Episode 136: Jim Nedin

Episode Transcript
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Trent Manning (00:00):
Welcome to the reel turf techs podcast for the
technician that wants to getreel follow along.
As we talk to industryprofessionals and address hot
topics that we all face alongthe way we'll learn tips and
tricks.
I'm your host, Trent.
Manning let's have some Welcometo the Real Turf Text Podcast,
episode 136.

(00:21):
On this episode, we're thrilledto welcome a true legend in the
turf industry, Jim Nedin.
With over six decades ofexperience, journey began at the
age of nine working in alawnmower shop.
and has grown into anextraordinary career that spans
from repairing mowers toeducating turf professionals
worldwide.
A mechanical engineer with apassion for innovation, Jim has

(00:44):
not only influenced the way turfequipment is maintained, but has
also played a pivotal role inshaping training programs for
technicians.
His insight into cutting unitmaintenance, reel design, and
the art of precision turfmanagement are unparalleled.
ready to dive into a lifetime ofknowledge stories and valuable

(01:05):
tips from a genuine industryicon Let's get real with Jim
Nedin Welcome Jim to the realturf text podcast.
Thanks for coming on.
I really looking forward tothis.

Jim Nedin (01:18):
you.
Well, thank you, Trent.
It's I know we've kind of missedpaths a few times and trying to
connect.
And you know, life kind of getsin the way sometimes, but I'm,
I'm very, very glad to be here.

I don't know.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
And I need to say something toGCSA because they have a
scheduled speaking at the sametime show every year.
And I mean, it's tough.
I don't know.
You know, I want to come by andsee you and then I don't get to,
you know, we're busy going indifferent directions.

Jim Nedin (01:51):
Yeah.

Well, tell us how you got into the turf industry.

Jim Nedin (01:55):
Oh, my goodness.
Well, this is I guess my 62ndyear.
In, in, in doing this to somedegree.

Yeah.

Jim Nedin (02:07):
I, got into the, the industry of repairing mowers.
I mean, my father was amechanical engineer.
So he he had a lot ofconnections.
But he had a friend who owned alawnmower shop.
And at the age of nine he askedhis friend if, if he wouldn't
mind having me learn.

(02:28):
So in the summer, and onweekends pay me ten dollars a
week.

Oh, nice.

Jim Nedin (02:35):
I broke more things than I fixed, probably.
But at the age of twelve Myfather, again, knew someone who
belonged to a country club.
And they were actually lookingfor someone to repair their,
their golf carts.
And they were Cushman threewheel golf carts with Onan
engines in.
I mean, they were Really back intoday, right?

(02:58):
So so they took a chance on meand you know, so I, I gave it my
best and my father wouldactually work with me on a
Saturday and taught me how tokeep records, record keeping on
like 3 by 5 index cards.
You know, change the points inthis unit and

Okay.

Jim Nedin (03:15):
on and on.
So got everything kind of up andrunning.
And the superintendent said tome this is in, I guess I was
about 13 then.
Hey we have, we have someequipment done in the, in the
barn.
And they were barns back then.
The.
You know, needed repairing and,you know, did I want to see, you
know, if I could help out.

(03:36):
So I went down and I did learnabout real mowers working at the
lawnmower shop.
I ground some mowers and.
And so on and so forth at theage of nine and ten and whatnot,
but so I knew cutting units alittle bit, but not, not to the
level of a golf course, youknow, But, so I, I punched and
got things up and going and, andas.

(04:00):
As time passed, I was nowoperating a Worthington tractor
pulling gang mowers and, andlearning irrigation.
And back then it wasn'tautomatic irrigation.
It was all, you know, kind ofquick, stick it in the ground
and And the flippers on the, onthe large sprinklers and
whatnot.
So that's how I kind of got intothe business way back when.

(04:23):
And I had some really good, goodmentors along the way.

