There's A Smarter Way To Sharpen Lawn Mower Blades Hiding On Amazon

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A rotary lawn mower blade seems durable enough to keep cutting grass indefinitely, but the truth is that the edge wears down fairly quickly, especially when it strikes bare dirt and pebbles. If you don't sharpen the blade regularly, the mower tends to tear grass instead of cutting it cleanly, and that makes for an unhealthy lawn. Sharpening a lawn mower blade is a simple enough DIY task, but if you do it with a file or a grinder, it's easy to mess up the cutting angle. The good news is that Amazon now features a tool that maintains the blade angle while making the job of sharpening a whole lot easier. 

The portable tool is called the Sharp Pebble Cordless Lawn Mower Blade Sharpener. It's basically a rotary tool, and it comes with a number of grinding bits and an attachment that guides the tool at a pre-set angle. The adjustable angle and the assortment of bits ensure the tool can sharpen any rotary mower blade. 

You'll appreciate the angle guide if you've ever sharpened a lawn mower blade without one. When you use a file or a grinder, it's easy to slip while you're working and create an uneven edge. To correct this, you often have to grind more of the blade than necessary, and that reduces the blade's service life and forces you to replace it sooner than you should have to. The angle guide, as it turns out, is just one benefit of this tool: You can sharpen a blade without removing it and it's also easy to keep the blade balanced.

One major perk of the Sharp Pebble sharpening tool is that it's so lightweight and easy to use that you can often sharpen a blade without taking it off the lawnmower. You don't have to unscrew the nut holding the blade to the housing, which usually requires a lot of force, and you don't need a vise to hold the blade. All you need to do is thoroughly clean the undercarriage of the lawnmower and the blade before sharpening, and if you use this WD-40 trick, cleaning should be a breeze. 

The Sharp Pebble tool also makes it easy to balance the blade, which can be troublesome when using a file or grinder. Removing more material from one end of the blade than the opposite end unbalances the blade, making the mower engine work harder and shortening its life. The Sharp Pebble tool allows you to maintain a consistent pressure, and all you have to do is count the number of strokes you pull on one end and use the same number on the other end.

The manufacturer warns that this tool isn't a substitute for a grinder. If the blade has significant chips or dents from mowing through rocky terrain, you need to remove it, put it in a vise, and file or grind out these defects. However, it will maintain a sharp edge on a blade in good condition, and you can use it frequently to become a mowing expert.