Originally Posted by Touring5
For grass cutting performance, I haven't found the gator blades to be better than the OEM blade - in fact on my Toro super recycler, they are worse. They do seem to mulch heavy leaves a bit better, maybe. On my old Craftsman 42" lawn tractor, I've found no blade that actually mulches grass well.
I have bought the Oregon OEM style blades for the lawn tractor - no difference in performance, but they're clearly more stout than the ones I bought from Sears.
I will say that for Toro mowers, I prefer the Toro OEM blades. I use their "atomic blade" on Recycler mowers, and their OEM blade on the Super Recycler mower that I own and the ones that come through from customers. Those are cheap on ebay and they work well with those decks. Gator blades go on everything else I change blades on, mainly for the durability. I have them on my John Deere garden tractor, and I've used them with the bagger, with the mulch kit installed, and just regular side discharge. They cut well in all 3 setups and are easy to purchase on ebay. The exception would be mowers that are used mainly for bagging and require a special high lift blade to push grass into the bagger chute (Simplicity and some Craftsmans).
You bring up an interesting point about Craftsman's 42" deck and mulching. One of my neighbors has one and we have tried several different blades along with a mulch plug so he can mulch grass with it. We found the mulch plug and Craftsman mulching blades to work the best, but the grass has to be 100% dry and the 1/3 rule used (1/3 taken off the grass, 1/3 mowing speed), otherwise it leaves clumps on the ground. We've come to the conclusion it has to do with the design of the deck.
For grass cutting performance, I haven't found the gator blades to be better than the OEM blade - in fact on my Toro super recycler, they are worse. They do seem to mulch heavy leaves a bit better, maybe. On my old Craftsman 42" lawn tractor, I've found no blade that actually mulches grass well.
I have bought the Oregon OEM style blades for the lawn tractor - no difference in performance, but they're clearly more stout than the ones I bought from Sears.
I will say that for Toro mowers, I prefer the Toro OEM blades. I use their "atomic blade" on Recycler mowers, and their OEM blade on the Super Recycler mower that I own and the ones that come through from customers. Those are cheap on ebay and they work well with those decks. Gator blades go on everything else I change blades on, mainly for the durability. I have them on my John Deere garden tractor, and I've used them with the bagger, with the mulch kit installed, and just regular side discharge. They cut well in all 3 setups and are easy to purchase on ebay. The exception would be mowers that are used mainly for bagging and require a special high lift blade to push grass into the bagger chute (Simplicity and some Craftsmans).
You bring up an interesting point about Craftsman's 42" deck and mulching. One of my neighbors has one and we have tried several different blades along with a mulch plug so he can mulch grass with it. We found the mulch plug and Craftsman mulching blades to work the best, but the grass has to be 100% dry and the 1/3 rule used (1/3 taken off the grass, 1/3 mowing speed), otherwise it leaves clumps on the ground. We've come to the conclusion it has to do with the design of the deck.