Did you do you like to play golf or anything

Jim Nedin (04:31):
used to play, I used to play golf quite a bit.
But as life gets in the wayagain with two hips replaced and
bad knees, I need a shoulderreplacement.
I've had two artificial discs.
It you know, put in my back, soI haven't played golf in
probably seven or eight years,but I, when I was a
superintendent, and so it led meinto becoming a superintendent I

(04:55):
used to play golf probably two,three times a week in the
evenings and so on.
So I really enjoyed it.
Never was really great at it,but, but I enjoyed it, you know,
just enjoyed being out.
So, so that's how I kind of gotinto the business through
affiliations, my father'saffiliations and so, so on and
so forth.
And, and you know, headed downthat path and never really

(05:18):
thought I would be doing that.
And as, as time went on, I got adegree in engineering and a
degree in business.
Never really got a degree inturf.
However, I, I did teach at someof the turf universities at Penn
State and, and Del High and soon, for short periods of time.

(05:39):
But I was always, always very,very interested in turf and, and
always, you know, went, pennState's you know, field days and
different things like that.
And, you know, became asuperintendent School of Hard
Knocks, if you will.

Yeah.
I understand that.
That's how I became a mechanicat a golf course was Hard
Knocks.
And I mean, I did have a goodmentor along the way, but yeah,
I learned a lot by trial anderror.

Jim Nedin (06:07):
Sure.
We all

I think, yeah, I think a lot of us learn that
way.
What kind of grinder were youusing when you were nine, ten
years old?

Jim Nedin (06:17):
Oh, my gosh.
We're using a a hook grinder.
And I don't even know if you'refamiliar with that.
It was it was called it was anSIP hook grinder.
And so SIP, you know, that, thatname goes way back.
And that was Simplex, Ideal, andPeerless.
And Simplex made the laughingmachine Ideal, made the bed

(06:38):
knife grinder, and Peerless madethe real grinder.
So that's where that name, youknow, kind of all formed, came
together with those three, threecompanies.
But so I was using a hookgrinder.
So the way a hook grinderoperated was that you ground the
bed knife, And then youreinstalled it on the cutting

(06:58):
unit.
And you left a little gapbetween the reel and the bed
knife itself.
About maybe an eighth of aninch.
And so, a hook would gounderneath the bed knife.
And then you also had a a guidethat went against the reel
blade.
And so, it was spring loaded, soit, the hook was spring loaded

(07:22):
against the bedknife.
So the cutting unit would go inupside down.
Let's put it that way.
Okay, so the, the, the head withthe hook on was pulling up on
the bedknife and the guide washolding the blade in position so
however the bedknife was groundThe real blade followed its
exact same likeness.

(07:43):
So, it, you, you hooked it in,you pulled it across, it popped
out, you went back, you hookedit in, you came across.
And so I had, I had somemistrials, I guess you could
say, whenever I was younger.
The very first mower I groundfirst of all, this gentleman,
his name was Felix Palmieri, andhe was an immigrant from Italy,

(08:06):
and he he owned a lawnmowershop.
And he would chase me aroundwith a broom because I broke
more things than I fixed, youknow.
But, so this customer brings inthis little lawn mower, little
push reel type mower.
An American or whatever thebrand name was.
But he said it needed sharpened.
So Felix says, dear, you know,I've showed you, go ahead and

(08:29):
sharpen the mower.
And I'll show you how to hook upthe The real grinder.
He showed me how to grind bedknives.
So, he came over and showed mehow to hook up the mower in the
real grinder.
So I ground it, and he says,whatever you do, make sure the
blades don't turn blue.
Whatever you do, you know.
So I'm grinding, I'm seeingblue, I'm like, oh, this is not

(08:51):
good, you know.
So, at any rate, I ground themower, and I put it back
together.
And the doggone thing, I'mpushing it, and it's going
cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck,across the floor.
And I, I don't know what's wrongwith this thing.
So Felix says to me, Did you putsoap on the blades?
I look at him and say, Soap?
He goes, Yeah, go in thebathroom and get a bar of soap

(09:13):
and put soap on the blades.
You need to lubricate theblades.
I'm like, Okay.
So I put soap on the blades andpush it.
It seemed a little bit better.
So anyways, he calls a guy.
Guy comes and picks up themower.
And the guy comes back inprobably about an hour, says, I
can't even push this thing.
And I asked him, did you putsoap on the blades?

