Last Updated on March 26, 2024 by Sharaj
You may ask yourself several questions before purchasing your lawnmower to prepare for the coming mowing season.
For instance, can you harden lawn mower blades? If so, how can you go about it? True enough, heat-treating your lawnmower blades has multiple benefits.
If you want to know the whole thing behind this technique, this article belongs to you. Besides quality improvement, let’s find out more about lawnmower blades heat treatment.
Can You Heat Treat Lawn Mower Blades?
Well, in this case, I will give you my opinion based on our research that involved comparing and testing various lawnmower blades. You can heat treat lawnmower blades to enjoy these benefits:
- Heat treating your lawnmower blades makes them resilient when it comes to tear and wear.
- Heat-treated blades straighten more.
Is Heat Treatment Important?
Do you have to consider heat treatment as far as your garden tools are concerned? What about blade tempering? The reason manufacturers ponder on lawnmower heat treatment during the process is to ensure durability. They use given temperatures to heat the blades. That ensures uniform distribution of the blade’s hardness.
Imagine hitting a stone when mowing with your new equipment and having to stop your task due to a broken blade. For that reason, be careful to purchase a lawnmower that is durable enough to worth your investment. The last thing you may want while working on your backyard is an accident from a high-speed broken blade.
If you are a veteran in using mowing machines, you may have to incorporate various factors when thinking about lawnmower heat treatment. For instance, what model of machine do you use when mowing? What about the type? Another vital factor that you will have to contemplate is the metallic features. As a rule of thumb, do not finalize your heat treatment decisions without bearing in mind the brand of your mowing equipment.
The best thing is that you will found many lawnmower brands in the market. Your task is to pick what will match your mowing needs and budget. Analyze the top competing mower brands when you want to purchase a tool that will give you long-term service. From the many benefits that the technique has, you cannot deny that heat-treatment is an important practice.
The Best Heat Treatment Technique Depending on Blade Material
Heat is necessary when hardening mowing blades. However, keep in mind that various metals will have different reactions to heat. For that reason, manufacturers need to be careful when handling this exercise.
The only challenge with over-heating metals is brittleness. Though, that is not something to worry about if you are dealing with quality steel materials with less carbon.
Experts suggest that larger grain carbon still does not fragment with ease under heat treatment. Do not forget the fact that lawnmower blades have nickel alloy. All you need to know is that each company has different manufacturing policies when it comes to lawnmower blade heat treatment.
Nonetheless, you may have to consider the government protocols of your country as far as hardening lawnmower blades are concerned.
The Benefits of Lawnmower Blades Heat Treatment
Although we have highlighted this earlier on, let us dive deeper. Here are the details of what you will enjoy with blades heat-treatment:
Even Hardness: Before you invest in any equipment, do not forget the issue of hardness. You can use this factor to gauge the quality of your mowing blades. Also, how else can you tell whether the machine underwent the required manufacturing process? After all, the main reason behind hardening the blades is to ensure that they are strong and hardy.
Heat treating mowing blades aim to ensure even hardness. How else can manufacturers assure you long-lasting service when using lawn mowers? That is not to mention the tough working environment that you will operate in. As everything good is not with its downsides, overheating lawnmower blades has a share of disadvantages.
Straightening Mowing Blades: You cannot disagree with the fact that your lawnmower will be operating in difficult working conditions. For instance, dealing with rocky terrain will blunt or even break the cutting age.
However, you can handle that using a mowing sharpener. To ensure a hassle-free experience when shaping your backyard into good condition, you may have to opt for heat-treated mowing blades. It does not matter whether you hit stones and stamps, such blades will always be strong and straight.
Most significantly, you will not have to deal with bending risks when working with hardened lawnmower steel blades. This is because the heat treatment process changes the metallic structure packing the atoms tightly for extra durability and strength.
Heat-treated Mowing Blades Resist Tear and Wear: Another best thing with heat-treating mowing blades is that they become resistant to tear and wear. Although this is not that far from the above points, keep in mind that each homestead has varying mowing conditions.
In this case, think twice about purchasing softer blades that require sharpening now and then. What you need to know is that tools such as machetes and knives undergo heat treatment. Experts will tell you that the reason behind it is to reduce the sharpening frequency.
Excessive sharpening of blades shows material softness that translates to quicker blunting. Heat treatment gets rid of the unwarranted softness, ensuring your blade’s longer life. There is no issue with concluding that heat-treated mowing blades are of quality compared to the untreated ones.
Is Tempering Necessary in the Heat Treatment Process
Firstly, the process of mowing blades heat-treatment is not challenging. You only require the necessary conditions to handle everything at the comfort of your home. Remember, different metals showcase varying characteristics when subjected to heat because of atoms’ arrangements.
For that reason, you will have to consider what experts say about manufacturing mowing blades. This far, you will need to be familiar with terms such as metal tempering and hardening.
Now, let us handle our biggest question. Should lawnmower blade heat-treatment involve tempering? Moreover, what does that mean? First of all, hardening is the first thing in the metal heat-treatment process. This first step results in a metallic yield branded as martensite. Overheating makes mower blades brittle and more susceptible to shattering.
That is why manufacturers need to control temperatures when in the hardening process. Nonetheless, they might consider tempering depending on the manufacturers’ wants when toughening the blades. The work of tempering is to improve hardness to less brittle materials.
You have to understand that heat-treated metals are susceptible to cracking when at that former state to comprehend the difference between tempering and hardening. Tempering, also referred to as austempering by other manufacturers, makes the blades more malleable.
With such blades, you will not worry when it comes to tough mowing situations. To hit the bull in the eye, tempering is not a must, although manufacturers insist on it in their blade-making procedures.
What is the Effect of Overheating Mowing Blades?
By now, you know that the whole idea behind heat treatment is to make the mowing blades resilient to tear or wear. However, does overheating have any effect on your metal materials? You probably understand that doing anything excessive is harmful. So, do your overheated mowing metals become less ductile or stronger?
Different sources show that overheating affects the quality of metal materials. In most cases, the temperature should not exceed 400 degrees if you want the good of your metal. However, different factors will play part in that case. To avoid beating around the bush, here are the disadvantages of overheating mowing blades.
- The metal grains expand after overheating beyond the required temperature. That subject the metals to the dangers of becoming more brittle. The best thing is that you can use thermal cycling to control the fault of overheated blades. That involves cooling metals in water or oil to definite temperatures.
- Decarb is another issue with overheating mowing blades. To get rid of this issue, find metals that have a higher carbon content.
- You will have to deal with carbon diffusion if you overheat mowing blades.
Summery
With the above information, you now understand why forging lawn mower blades is an important factor. You may have many questions regarding this subject. For instance, how can you gauge the hardness of a steel material?
If your blades are without the hardness label, you can utilize various sources to test this vital aspect that affects the usability of your lawnmower. Keep in mind that the hardness of the blades will determine whether you will find sharpening your lawnmower blades difficult or easy.
You may have to seek other means apart from using a file to sharpen tougher blades. You can consider adding a grinder to your tool’s gallery for efficiency and convenience. However, you can find help from a service provider in case you are unable to maintain tougher and harder blades.
Make sure to find a mowing blade that is strong enough to tolerate tough grass and harsh mowing terrain. Tempering hardened mower blades will depend on what the manufacturers want.
