How To Backlap a McLane Reel Mower 

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I got the same problem. Seems the middle part of the blades doesn't touch the bedknife but the ends do so when you backlap the middle section of the blades doesn't get sharpened. Did you resolve your problem? anyone else have solutions?

Mine does that too.

Good question. I run the drill about 4-5 minutes. It all depends on the sound the backlap is making. You can tell as the grinding sound gets smoother as it goes. It seems to do the trick for me. I guess it also depends on the grit of the backslapping compound. If you have a finer grit, you may have to run it longer.

that's what im looking for

I can get my mower to a 1/4” and it should be the same for the 25” Mclane unless you have the greens mower edition. Couple of things come to mind. There are 3 vertical holes on both sides of the mower chassis where the front roller bar pivots. To get it down to 1/4” you’ll need to move that pivot point to the upper most whole. There’s a 26” long screw going through the front roller pivot that you’ll need to remove in order to relocate the front roller bar to upper most whole. The upper most whole is setting A with the cutting height range of 1/4” to 11/16”. The middle hole is setting B with the cutting height range of 7/8” to 13/16”. Depending on which hole your front roller bar pivots on, you also need to adjust the position of the screw where notched lever connects to the front roller bar. In my video you’ll see two small labels, “A” and “B” on my front roller bar indicating which screw hole the notched adjuster connects to depending on which hole the front roller bar pivots on. Hope that makes sense. If you still can’t get down to 1/4”, perhaps you may want to look at the diameter of the front wheels or in my case the Grooved Front Roller (from ReelRollers.com). Perhaps you may have after market front wheels that are larger diameter. Taking a look at the practical application aspect. I’m cutting zoysia which can get supper thick and dense like a tightly woven carpet. Even at the lowest setting of 1/4”, it’s not cutting the grass blades at a 1/4”. My issue is that my zoysia is too thick and dense. Because of this, my mower kind of floats on top of the grass instead of rolling at dirt level. In order to get a true 1/4” height-of-cut, I have to run a dethatcher or scarifier like the Sunjoe to thin out the canopy so that my mclane can get deeper down, closer to dirt level to a achieve a true 1/4” height. Hope this helps.

@@TheLawnSauce Thanks for the reply. All makes sense and I do have my settings all in the "A" position. The only difference we have is the front roller. I have the grooved front roller from McLane installed (ordered that way from McClane so I don't have the front wheels). I'm not sure if there is a difference in diameter between the Reel Rollers grooved roller or the McClane model. Another RU-vidr compared the McLane grooved roller to Reel Rollers smooth roller and grooved roller. He noted that the McLane roller will raise the lowest cutting height to about 3/4" and the RR smooth roller is around 1/4"-3/8" so they must be skinnier. When (if) I get my yard more level and smooth, that 3/8" cut on bermuda lawn would look sexy!! BTW, used this video to help with first-time attempt with backlapping. Helped a lot and I will probably use your adapter hack with the extra nuts!! That thing drove me to cussing!!! Thanks again for your video and reply

Thanks for asking. Backlapping is the process of re-honing the cutting reel to the bed knife. The compound can be thought of as liquid sandpaper. Just like sandpaper, the paste has grit in it that aids in the grinding of the metal cutting edges. The cutting reel is spun backwards while back-lapping compound is applied. The compound works it’s way in-between the cutting edges and grinds the metal as the blades pass each other. The end result of backlapping will be a perfectly honed cutting edge.

Can I hire you too? I’ll drop it off

@@simps808 me too...I'll bring it from Texas

I agree..

just pop the spark plug

now thats to much work