(09:34):
And the guy looks at me crosseyed and says, what?
I've owned this mower for years.
What are you talking about soap?
And I got to put soap on theblades, lubricate it.
So he says, no, I'm not going todo that.
I'm, I'm, I'm not going to dothat.
You know, so anyways, he dropsit back off.
Felix says, sharpen it again.
I go and sharpen it again.
I'm watching to make sure theblades aren't turning blue and
all that good stuff.

(09:55):
Put it back together.
Seemed like it was a little bitbetter.
Put soap on the blades.
Called the guy.
And he comes and picks it up.
He's pushing it and says, eh,it's a little better.
And about an hour later Or maybethe next day, I don't recall.
He brings it back and Felixsays, I'm going to help you with

(10:16):
this.
Take it apart.
Take it apart.
Here the reel bearings wereshot.
I mean, that reel was moving upand down probably a good eighth
of an inch up and down.
So we put new reel bearings in,re sharpened it, and everything
was good.
So, I mean, that's reallylearned by trial and error,
right?
You

Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's crazy.

Jim Nedin (10:36):
stuff.

Yeah.
You can't make that up.
I don't

Jim Nedin (10:40):
No, no.

That's

Jim Nedin (10:42):
Lots of lots of stories in, in all my life doing
this, you know?
Yeah.

Oh, I'm sure.
Yes.
And we got an hour.
Hour and a half.
So, we can get in as manystories as you want cuz I love
em.
I mean, I do.
I like hearing the stories.
I mean, you know, it's fun

Jim Nedin (10:58):
I've always enjoyed you know presenting to your
association.
That's, that's always been atreat,

Oh, yeah.
Yeah.

Jim Nedin (11:08):
Yeah.

Yeah.
Yeah.
How many years have youpresented at the National
Association?

Jim Nedin (11:15):
Oh my goodness.
I think I started in probably82.

Wow.
Okay.

Jim Nedin (11:23):
I mean, back then it was more sprayers, to be quite
honest with you.
Back in 1982 I was contacted bythe GCSAA.
There was a gentleman by thename of Alan Hayes that worked
for the GCSAA.
And he was putting together aCertification program for spray

(11:44):
technicians, and I was known inthe Western Pennsylvania area
for conducting seminars andworking with Department of
Agriculture and so on and soforth to, to, to train spray
applicators.
And so I was contacted by AlanHayes and he said, Hey, would

(12:06):
you like to partner with me?
To to train, you know, sprayapplicators.
And so he sent me what he wasworking on and we worked on
together then to finalize theprogram.
But I took basically the easternhalf of the country and he took
the western half of the country.

(12:27):
And we did chapter meetings backthen, and we would, you know,
fly in and spend a day, and youknow, go over all the
calculations and calibrationsand different things like that,
and then actually do it, youknow, do it hands on on the
sprayer and then you know,recertify the technician.

(12:51):
So we did that for a number ofyears.
So that started back in 1982.

So was that like a one day

Jim Nedin (12:58):
Yeah, like one, one day.
Right.
Yep.
So one long day.
Exactly.

yeah, long day.
Yeah.
no,

Jim Nedin (13:05):
And then, and then I got involved with them doing
like small engine.
Repair and so on and so forthand cutting units as well.
So I would just take an arsenalof stuff with me and pallets of
cutting units and engines halftorn down and whatever.
So we got into a whole lot ofthat hands on kind of stuff.

(13:26):
And it kind of, you know, wasmore about the technician at
that point in time and kind ofgetting away from the spray
application.
So it was more.
More of the mechanics of howthings worked.

Yeah, who were you working for at that time?

Jim Nedin (13:42):
I was working for a distributor in Pittsburgh called
E.
H.
Griffith.
It was a Toro distributor.
So I spent 22 years there astheir service manager.
And so it came out of, frombeing a superintendent.
And I joined that team under alittle bit of false pretenses

(14:03):
actually.
Back then there wasn't any typeof I mean, there wasn't the
internet, there wasn't cellphones, anything like that,
right?
So I was I was a superintendentin the eastern Pennsylvania and
my wife didn't like it out inthe country so much.
More

Oh, okay.

