is thin, very thin. I'm also pretty sure it was treated to increase the hardness.


That is the case with most greens cutting setups. Sand is very hard on a reel/knife and it's not hard to pick it up cutting at .125" and lower! 14 blade reel implies they were likely cutting pretty dang low!


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