Figuring out how to improve mower pre-usage [Blog 1]

After assembling two mini mowers with pretty much the same parts, one mower worked literally beautifully, cutting huge amounts of hair without noticing. The other less so.

Both the mowers were made with bead blasted stainless steel 304 CNC machined combs, with approximately the same overhang on both. The 304 stainless steel blades were older models, similar in width, and both pretty similar in lacking burrs before use. The inners were a very hard stainless steel (201), and on account of this they had been polished to ensure smooth spinning.

Looking closer, it became clear that the only noticeable (admittedly small) differences were (1) the finish of the inners as one was better polished than the other, and (2) the sharpness of the blades, as they came from different batches.

This would fit with what we have observed, which is that over time the mowers spin smoother, and also work better. The inners get smoothed, and the blades get sharpened.

However, ongoing it is also excellent news, as (1) with the double-cut blades they are sharper and cleaner from day-one, and (2) we can now implement a polishing stage on all the inners.

A useful day!