Shrapnel

After work last night I decided to be productive.  I pulled the tractor out front and worked on removing the mowing deck in preparation for the replacement belt that should show up in a day or so. When I pulled the deck out and flipped it over I did a double take when I saw a hole bigger than the size of a golf ball blown through the deck.  WTF???   

I asked Ali if she remembered hitting anything with the tractor she said she didn’t.  I remembered when I was out mowing I hit a big rock, I wondered if that rock actually punched through the deck.  Well whatever the cause I had to address it somehow.  I brought out the pressure washer and blasted all the crud from the deck until I had nice clean metal around the hole.  Then I spotted the HVAC tape I had hanging by the workbench.  HVAC tape is like metallic duct tape.  So I covered the hole with 5 layers of tape, it did a nice job of adhering to the deck and covering the hole.  I won’t know how durable the repair is until the mower is back in action. I think when the object blasted through the deck it damaged the belt that broke subsequently.

I noticed another problem with the deck.  The mower blades that I just replaced a few weeks ago were already very dull.  There was no edge at all really, just a rounded off mess.  So I decided to throw on the other set of blades that I bought off Ebay.  I’m not sure if they got dull quickly from hitting obstacles in the yard or because they are just shitty quality blades.