Jim Nedin (14:22):
So always pestering me to get back into the city but
I loved what I was doing.
And so a salesman, who actuallyis one of my great mentors named
Merrill Smith from E.
H.
Griffith would call on me.
And we would get to talking andhe would say, You know, hey, the

(14:43):
service manager is going toretire from EH Griffith at some
point, you might want toconsider that.
And I'm like, well, why would Iwant to do that?
I'm a superintendent.
He says, well, you know, I know,you know, you're working on a
mechanical engineering degree.
I know you have a businessdegree, and all these different
things.
So he kept, you know, after meabout that.
So I applied for the job.

(15:04):
And first I made the mistake oftelling my wife.
And she says, you're going totake that job.
And I said, I haven't evenapplied for it.
I don't even know if, you know,I'm eligible.
But at any rate, I took the job.
But in my mind, I thought, if Iget back into Pittsburgh area,
working at a distributorship, Ican then connect with

(15:24):
superintendents and understandwhat's going on in that market
and then I can find asuperintendent's job.

Yeah.
Yeah.

Jim Nedin (15:31):
however, 22 years later, I was still in the same
seat.
But I, I enjoyed it.
So I started to do some videos.
The distributor that I workedfor also was a Panasonic
distributor.
So they had you know, the cam,the camcorders and all those
things.

(15:52):
So we started to do in housetraining for customers on, on
video, you know, how to.
How to change a throttle cableon a greensmaller, how to change
a steering cable.
I don't know if you remember thegood old greensmallers that had
the steering cables down throughthe tubes and arm and all those
kind of things.
So, we were doing those kind ofthings and like when a customer

(16:14):
would call and be perplexed orwhatever, you know, just send
them, send them a VCR.
Send them a tape.

Wow.
Okay.

Jim Nedin (16:22):
yeah.
So

I mean, y'all were way ahead of your time

Jim Nedin (16:26):
I guess,

you know.

Jim Nedin (16:28):
So, Rich Smith at Toro, he was the training
manager at Toro.
I would go to their, you know,seminars every year and so on
and so forth.
And we got to talking about thatand he's like, Wow, would you
want to come up and start to dosome videos for us, some
training videos?
So, well, let me see if that,that could work through the

(16:48):
distributorship.
And of course it could work.
So, I did that.
I, you know, visited a fewtimes.
Now all of a sudden, you know,I'm going to be hired.
I'm going to be farmed out fromthe distributor land to Toro.
As far as a trainer and a fieldoperations manager.
I was the first field operationsmanager that Toro hired.

(17:11):
And that was in the mid 90s.
Now, kind of fast forward here alittle bit.
But So my position was that togo out and help customers with
product, help distributors,train distributors, train
customers, and also there was abusiness element to that, too,
to help our distributors servicedepartments become more diverse.

(17:35):
Business like as far as nowtoday they have what they call
SRTs, which are standard repairtimes which automotive it came
from automotive so that if youwere a customer for distributor
in Colorado, let's say, and ittook an hour to do something and

(17:56):
they charged you for an hour.
Right.
And now you, you as asuperintendent moved to another
part of the country and you wentto a tour distributor and the
same job they're charging youthree hours to do.
Right.
So the standard repair timesays, no, this is what it takes.

(18:16):
And this is what you need tocharge.
If you, it's taking you threehours to do an hour job, you
need to be better trained, youneed to have better tools, you
need to have a betterenvironment, whatever it might
be to get yourself up to thatstandard.
So that's, so Alturadistributors utilize SRTs now,

(18:37):
as far as the standard repairtimes.
So it's fair for the customerthen, you know what I

Yeah.
Yeah.

Jim Nedin (18:43):
And it helps the distributor improve because then
they will achieve, you know,better marks, if, if you will,
by doing, doing a better joband, you know, be trained better
so there's less comebacks and soon and so forth.
So I got into the businesselement as well.

(19:04):
So I did a lot of work with Toroservice business.

Are they still doing that with distributors?

Jim Nedin (19:13):
I am.
I work with one distributor.
I had three, four distributorsthat I had in my own business.
So I I'm a, still a vendorcontractor of Toro, meaning
that, you know, they, they can,they can hire me to do things.
And sometimes they do.

