Probably should have put a “closed for Le Tour” sign up. It’s one thing every year that the family get’s into.
Now, everything is getting back to normal although with the economy, the oil in The Gulf, and everything else “Normal” is very relative.
Right now we have about 5 Big Projects going but my one that’s hanging on are these decks. I started with 12 used ones and thought I wouldn’t have any problem coming up with 5 good ones.. That’s turning into a little more than I thought.
Till Monday…
Archive for the 'In the Shop' Category
We just had a demo of the SIP Peerless 7000 reel grinder. What really sets this apart form other grinders is it grinds parallel to the reel rollers. The way that this happens is the table is machined so the surface that the reel sets on while grinding, is parallel to the grinding wheel travel. There is no individual adjustment to each end of the grinder, only up or down along the entire length of the travel.
What’s the benefit of that to a shop? Once you’ve gone through your reels and have ground everything true, regrinding or touchups are quick.. very quick 
and you are assured that your grind is absolutely parallel. Myself and a lot of people grind with other machines and there are ways to assure you have outstanding reels without this setup. It’s just that after trying this it is amazingly easy.
The image to the right here, is of Mark Pilger, CEO of SIP is using their Pii tape to determine the diameter of the reels. The image to the left shows the 
left and right diameters of the reels of the fairway machine we tested this on. The reel is then put on the grinder and adjusted to grind down the large side first and true it up. This is done in spin mode. The motor that spins the reel can be moved from side to side depending on the reel and automatically changes direction depending on which side of the machine it’s plugged into. It has a counter that can be set for the number of passes across the reel and an auto feed for the grind wheel. So once it was set up and spinning, the reel would go back and forth, each time would reduce the amount of passes on the counter and on each pass the auto feed would turn the hand wheel in about 1.5 thousands.
An exceptional feature of the machine is it can also grind in relief. This is done by adding an index device to the grinding head and changing the grinding stone to a thinner model. Rather then having a guide finger to keep the grinding wheel against the reel it relies on a torque clutch on the drive motor. So you set the clutch, and adjust the index guide to the reel blade and adjust the amount of grind you want. We were able to grind all the relief in each blade in one pass around. The indexer made this an automatic deal.
Mark was grinding the 5 reels on one of our Toro 5410 fairway mowers. These have groomers on the front of the reel and rear roller brushes on the rear. That’s about as many options as you can get on one. We had just done our other mower the day before with another grinder and spin only. These we put in a lot of relief. We’re going to see how they differ over a period of time.
We also tried out their bedknife grinder. To be honest, I was pretty skeptical about it, particularly that it had 2 grinding wheels and motors. That was an eyeopener. To start with, the grinders are fixed and the knife carrier travels back and forth on fixed rails. The whole thing is rock solid and smooth. Most bedknife grinders rely on their simplicity to switch between grinding the top and front face.. This seems to set a new bar because you don’t have to move anything.
The bedknife itself sits on a machined bar and a point (ball bearing) with two in/out adjustments and 2 clamps. Really simple and once adjusted works for all knives in that series. The grinding adjustment is super easy for both the top and front. The angles are selected for each face by inserting a pin in the appropriate hole. They have a special stone to handle the tool steel insert knives we use and a micro mist coolant system to keep the grinding temp down. Like I said, it was an eyeopener to use and incredibly fast..
If you’re looking for a grinder I think you owe it to yourself to try this out. Checkout more of their products at The SIP Website.
I thought these were pretty cool till our reel covers started breaking.Why Change?
We have all heard numerous times that during this time of shrinking budgets, every dollar spent must be spent responsibly. A close look at most equipment maintenance budgets demonstrates oil and lubricants make up only 1-2% of the budget, yet protect one of our most expensive assets, the equipment fleet.
Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) take many factors into consideration when designating a service interval for any given piece of equipment… L.E.T.S. Load, Environment, Temperature, Speed. Even so, oil does not have a magic switch telling us when its hours are used up. Over time, lubricating oils, which include engine, hydraulic, gear, transmission and others, deteriorate to a point where they no longer offer a piece of equipment the protection it needs and the lubricant must be changed. In many cases, this can be much longer than the OEM’s recommended interval.
What is the only way to safely determine this optimum interval for each piece of equipment?
FLUID/OIL ANALYSIS
Fluid/Oil Analysis is defined by Machinery Lubrication Magazine as… “The routine activity of analyzing lubricant properties and suspended contaminants for the purpose of monitoring and reporting timely, meaningful and accurate information on lubricant and machine condition.”
• It is like a “blood test” for the oil in a piece of equipment
• It can reveal the condition of the oil and…
• It can provide valuable information about the health of the machine the oil is protecting
Through time based monitoring, the condition of the oil is tested for contamination and changes in the lubricant, which can help determine if the oil is suitable for continued use. Analysis also helps monitor the condition of the machine and helps identify the type and severity of wear occurring. This practice can help identify problems early so they can be corrected before permanent and more costly damage occurs. It has been said that 98% of all fluid failures are due to some sort of fluid contamination. This contamination can happen any time, even when the oil is brand new. If a system is left unknowingly contaminated for the life of the OEM drain interval, the results could be catastrophic, often resulting in premature failure of an otherwise perfect system.
