Very useful review many thanks. I went ahead and sourced an eBay knock off, seemed quite OK and of quite good quality, 😅however I thought it should spin for longer so before even trying it with a blade I took out the bearings which as I thought were shielded. I removed both sides on the inner and the inside shield of the outer then removed the grease packing. Using just a light oil when reassembled the unit spun very freely and was clearly more sensitive, as a result it was evident that the hub itself was quite out of balance. It is not much help to have an error built into the tool to start with! To achieve balance I ended up drilling 5 x 6mm holes between the magnets close to the periphery on the heavy side. So now I hope I have a pretty accurate unit to start with. I hope this may help others to achieve the best results.
My knock off balancer was out of balance right out of the box, had to spend an hour carefully removing aluminum from the heavy side, finally it balanced in the end.
I'm on my daughter's RU-vid. About 4 years ago I had an 11 hp Briggs that the counterbalancer was extremely worn. It wasn't cost effective to replace. I found on RU-vid how guys were balancing single cylinder motorcycle engines that they were racing. You have to make a tool called a knife's edge. Anyway, about a year later I got to thinking. I spent some serious time making the knife's edge so why don't I use it to balance my mower blades. It is extremely sensitive. I'm not claiming that it's more sensitive than the balancer in the video. I had a brand new blade that was slighty out of balance. I didn't want to grind on a brand new blade so I took a 2 inch long piece of Gorilla tape and put it on the light side of the blade, but not at where the blade is sharp. Otherwise the grass would've peeled the tape off. That small piece of Gorilla tape balance my blade. What I have found out that some blades that I've balance aren't balanced when I flipped the blade over. In other words, if I balance a blade with the grass side to my right on the knife's edge it could be perfectly balanced, but when I recheck the balance without grinding the blade and now have the grass side of the blade to my left the blade is sometimes out of balance. What I have found out is that the center hole of the blade isn't exactly centered. The first blade that did this to me I measured the center hole to the edge of the blade and found a .010" difference from one edge to the other edge of the blade. That is extremely hard to balance, but it can be done. With the balancer in the video you only put the blade on one way so you never catch the off center blades. But all you have to do is balance your blade, and rotate it half a turn on the balancer and see if it rotates back to the previous position. If it stays put then it's balanced. If it goes back to the previous position then the blade is off centered which can still vibrate.
I'm looking at your video and see that the back of the Oregon is painted. My "Oregon" arrived today form Amazon and my version wasn't painted. I'm thinking someone bought both and retuned the cheaper one in the box.
The head of the Knock-off needed to be balanced; it would self-rotate its heavy side to the 6 o'clock position. After measuring the weight of the imbalance, it was possible to add small washer "counterweights" to two of the magnet studs, on the lighter side of the head. After balancing, the head did not self-rotate from any starting position. MAG-1000 instructions on the Magna-Matic site describe the Calibration Test.
How about Oregon vs Knockoff vs Nothing? I learned I can do the exact same thing with a single 6 penny brad nail sticking out of the wall. Total cost .10 cents.
Based on you review, I purchased the "knock off" from amazon, The first one came in and the box was damaged, I did a return on it and the second one came in the box was also damaged. No packaging material to protect either of them. The second one, the cone part that actually knocked the hole in the box looked okay, so I tried it and it failed. It did not rotate/spin quietly. It would click/clunk sometimes as it rotated. No mater how many times I tried it I could not get a consistent reading/or balance. I will be returning this one for a refund. I Guess you got lucky or I was un lucky and got a lemon.
There are a number of bad knockoffs out there. Without a link to the good knockoff, this video is not as useful as it could be. Right now, I have two riding mowers and 3 push mowers, plus spare blades, for a total of 16 blades. I think I can justify the cost of the Oregon.
I try to avoid links, mostly because the products on Amazon change and I don't do affiliate links, or give the impression I do. Happy to forward the one I bought.
Wow, I had no idea the Oregon was just rebranded/relabeled...I thought it was just subbed out to Italy for manufacturing. That's very disappointing to say the least...especially since they doubled the price just for the name.
@@TurfandStem I searched and found on amazone not spelled as previous poster posted but it got me there. Tecomec Made in Italy Blade Balancer Magnetic Wall Mount. $64.98
@@TurfandStemGuess it depends on how fanatical you are about maintaining your mower and how much you subscribe to an out of balance blade causing deck vibration, premature belt wear and doing damage to your spindles. Even as a homeowner who's only mowing his own lawn, with an $11,000 mower, the $270 for a gold mag 1000 may not be overkill if it saves me from replacing a $300-400 spindle but I'm sure the Oregon is plenty accurate enough to prevent that but be willing to bet the $40 Chinese knockoff probably would too.
I bought the knock off. Absolute JUNK! The balancer wasn't balanced. It would self rotate w/o a blade. Repositioning the blade on the balancer yielded a different state of balance each time. There is no practical method to balance the balancer. I was lucky: I got my $ back.
I bought the knock off. Unfortunately it is total junk. The balancer itself is out of balance. Is made my blades worse. I finally bought the maggna 1000. So the forty bucks was out the window. The magna 1000 is worth every penny!! The difference in quality is night and day.
I'm a bit confused: since NONE of the balancers give any info on how much metal must be removed, really the only question is whether a balanced blade comes in at "0 degrees", correct? SO: why bother with the fancy magnets and heavy mount? From a physics perspective, the tiny lightweight cone ought to work just as well if not better to show me if my blade is actually balanced or not. I can use the same digital angle gauge to see how far off zero I am :) (Why better: the small/light cone adds no mass to the setup, so I am truly measuring the balance of JUST the blade.)
Oh man...I can't talk physics! I just know the balancer is a little more accurate when I used the same blade on it and then a nail in the wall and the cone.
