Every now and then I wonder about Parts Departments... 

I ordered these parts and I wasn't quite sure what the vertical socket was...  the spelling was interesting as well.

In my part of town we'd call that something like "balljoint".

Sometimes, ones expectations aren't met.  With what we've been hearing about Wall Street there seems to be a lot of that.  In the turf industry one would expect things to be a lot more cut and dried, particularly when equipment is concerned.

Not necessarily the case.  We recently purchased a PlanetAir aerator.  A pretty nifty machine.  Something of a Cuisinart for turf.  It works, does what they said it did.  In fact, it worked so well on the demo, that the Super called up the new dealer and ordered one.  There was not much sales work needed.

We received it and started using it.  For $25,000 we got the machine and a manual.  Not to much of a problem.  I kept an eye on it and gave it a checkup at 25 hours.  At 30 hours the axles seemed to be leaning in a bit.  At 39 one of them was letting a tire rub against the frame.

...continued later :) 

.. and now it's later.  I called the dealer up and their tech came out. He pretty much told me he had called the mfg. and they told him either they (the dealer) put it together wrong or we abused it.  Not the best way to start a new relationship.  There were a couple interchanges.  The end result, they fixed the machine and we hadn't abused it.  Could there have been a little better communication? Yes.  With a slightly different attitude this could have been a WinWin for everyone..

We made this in 2003, trying to come up with a better mousetrap.  It almost worked.  Years ago, Green Machine was a dominant force in 2-cycle tools.  That was back in the 80's when the Green Machine 3000SS was the hot commercial line trimmer and the 36" Bunton with the JLO was the hot mower.  I guess that dates this.

In the late 80's they came out with the first split shaft system.  You could get a stick edger, blower  and line trimmer for a line trimmer.  You could also get a cultivator.  It was a bit on the heavy side but did a good job.  It was a two arm job with both arms going back and forth under the soil.  It was good in that it didn't throw any material around.

I found that John Deere had apparently bought them out and was selling the units with one of their split shafts.  We had the line heads and cultivators.  We found that when using them in the bunkers they would leave some runners where the blades missed.  So to try and over come that we  modified them.

We took them apart and found we could press the arm off the crankshaft and re-press it on at the same angle as the other side.  So instead of basically counter-rotating arms they rotated evenly.  To get rid of the gap in the center we welded a piece of bedknife. They worked pretty well but somewhere along the line their use stopped..  Probably because their use was labor intensive and we just stopped keeping them that clean.

At the GIE show in Atlanta (Feb 2006) Steve Spuhler and I stopped by the Bernhard & Co. booth. It's one of those yearly pilgrimages. They always have something new and/or improved to checkout. This time was no different.

We had tried an early version of the Rapid Relief in our shop a couple years ago and while it worked fairly well, I didn't think I could get enough relief on a fairway blade to make it worth while. They had an improved version and we asked if we could try it out.

The Rapid Relief comes as a set, along with the Rapid Facer (one of the options). They  both share the common framework, with interchangeable grinding heads.

We put it together, then attached it to a reel. Then I did an uncharacteristic thing and watched the video on how to use it. (hah) I wasn't far off.. Main thing, was we didn't want to miss anything. Our issue before was not being able to grind most of the blade. That could be something as small as only an eight of an inch off somewhere.

The difference between this version and the last, was an addition of two feet that rest against the rear roller so you can place the magnets lower on the bedbar without it falling off. Piece of cake to setup and sturdy.. Other than geting my finger caught under one of the magnets I had no problems with it at all . Setting it up, is easy, but it takes a "knack".

At first I was too high, not getting quite the angle I wanted and a little to close to the blade above the one I was grinding. I was pushing it a bit to see what would happen. Would it vibrate, wobble, fall off? I don't need  to tell you what it's like to grind off your cutting edge. This was rock solid and I was able to keep a nice comfortable rhythm going without cutting into the blade above.

After repositioning the carriage lower, and repositioning the support legs, we were able to get a nice angle on the grind.

Looking at the picture below, I think you'll see that this is a pretty good example of relief grinding. It took minimal adjustment to get a nice smooth grind straight across.

We were using this on 11 blade fairway reels which are quite thick. Since we normally spin grind them it took a bit to get this much relief. The actual grinder itself is a 90 degree air unit. Quite nice and it seemed well made (like all of Bernhard & Co.'s products) but it doesn't have the power that you're used to with a large frame grinder. That would be it's main drawback as far as I can see.

Everyone has their own circumstances to take into account but if you're looking for a way to put relief on a few reels during the year, this warrants a close look and a  demonstration.

I'm sure everyone is familiar with Milorganite, pelletized sewage sludge.  A low impact fertilizer almost guaranteed Not to burn.  Transportation costs being what they are, it seems every municipality has come up with their own version of this although there do seem to be some important differences.

One of the versions we had was Georgianite.  It was from, Georgia :) a softer and larger version of Milorgaite.  That they dumped on the maintenance road, nothing very hi-tech.  They tried it on the greens.  Very interesting and that was the only time.

This time, they tried a local municipalities version of the same thing.   This called Largonite from the nearby town of Largo.  This came in a 4-hopper Kilabrew and the vendor was kind enough to provide a tractor pulled spreader (our tractor) so we applied it ourselves to the fairways.

That was yesterday and I got a call on the radio today about "bouncing" reels.  It's a very gooey mess.