(19:33):
And I was a consultant for threeToro distributorships from 2003
to 2010, somewhere in there.
And so now I have, I have onethat's in the northeastern part
of the U.
S.
But I, I have a, an annualcontract.
So I do training with thosefolks ride along with the sales

(19:54):
guys, do business servicebusiness with those folks so in
2003, I started my ownconsulting business.
With the blessing of, of Toroand it happened to be with three
Toro distributors.
Now, with that, with thosecontracts, if you will, I still

(20:15):
had the option of doing my ownthing with private golf courses.
So I still work with privategolf courses you know,
typically, you know, I'll have ahalf a dozen golf courses that
I'll visit every year in thesummer, you know, for a day or
two.
That sort of thing and just kindof brush up on things and help

(20:38):
if there's a new technician onboard, you know, maybe I'll
spend more time, a few moredays, those kind of things.
So I do still travel quite abit.
I was in Victoria and Vancouver,Canada for several trips this
past summer and, I was inVictoria for their annual
conference just in December, andthen I was there last December

(21:01):
as well.
So I, I still, you know, the ageof 72, I still, still get
around.

No, that's good.
That's awesome.
That's good stuff and I'm sureit's rewarding getting to Help
other individuals out.

Jim Nedin (21:17):
well, you know, there's, there's a lot of
younger technicians in themarketplace today.
And I'm, I'm, I'm happy andprivileged to.
To, to be able to help them, youknow, when I get a call from the
superintendent and that I don'teven know and say, and he says,

(21:39):
you know, I, I, you know, heardyou were training these
technicians at this associationor whatever the case might be
would you be interested inwherever I might be coming down
to Florida or, or, you know,California or wherever to, to
spend a few days you know, And,you know, if it fits my schedule

(22:01):
and I'm up to it, absolutely.
So.

Yeah, no, that's awesome.
Yeah.
A lot of fun for sure.
What's your favorite tool?
You got a favorite tool.

Jim Nedin (22:13):
My favorite tool, I, I think there's a couple of
them.
One, one is a depth gauge, aVermeer caliper, if you know
what that is, a digital Vermeercaliper.
And the other is a torquewrench.

Oh, okay.

Jim Nedin (22:29):
because it, you know, and I, and I really drive this
home when in my training, likewhen a hands on portion, like a
lot of times I'll do like a dayformal classroom, and then the
next day will be all hands onat, in shop.
You know, make sure that theyhave cutting units or sprayers
or aerators or whatever the casemight be to to really get, get

(22:52):
our hands dirty, if you But Iand people are always kind of
amazed at me because I, I pullthese torque specs out of the
top, off the top of my head, youknow, but.
You know, it's just, I've beendoing it so long.
It's kind of like, everythinghas a torque spec.
I mean, when you build or designor manufacture something, it has
a torque spec.

(23:12):
And so, you know, a bed knifescrew at 220 inch pounds is, is,
that's torque for a specificreason.
Or, you know, 100 inch pounds ifit's John Deere or Jacobson.
It's torque for a specificreason.
And so, if you're doing it Sixburps on your air gun.

(23:33):
I have no idea what that is.
Or you're still using the hammerand the chisel to, or hammer and
the center punch

Uhhuh.
Yep.

Jim Nedin (23:41):
the bed knife screw up.
I have no idea what that is.
But, you know, the bed knivesare so thin today that, that
you've got to be pretty accurateand consistent with the torquing
of those screws.
So that you don't wind upcausing some distress to the bed
knife in some way that, that youdidn't expect.
You know, so you know, wheneveryou start to have noises and

(24:05):
different things like thatcoming off of the reel and the
bed knife, whenever they're,they're intersecting, then you
get the harmonics, and harmonicscauses vibration, vibration
sometimes causes expansion, and,and now you have a rifled reel
or a bed knife.
So that's why I believe intorquing you know, everything
has a torque spec.

(24:25):
So

Okay.
Yeah.
Nothing wrong with that.

Jim Nedin (24:28):
that's why it's, that's my favorite tool, you
know inch pound, foot pound.
The depth gauge is my favoritetool because it's a simple, easy
way to measure the diameter of areel, So, I mean, if you think
about it let's say a five inchreel, now Toro makes their reels
that 5 inches and 60thousandths.

