My Brush hog mower is made from Abrasion Resistant steel. It drags
in sand and rock and just bounces about without much wear.

Martin

On 5/10/2015 1:17 PM, Terry Coombs wrote:
Larry Jaques wrote:
On Sun, 10 May 2015 00:26:37 -0500, "Terry Coombs"
wrote:

The mower deck I got with my very used 1982 yr model JD 317 yard
tractor has an advanced case of cancer , to the point that I
wouldn't dare spin up the blades for fear that one spindle would
come loose and hurt me . Yesterday I bought another deck and it
doesn't have the same cancer problems , but it does have some cracks
at the mount points from metal fatigue .

How about adding and welding in an additional 4-6" of 1/8" (1/4"?)
plate around those areas to spread out the stress points? Since it's
a mower deck, how about a 1/8" plate around and between the blade
mounts, a large oval. Weld a solid bead to keep grass from getting
under it and promoting cancer. Maybe TIG it to prevent embrittlement?
I guess it depends on the original deck steel.

Most likely just mild steel . The problem with adding gussets is that this
area is curved in two directions . It's at thhe front where it rolls from
horizontal to vertical , plus the front/vertical is curved .

The rear mount cracks I'm not worried about , I'll be cutting the
mounts off and replacing them with the originals since the newer
mount is different . Same size deck , just a different year model .
So do I need to be concerned with it cracking again ? I only want to
do this once , that thing is going to be a pain to R&R , and I can't
access that area with it mounted .

If I had a dollar for every time I wished something...


Would that be the 12 Acre Wood?

Why yes , yes it would !