When you're finished mowing your lawn for the weekend, it's easy just to roll your lawn mower back into your garage or shed until next weekend. It's wise to avoid this temptation, though, and spend a bit of extra time performing some routine maintenance on your mower.
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One such maintenance task is scraping your mower deck. As you mow, grass ' especially moist grass ' can accumulate on your mower deck. Wet grass can cause rust and corrosion, shortening the life of your mower significantly. Scraping your mower deck can go a long way towards ensuring the longevity of your lawn mower.
At HY-C, we manufacture a lawn mower deck scraper called the Grass Hawk under our Good Vibrations brand. It's designed to make lawn mower scraping easy, resulting in a clean, rust-free mower deck.
In this guide, we'll take you through the ins and outs of the Grass Hawk. We'll explain a few key features and even some caveats to help you decide whether you should add a Good Vibrations Grass Hawk to your lawn care toolkit.
Discover the Good Vibrations Grass-Hawk Dual Bladed Mower Scraper
Three Pros of the Grass Hawk Mower Deck Scraper
1. It's Designed Specifically for Lawn Mowers
When it comes to mower deck cleaning, it's popular practice simply to grab the nearest flat-headed object from a toolbox and start scraping away. These implements (like a screwdriver or a pocket knife) will get the job done in a pinch, but they're usually inefficient and awkward to use on a mower deck.
The Grass Hawk, on the other hand, is designed specifically for lawn mower decks. From the curve of its handle to the shape and orientation of its scraper heads (yes, 'heads' plural ' more on that in a second), this scraper is engineered to handle common lawn mower decks to help you scrape off grass effectively.
2. It Features Two Scraper Heads
What's better than one lawn mower deck scraper? Two lawn mower deck scrapers built into one. That's exactly what the Grass Hawk has to offer.
One of the scraper heads is curved to help you get into the cracks and crevices of your mower deck. The other is a sharper metal head bent at a 90-degree angle. This head is good for tackling the relatively flatter sections of the underside of your mower, removing large swaths of grass in a single scrape.
Switching between scraper heads is as simple as turning the rotating dial on the Grass Hawk's head to the unlocked position, spinning the head 180 degrees, and locking it again. The secure lock ensures that the scraper heads won't slip during use.
3. It can Attach to a Threaded Pole
Cleaning a mower deck is awkward work. It involves turning your lawn mower on its side or upside-down, but they're not really meant to be oriented in either position. Depending on your age or what kind of shape you're in, it can also be tough to get down to your mower deck's level to get any cleaning done.
It's for these reasons that the Grass Hawk comes with a threaded opening in its base that's compatible with common extension poles. Attaching the scraper to a pole can give you the extra length and leverage you need to scrape effectively.
What this pole compatibility is most useful for, though, is cleaning your mower's discharge chute. This is the portion of your lawn mower through which cut grass is expelled (usually into the mower's bag in the case of a push mower).
Moist, wet grass accumulates pretty quickly in the discharge chute, often creating a blockage. A Grass Hawk on a pole can clear this blockage easily and quickly, all without having to get down on the ground.
Two Cons of the Grass Hawk Mower Deck Scraper
1. It Has a Relatively High Price Tag
Most mower deck-specific scrapers will set you back about $15 to $20. The Grass Hawk is not too far outside of that range, costing a basically comparable $19 to $27 (depending on where you buy yours).
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Where the Grass Hawk is much less price-competitive, though, is with another mower deck scraping solution: putty knives. A decent putty knife may cost $4 to $10 ' one half to one third the cost of a Grass Hawk.
While a putty knife can scrape a mower deck decently, the Grass Hawk is a mower-specific solution. When you're making your purchasing decision, you'll have to lean on a balance of functionality vs. cost to guide you.
2. It May Have Trouble Reaching Cracks and Crevices
Not all mower decks are created equally. Some may be relatively flat and easy to scrape, while others may bend and curve at all angles. Depending on the shape and size of your deck, you may experience different levels of effectiveness while using a Grass Hawk.
Both the curved and the flat scraper head of the Grass Hawk measure 2 '' in width. The curved head extends about 1' from the head of the scraper, while the flat head protrudes by about ''. Depending on your mower, the heads may be the perfect sizes to scrape grass out of all the nooks and crannies ' or they may be too large to be effective.
Should You Get a Grass Hawk Mower Deck Scraper?