On average every $1 spent on fluid analysis has the potential to save $10 on the bottom line (fluid replacements, downtime for repairs, failures, etc.) For our turf equipment with very complex hydraulic systems and diesel engines with a price tag in the thousands of dollars, to me this sounds like pretty affordable insurance and money well spent.
Greg Dinger is the Equipment Manager at The Glacier Club in Durango, Co, and is a Field Service Representative for SWEPCO Lubricants. He can be reached at gregdinger@msn.com
Most mechanics work with their hands. In winter the hands suffer in numerous ways. Chapped, split and healing ce to mind.
I’ve been having trouble using this (iPhone) because the callouses on the thumb tips don’t let it work well. It’s like having keys that don’t work.
We’re trying the Greens Care Plus. I called the folks at Terresolve, who make it and it sounded great. We’ve been getting about 1000 hrs out of the regular fluid and the main feature of the Synthetic Plus is that it can last up to 2 X’s as long. It would be great to get those results although the cost of the oil isn’t the big benefit there. It would be mostly in the labor and time involved.
We ran it two days straight and nothing unusual. I’m not sure if I expected it to turn orange or what but it ran just like a clock. This summer will be the big test.
It went so well in this one, I ordered enough for another. If they still hold together then I’d like to try it in our fairway mowers. This does not cost twice as much as the standard bio fluid but to get 2X’s the life in those machines with their increased capacity would be a nice savings.
And if it turned out to be a better fluid.. 
Here’s something you probably won’t see too often..
Jacobsen’s Green Care Bio Hydraulic fluid, and this is the Veg based, is made by Terresolve, the same company whose hyd fluid we’ve been using for over 10 years.. Fromn talking to people at Jac and Terresolve the main difference is the Jac fluid has more additives. Generally it is more expensive. Not last time I checked so I stocked up.. I was even able to wrangle free freight out of the salesman..
This particular model Toro, a 1995 – 3100, is getting the standard Greens Care. The unit has 6800 hours and has just gone through it’s bi-annual service. That’s new lift arm pins and bushings, hydraulic hoses, brakes, front plastic rollers and anything else I can find. Because this has the most hours of any triplex we have it will be used as the backup for the Greens, Tees and Roller machines.
I could! Just got off the phone with the folks at Jacobsen and we’ll be getting some of their new Synthetic Hydraulic fluid to try. I’ll post more tonight where I can use a bigger keyboard 
So we made the switch. Why?? Well, if you ever drained your car on your lawn you’d see. And if you haven’t, you can imagine. Petroleum and grass don’t mix. The second part of this is if you have hoses on a machine, it’s not a question of will they leak, but when. I change the reel hoses on all the machines that go on the greens. That’s a lot. Still, you can’t change all the hoses all the time, and the one that you didn’t get, or missed, or did change but rubbed against something, will get you.. It happens. It may be years since it happened, but it will happen..
Which brings us back to Bio. We use a vegetable based bio. I’ve looked at synthetics and others. Some look fine, some raise questions. In debating the pros and cons of the new crop, I decided to stay with what we had been using. Terresolve. We have 10 years with it and no bare spots on the course because of it, which says a lot. We’ve been buying it at R&R, buying over $400 at a time and getting free freight, which is a killer. We just found out that we can buy Jacobsen Greenscare, made by Terresolve, for less.. It has a better additive pack then what we had been buying so I’m looking forward to trying it.
And that brings us to Jacobsen’s new Synthetic oil. It’s made by Terresolve and since we have a long history with them I’m pretty comfortable trying it. AS to the benefits. Right off the bat, it has a longer life. Depending on how long and how much it costs that could possibly be a wash. I’ve asked about spills and what would need to be done. Hose it down is what I’ve been told and that’s a bit less then with the vegetable. Other benefits, I’ll see what I can find.
It’s on it’s way. I’ll keep you posted.
Last year Hustler announced that they would be marketing Shibaru mowers in the US as Hustlers. At the time I would guess that Hustler was cash heavy from their commercial mower success and Shibaru, well everyone, would like to be in the US golf market. I think we are probably the excessive consumers on the planet. At least we were until reality set in as the bubble burst and the bottom fell out of the hot air balloon.
Still, we have this mower for a day and It doesn’t look half bad. We’ll see what it does.
It did well. A 36 HP Diesel, 5″ reels, on demand 4-wheel drive. It has most of what people are looking for. I particularly liked that it was built on a tractor chassis (turned around). This could be a player in the country . although it’s a crowded field with Toro, Jacobsen and John Deere
Our Toro dealer has really done great on their packaging of parts. In the past I would get tons of brown paper to unfold, wrap, and recycle. Now, they have bought a machine that takes THEIR used cardboard and perforates it to use as packaging. The parts come in protected, they get rid of their used boxes, and it’s easier for me to recycle it. I just put it in our cardboard bin. I called them up on it just to let them know their efforts were noticed although even if they weren’t (by me) I’m sure their bottom line would. When a good idea comes around there are very few downsides
s.
