Front Facing Bedknives

This is one of the most important process to do at a course if your the only mechanic on staff . After grinding reels and bedknives they will last quite a while with minor daily adjustments . With the modern day practices of applying light top dressing sand weekly or bi- weekly on greens your QOC ( quality of cut ) will drop of dramatically . This is a quick way to get a fresh off the grinder cut if the topdressing has been applied/brushed in/irrigated in properly . Here is a video of how long it takes to do this process from start to finish . In the video I'm doing it from the bench top because they happen to be off the machine while their verticutting tees today . I do them from the machine on the lift so the removal time didn't apply . There are a few techs that will do both grinds on bedknive if the reels are still in fair condition . I have tried this many times and it worked out great .

 

Sorry about the end of the video . Needed a few more hands .  

In the video my tools are already to go and grinder is front faced set at 13 degrees as per Toro guideline . I use a drill and ratcheting wrenches  to speed things up . They set up quickly if you don't back off the click adjusters to much . HOC was also set in this time frame . If the front faced knife doesn't quite get you the cut your looking for you can do a quick backlap on the machine . I did all 3 on the Toro 3150 Q in less than 25 minutes plus didn't have to backlap .

I noticed that the flexes I had ground last week had lost their edge do to the fact that the heavy rain on Friday must have kicked the sand back up on top of the green causing more wear than usual . This is a good time to evaluate whether to grind the reels to .  The reel lands where well rounded and I had to regrind 3 flexes today . Front face would not have been a good option in this case . Sand / weather / watering practices all have a play in how quick reels can wear out . If done properly you can get 3 to 4 weeks out of a grind . It is usually the case here but sometimes the weather doesn't cooperate.