Lawn care is a demanding activity, and lawn mower maintenance is yet another layer of the season-to-season mowing process. A lawn mower is like a car: the better you take care of it, the longer it will last you.
So, with that in mind, should you add a Grass Hawk to your lawn care toolbox?
That sort of depends on how often you mow, how much grass tends to accumulate on your mower, or even what kind of mower you have.
If you don't clean your mower often, your mower deck tends not to gather much grass, or you've simply been satisfied with the cleaning capability of your putty knife or flathead screwdriver, you may be alright simply staying the course.
But if you take mower maintenance seriously or you utilize a larger zero turn mower, a Grass Hawk may be just what you need. Its dual-bladed functionality and pole attachment capability offer scraping versatility and, given the sizes of its scraper heads, it can help you scrape more efficiently than other scraping tools for just a few bucks more.
If you're tired of the time it takes to scrape your mower deck with a knife or screwdriver, give a Grass Hawk a try. Its primary purpose is to make mower deck scraping easier, resulting in a cleaner, longer-lasting lawn mower.
Technology Brief
The use of scrapers in batch mixing operations helps improve product homogeneity and heat transfer efficiency. However, there are cases wherein scrapers are not recommended such as in the processing of abrasive applications or highly viscous, sticky materials.
Role of scrapers in mixing
The presence of a scraping mechanism within a mixing vessel may be desirable for a number of reasons. To illustrate, consider the wide array of single-shaft mixing devices - from propellers and turbines, to saw-tooth dispersers and rotor/stators. All of these mixers face a common limitation: as batch viscosity rises, localized heating can occur in the areas surrounding the mixing blade as product flow starts to slow down. Meanwhile, materials close to the vessel walls become stagnant and do not benefit from the agitation in the tank.When this occurs, supplemental agitation near the periphery of the vessel becomes necessary. A second mixer, typically an anchor agitator, is used for moving product adjacent to the vessel surfaces. Its horizontal and vertical wings are designed to run at close proximity to the vessel. This in itself helps to constantly remove product away from the sidewalls and bottom providing more efficient turnover. The addition of scrapers, which actually contact the vessel surfaces, further improves product homogeneity and heat transfer efficiency.
Scraper material of construction
Teflon is a common material for scraper blades due to its low frictional property, non-reactivity and compatibility to a wide range of materials including medical - and food-grade products. For high-temperature mixing applications, alternate scraper materials may be chosen such as ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE), Nylon and other plastics.
Possible issues with scrapers
In certain abrasive applications, particles can imbed in the scrapers and cause aggressive wear on the vessel surfaces being scraped. The agitator to which the scrapers are attached could also become exposed to unnecessary stress due to the excessive friction.Double planetary mixers, which are commonly used for handling viscous materials beyond the capacity of anchor agitators, can also be equipped with a scraper arm. This arm is affixed to the planetary gearbox and is often removable. For many viscous products made on planetary mixers, materials that temporarily stick to the walls during mixing are often reincorporated into the batch by the planetary stirring action without the need for additional scraping assistance. Quite commonly, when scrapers are used, material collected from the vessel wall builds up on the scraper arm and above the product level where it is not reincorporated back into the batch. This migration of batch material reduces mixing efficiency, necessitates intensive clean-up and can increase contamination risks. There are applications however wherein non-sticky products can benefit from scrapers to promote thorough mixing and maintain uniform temperature. Otherwise, not using scrapers is usually advantageous in a double planetary mixer.
Rule of thumb
A good rule of thumb is to utilize scrapers for low to medium viscosity applications, especially when subsequent heating or cooling accompanies the mixing cycle. Viscous products made on planetary mixers must be tested to determine if mixing can be completed successfully without scrapers.
Scraper Installations onDifferent Style Mixers
Dual-Shaft Mixer
Triple-Shaft Mixer
Hybrid Planetary Mixer
Scrapers improve heating and cooling efficiencies.
The addition of wall and bottom scrapers is very important in mixing processes that require a fast response to temperature changes. The graph above shows that using scrapers reduced the heating time of a gel material by approximately 33%, while the cooling cycle was reduced by approximately 60%. The larger improvement in cooling time can be explained by the tendency of most products to increase in viscosity when cooled - materials near the jacketed sidewalls thicken up, and in the absence of scrapers, further inhibit product circulation and heat exchange.
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