(24:48):
A little bit over, right?
But, if you take a 5 inch reel,to, to understand the diameter
of that reel, you have to knowthe axle size, right?
The shaft size.
So Toro, over the years, hasmade well, they made four
different shaft sizes over theyears.
They made a, Typically a 1 18inch shaft.

(25:11):
That was a solid shaft on thegreens mowers.
And then they made a 1 14 inchshaft.
That was very short lived.
That was like with 70 inch prosand 84 pros.
Probably haven't even heard ofthose.
But then they made the 1 38shaft.
Which was a hollow shaft andtoday they make a 1 5 16th inch

(25:33):
shaft.
That's the one that's machinedon the ends

Okay.

Jim Nedin (25:37):
The last the last quadrant is machined.
So that's one in 5 16 So if youif you do the decimal, you know,
that'll take

I'm writing this down,

Jim Nedin (25:48):
five divided into sixteen I'll give you the metric
or the decibel, right?
So so John Deere uses a 1 inchshaft and Jacobson uses a 15 16,
15 16 inch shaft, right?
15 16.

Oh, I didn't know that

Jim Nedin (26:05):
So,

getting all kind of specs here.

Jim Nedin (26:07):
yeah, if you know the shaft sizes, then you, you just
take your depth gauge and go, gofrom the tip of the blade down
to the shaft.
Multiply that by two, add theshaft back in, gives you the
size of the, of the reel.
And also to, to measure atapered reel very quickly and
easily, you do that same thing.
I'll, I'll, I'll drop the, thedigital depth gauge in zero dot

(26:32):
whenever it touches on theshaft, and then go over to the
other side and see if it'spositive or not, negative,
right?
So that'll tell you what waythat, that reel is tapered.
So.

okay.
Yeah.

Jim Nedin (26:46):
Yeah, so it's just simple and easy.
You can do it, you know, youdon't have to take anything
apart.
Pretty much quick, done, anddirty.
So I've used that for years andyears and years.
You know, just, just the KISSprinciple, right?
Keep it simple.

keep it simple.
So does Toro start out with aninch and three eighths shaft and
then they machine it down to theinch and five sixteenths to get
their datum?

Jim Nedin (27:12):
It's machined on the ends.
Yeah, it's just, it's still,it's still the the hollow shaft.
The deep groove on the left handside stands for left hand
internal threads.
And no groove on the other sidestands for right hand internal
threads.
So, whenever you're putting a afixture or an attachment on I

(27:32):
always point out that that deepgroove means it's left handed
thread internally.

Oh, okay.
Yeah, that's.

Jim Nedin (27:40):
they went to the hollow shaft.
One, it lightened the reel up.
As far as the reel itself.
And two the older shafts, theoriginals were, you know, were
solid shafts, so they had tocome up with a way to, to come
up with an adapter to go on thesolid shaft outer thread to, to

(28:02):
put a, drive a belt or something

Right, right, right.

Jim Nedin (28:05):
yeah, for, you know, groomers or, or rear roller
brushes, those kind of things,

Okay.
Yeah.
No, that's yeah, that makes alot of sense.
Yeah I'd seen the groove on oneside and not on the other, but I
had no idea Why they were doingthat.
Yeah, Okay.
Yeah.
Very cool.
Yeah.
What other kind of trade secretsthat you can let out of the bag
here

Jim Nedin (28:31):
Well

that?
I mean, that's.
And I'm sure it's not a tradesecret.
It looks like that's somethingthat they would let end users
know.

Jim Nedin (28:42):
Right, right.
Well, I mean, I think anythinglike that you can Probably find
somewhere in the archives orsomewhere, you know, if you
search it out enough, but sinceI've been so intimately involved
with Toro, I know that you hadJerry Gohmann on, I think it was
maybe your last time.
Very dear friend of mine.
Great

Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Back in September or his episodereleased in September.
Yeah.
He was great.
I love

Jim Nedin (29:08):
Yeah.
He's just always so casual andjust so bright, you know so I've
always enjoyed working withJerry.
But, you know, there's, there's,there's just so many things
that, that I was, I listenedintently to his, his podcast
with you.
And you know, he's, he's alwaysso smooth, you know, and always

(29:29):
so accurate.
It yeah, you know, we startedtalking about like different bed
knives and different things likethat.
That always find it reallyinteresting.
You know, so.
Jacobson, they make one extendedbed knife.
It's 80 thousandths 80thousandths longer, if you will

