Ginsu Tiller Blades

[IronPuppet]

I came across something interesting and thought I would see what you experts think of it.

I was at my favorite dump site and found someone had thrown away a small rototiller, so I dragged it home. The machine is a Troy-Built Tuffy. It had a few small problems, but it turns out that the engine runs fine, a 3.5 horse Tecumseh. Problems included a rusty gas tank, a hole in the side of the gas tank, cracked gas line, out of alignment pulley on the motors shaft, the clutch cable was rusted solid, no air cleaner and the carb was clogged with rust.

Got a good tip on this forum about cleaning rust with vinegar and it worked real swell on the gas tank. After cleaning it up and repairing the few faults, a little gas and it fired right up and after setting the governor, runs real sweet.

Once it was running I turned my attention to the tines. As you will see in the pix they were rounded with wear. I took them apart for cleaning and sharpening.

I ground a new basic edge with a grinding wheel then cleaned it up with a flap-type sanding wheel. I'm not sure if this was the right edge for a tiller, but I thought sharp was better than round.

While sanding the tines I took off all the rust and paint. This revealed a rather strange pattern in the steel. I was wondering if someone could explain how this occurred. I would also be interested in what you thought of my sharpening job. Makes for a dangerous unit and thus dubbed "the Ginsu Tiller".

I'm also curious because the tines bend inward on this tiller and on other tillers the tines bend out making for a wider path. Any opinions on this?

Anyhow, next spring, the gardens will be tilled to perfection.

Christopher

[keykeeper]

Nice score, but I would dull the tines a bit. Someone may get hurt, just by accidently running into the tines. Should be a tilling monster, though.

On second thought, with tines that sharp, may make one fine stump grinder!