If we had roller scrapers we wouldn't have this problem but there would be issues.  This is very elastic and gummy.  It will clog a scraper and stop the roller from turning in some instances.  Fortuantely it will just go away in a few days.

Saturday, March 15 2008 Walking from one equipment maker's booth to another, I noticed a complete mower in a booth I was passing.  It was the R & R booth.   The mower looked very much like a 3100.  At first I thought it was remanufactured.  It was that close a copy.  It wasn't a reman.  It was new. 

Just stopping there and thinking about it, just standing and letting your eyes follow over it, they've been selling most of these parts for years..  They just put them all together and added the structural pieces.  Brilliant.

You can get it in either the standard manual steering version or with hydraulic power steering.  Both units come standard with an 18HP Briggs.   If you're familiar with a Toro 3100, you'll be familiar with these.  I'd bet you could use the same service manual.

They come without reels but R & R is noted for their clones.  Any type you'd like, they have, SPA or 4-bolt, tees or greens.  They've even come out with their own groomer attachment.  The workmanship is outstanding. 

In addition they also manufacture a set of component reels from Europe.  These include the roller, spiker, verticutter, scarifier and whatever.

Not to leave the walkmowing crowd out, they also came out with their version of Jacs 500 series mowers

I'm not sure the manufactures saw this coming.  We've been hearing about Barroness coming over from Japan.  Earlier at the convention Hustler unveiled their new partnership with Shibaro and the mowers they will be importing..  It seems everyone wants to get their share of the decreasing USA golf pie before it disappears

I'm online right now, talking with the techs on the BBQ meeting.  Someone wanted to know what happened to the wrench I received years ago for "Tech of the Year" and was it still on the plaque it came on..   No, I started using it and it works pretty well..I do fine that I think about what it represents a lot more now that I see it so often.   So.. in that respect, it's been a great daily reminder..

As you can't help but notice from the box, one of the options from Bernhard & Company is to purchase the Rapid Relief and Rapid Facer as a set.. They both use the same carriage system and interchange the heads.

We had tried the Rapid Facer several years ago. At the time, I wasn't too impressed with it. Looking back on it I'd have to say I thought it was too complex and difficult to setup. At the time I bought another manufactures model that slid along the bedknife on it's own guide. We had a hard time getting the special disks for it. I got tired of hearing complaints about using it from my Lake City intern. We eventually retired it as a facer but it sees almost daily use as a small grinder.

for larger images, click it

After that venture we used the "freehand" method with a 90 degree grinder and special disks. This worked fairly well and we could have continued with it indefinitely. There were a couple things that started me thinking about another possibility. The first one was while facing a fairway mower on the lift. You're rotating the reel by hand and guiding the grinder with the other. I'd say I'm very good at this, but you still can't make a smooth pass from one end of the bedknife to the other. When it comes to reels, smoothness and precision are huge.

So looking at the bedknife, from underneath, and thinking, to do this well, I'd need a guide, to mount this die grinder on, with a way to rotate the reel as I moved it. Sometimes the obvious just escapes us.

  So I got the Rapid Facer out, changed the heads on it, and figured I'd try it again, but this time with an open mind. At first, I must have looked like I belonged on the Laurel and Hardy show. Yes, I got my fingers stuck under the magnets. I had more than one disk fly across the shop. I was taking a reel motor off a fairway reel while it was attached, and it became unattached in an instant. Knowing how strong the magnets are I wondered how I managed to knock it off. I did, but no harm.

I came to the conclusion that I had a mild case of dyslexia that this was aggravating and came up with a setup for each type of reel. The biggest one, was just pointing the adjustment handles for the left and right sides, the same way. Ridiculously simple but it solved the majority of the setup issues.

Next was positioning the magnets on each bedknife, so setup was minimal. Initially, it seemed like we were taking aim and throwing it on, then beating it into place with a rubber hammer. I found that holding the edge of the magnet on the bedbar, and using my index fingers to align both sides to approximately the same position on the bedknife, then letting the magnet pull it in, worked well. You don't have to be that close, but it's amazing how close you get with a bit of practice.

There's ample adjustment to take care of just about any situation. The rail can be moved in and out about half an inch. The grinder can be moved in and out independently about the same as well as up and down. It took awhile for me to get the hang of it, but once you do, it's pretty straight forward.

The real break came when I had used it enough to not have to think much about what I was doing. then things got pretty fast.

We're using this on green, tee and fairway mowers. Previously I had switched to micro bedknives on the greens because we could hand file them easier due to their thin face. They're just a few dollars more than the tournaments but we usually only get 2 grinds on them. One when we install it, then one more. We have TiffEagle which requires a lot of topdressing and verticutting. In summer, the life of a bedknife is measured in days, rather than weeks.

What I'm trying now is going back to tournament knives since they're just as easy to face with the Rapid Facer as the micro's and we're getting a grind or two more out of them. I wasn't so worried about the cost of the knives but the savings in time to change them. As it turns out we may have cut our bedknife bill in half.

For the tee mowers we're using 5000 series fairway knives, which are about the same as our 6500 fairway units. These used to take a little time to do by hand. Now it's just a couple passes back and forth. It's really speeded those up.

I'll be the first to own up that I like to come to my own conclusions with anything dealing with reels. I was pretty comfortable with the way we were doing bedknives so I'm not sure anyone can actually tell a difference in the cut. They cut paper everytime they went out before and they do now. But for me it's easier, faster and truer.