(29:51):
the cutting edge is to thecenter line.
And John Deere makes two.
They make one at 40 and one at80.
So and Toro only makes one.
And, and that's that's 200thousandths.
So if we look at the, the, the.
That in degrees Jacobson hasone, which is two degrees, which

(30:16):
is 80 thousandths.
John Deere has two.
Which is 2 degrees and 4degrees, and then Toro makes
only 1, 5 degrees.
So people always kind of say,well, why does Toro only make 1?
Well, the Attitude spacers likeAttitude, but the, the spacers
that change the behind thecenter line in the back on the

(30:39):
DPA cutting units are equal to 2and a half degrees.
So every time you insert aspacer, it either increases or
decreases The behind the centerline by two and a half degrees.
So by using one bed knife atfive degrees, and then using a
complementary number of spacers,you can get there by going two

(31:05):
and a half degrees at a clip.
You know what I'm saying?

Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.

Jim Nedin (31:10):
So the spacers are two and a half, the bed knife's
five.
So,

Very.
Yeah.
And so I'm sure this is out heresomewhere, but where could an
individual find thisinformation?

Jim Nedin (31:27):
I mean, it, it certainly should be available in
a manual.
And

It should be, but I don't,

Jim Nedin (31:33):
operator's manual.

I've looked and looked, and I've not been
successful at finding this

Jim Nedin (31:40):
you know me being so close to engineering all the
time and working withengineering and having some
great guys like Jerry Goldmanand so on, Scott Kaufman, I
think Jerry mentioned ScottCoffin.
Scott Coffin is a designer of,of cutting units.
Really, really good guy.
But also, you know, since I'mindependent, I know John Deere

(32:00):
and I know Jacobson as well.
I know some of those engineersand so on and But, you know,
when I do get cut, I still bleedred.
So, but, that's me.
But my objective has always beenwhen working with private golf
courses, my objective is to helpyou do the best that you can
with what you've got.
I don't care

Oh, for

Jim Nedin (32:20):
red,

Right,

Jim Nedin (32:21):
purple, white, whatever.
It doesn't matter.
You know, it's to help you dothe best.
So, so having said that, it'salways been good to be
connected.
With the industry and the peoplethat work within the industry,
you know, whether Aside thatkind of thing.

Right, right, right.

Jim Nedin (32:39):
So but having said that I've done a lot of
calculations and measurements onmy own over the years, of course
because I was a field guy,right?
So You know just always kind ofKid the guys in experimental and
so forth.
They would be doing a lot ofthings on CAD and so forth and,

(32:59):
and have them look like thecutting units cutting grass and
so on.
I said, that's a nice cartoon.
You got to come with me, youknow.
And so, the real world,

Huh.

Jim Nedin (33:09):
And, and, and they would, they would, you know, I
had a lot of times I hadEngineers come, come with me on
the road and then we do somediscovery and so on.
But so the things that you'reasking me they should be
available and maybe they're deepwithin the archives of
somewhere.
But those spacers, yeah, that's,that's half of what the extended

(33:32):
bedknife is.
So the extended bedknifeactually came about from
European market, over in theEuropean market where Where
greens are very, very like inEngland where it's always humid
or not humid, but moist and,and, you know, kind of damp a
lot of gouging and so on and soforth.

(33:52):
So that, that five degreeextended bed knife actually
started over there and it kindof migrated, migrated into The,
you know, the use over in the U.
S.
and whenever this flex cuttingunit came out, we started to
have issues with the flexes asfar as them being too aggressive
and gouging and so on.

(34:14):
So

Hold up on that.
On the first flex, did it havethe aggressive bed bar?
Before it was painted

Jim Nedin (34:24):
so here's, here's how that, here's how that, here's,
you know, the aggressive bed baris it's probably still out
there.
I think it's still being sold,but it's going to be obsoleted.
Because of the spacers.
So the aggressive bed bar thestandard bed bar, let's see,
There was only one bed bar, soit was a standard bed bar,

(34:46):
right?

Okay.

