1/12/2015 6:01 AM
You can cut a relief basically at any degree you want. The steeper the relief the longer it will last but your reels may reach its wear limits faster. The less degree you have may not last as long but your blades will most likely last longer. Once you have your degree set that you like, you can regrind relief when you reach about 50% then its easy to adjust your grinder to achieve the same angle. Also you can cut back farther on your top grind of the bedknife creating relief there as well. relief helps, and even more so if you lap. You can use a protractor to find your angle. We set ours steep that way when we do our touch up grinds it's less than 5 minutes a reel and like 3 to 4 full down and back passes and it's done. Deere is about 30 from the factory, we're right there sometimes a little more is added, maybe 10 to 15 degrees depending on the unit and what we're trying to accomplish.
Also, where the manufacture tell you that your wear limit is 4.5 inches on a 5" reel may or may Not be accurate. The lower in height you go the less reel stock you can actually use. On JD's units, QA5 you can change the inserts and reposition the bedbar to use more of the reel stock, but for Jac and Toro you need to decide what number is best for you to rebuild/re-reel your units. More important on fixed head walkers.
Regards,