TECHNICAL
Relief grinding The cost benefits
Clive Nottingham of Hunter Grinders highlights the benefits of Relief Grinding to improve performance and enhance cost savings
H
ow to bring relief to tighter budgets and improve cost savings will be the focus of many organisations, golf courses, service and
equipment managers under pressure to maximise efficiency and minimise labour and maintenance equipment costs. A major factor in achieving excellent savings is to look at how you maintain the sharpness of your equipment’s cutting units. So, let’s look at why we need sharp blades/cylinders/reels.
Condition of the turf is paramount to a good playing surface; unhealthy turf brings countless problems and other issues which are costly to correct. Therefore, prevention
112 PC February/March 2021
is better than cure and provides a more economic approach.
Manufacturers of grass cutting equipment supply new units relief ground. They have spent a good deal of time and money on research and development to discover that relief grinding is by far the best method for cutting units to produce the cleanest cut possible with the least amount of damage to the plant.
So, what are the reasons we need to relief grind?
Tests carried out by leading manufacturers have established that relief ground cylinders stay on cut up to 3 or 4 times longer than spun ground ones and require less horsepower to drive the unit. The resulting factors are greater fuel efficiency and less stress on the hydraulic power systems.
Another major advantage is a relief ground cylinder will deal with abrasive effects of topdressing.
The relief edge on both the bed-knife and the cylinder allows the top dressing to clear
the cutting blades easily, preventing the dulling effect seen with only spin grinding units, due to the wider contact area. Continual spin grinding of cylinders/reels results in more frequent replacement due to the material removed each time; whereas the relief ground will be replaced less often. Another major and important
consideration is to retain the original factory specification by returning an as new cut as quickly as possible.
The cleaner cut achieved by relief grinding gives a higher standard of after-cut appearance, which also reduces the stress on components because less horsepower is needed to drive the cylinder. We need to acknowledge how relief grinding does this for a cylinder/reel, by removing metal from the trailing edge of the blade in turn forms a relief angle, which reduces the contact area of the cutting edges, resulting in less friction, longer wear life.
Improved horsepower results When a cylinder/reel and blades wear, or are
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132
