Depending on how much lawn you have to mow around your house, you may need to sharpen your rotary lawn mower blade, once, twice or even three times a season.
Here's how;
First you want to make sure that the petrol (gas) tank is empty, you can either drain it or run the mower till it stops, this will ensure the tank is empty and safe to start working on your rotary lawn mower.
To make sure that there's no way that your rotary lawn mower can start while your working on it, make sure you take out the spark plug too.
Now with the spark plug out, you will want to turn the lawn mower on it's side so that you can get access to the blade for sharpening.
Get a piece of wood and jam it in behind the lawn mower blade to stop it from moving as you are undoing the bolts from the blade. It can be a piece of 2 x 4 or even a piece of fire wood, anything will work.
Using a socked wrench that fits the bolts, undo the bolts that hold the blade in place.
Three ways to sharpen your blade:
1. use a regular old metal file. Put the blade in a vice, and sharpen on the same angle as the blade is shaped. After doing this for a few minutes your blade should be nice and sharp.
2. Using an electric drill with a blade sharpening attachment, these sharpening blades can be purchased from the lawn mower section of your home hardware. With the blade in a vice, place the sharpening attachment against the blade and turn the drill on (please wear protective goggles when sharpening your blade)
3. A bench grinder. This is the fasted way of sharpening your rotary lawn mower blade. Simply slide blade across grinder a few times to sharpen the blade, and rotate and do the other side of the blade.
Next you will want to make sure that the blade is balanced. Put the blade on a balancing tool, and make sure that the weight is evenly distributed between the blade, if one end is heavier then grind a little more off the heavy side.
Re-attach the blade to the rotary lawn mower and your ready to begin mowing again.