Jim Nedin (34:49):
And, so, the, the, in 2006 came out with an aggressive
bed bar, and it was paintedblack.
And the black bed bar had achamfer in the left ear of, of
the of the adjuster, so that youknew that it was an aggressive
bed bar.

(35:09):
The aggressive bed bar isexactly, exactly 100
thousandths, the, the bed knifescrews are pulled back 100
thousandths further back thanthe standard bed bar.
So that's two and a halfdegrees.

(35:29):
So the spacers do exactly thesame thing as putting an
exgressive bed bar on andreadjusting the spacers to X,
right?
Or using an extended bed knifeand then putting spacers in.
So you can get there.
In a much simpler fashion, amuch less expensive fashion
because of next aggressive bedbars, probably 300, 400

Yeah.

Jim Nedin (35:53):
Is 2025, whatever the case might

Yeah.

Jim Nedin (35:56):
And so you can put an extended bed knife on and then
change it up with the spacerswhich, you know, takes that 5
degrees and cuts it in half.
So we find many differentpurposes but we used to use the,
what we used to do is use theaggressive bed bar with an
extended bed knife.
So a cutting unit basically Allcutting units, Greensmart

(36:20):
cutting units, out of thefactory, they use a benchmark of
125, 000th height of cut.
So, their measurements were thatbed knife cutting edge is, your
aggression fork, where thatmeasures that.
So the bottom of the bed knifemay or may not equal where that

(36:41):
cutting unit edge is.
Okay,

Okay.

Jim Nedin (36:45):
like if I take a John Deere, and I set it up to four
and a half degrees.
I will not get a four and a halfdegrees differential from the
bottom of the bend knife to theroller plane.
In other words, if I put, if Iput the digital protractor on
the bottom of the bend knife anddon't move the cutting unit, and

(37:07):
now take it and take ameasurement and then put it on
the roller plane and take thatmeasurement, basically what
you're doing with youraggressive fork, right?
So, but we're using the bottomof the bend knife.
So I'll get a different, I'llget a different measurement.
That four and a half degreesbehind the center line may

(37:29):
measure eight degrees on thebottom of the bed knife.
So I, so that's null and void.
However, Toro's products withtheir DPA cutting units I used
the aggression fork when I wasin Victoria, Canada.

Okay.

Jim Nedin (37:44):
And I used it on a Toro Greensmar.
And so whenever we take 125thousandths as a benchmark,
basically, if I'm using a microGreensmar bed knife, and I draw
it up to where it's going tomake light contact with a new
reel, Right?

(38:06):
And I go across the rollerplane, don't move the cutting
unit, and take a measurementwith the digital protractor.
And then drop that digitalprotractor, the zero dot, drop
it then on the bottom of thebedknife.
I will yield somewhere around,it'll be four and a half

(38:26):
degrees.

Yep.

Jim Nedin (38:29):
And that's standard.
However, the bottom of thatbedknife Equals the distance
behind the center line.
That, that holds true.
So whenever I used youraggression fork, I did that same
thing.
And it was probably within, Ithink it was like 4.

(38:55):
65.
And when I did it across the bedknife, it was like 4.
6.
So it Extremely close.
It was not even worth talkingabout.

Huh.

Jim Nedin (39:05):
And so.
What we always say is, whenyou're going to do that, if you
do that with the Toro, you wantto use a new, new bedknife.
Because as the bedknife wears,it's going to change its angle
from the bottom.
The aggressiveness is not goingto change.
But the bottom of the bedknifeis going to arc a little
differently as it's needing totouch the reel.

(39:27):
So Whenever you are going to usethat as a measurement.
So that that's something thatwe've kind of touted for years.
The bottom of the bed knife isequal to the distance behind the
center line using a new bedknife.
So with a micro, so I was, I wasvery excited to see that, that

(39:48):
the numbers that I drew up fromthe aggression fork and the Toro
principle were just, theyweren't even worth talking
about.
They were so close.

no, that is awesome.
Yeah.
Yeah, So cool.
And I do think what,

Jim Nedin (40:03):
different manufacturers, will not, that
cannot be applied

right,

Jim Nedin (40:08):
bottom of the bed.
I'm giving you the accuratemeasurement from the distance
behind the center

Yeah.
Yeah.
And then I think the otherconfusing thing that people, a
lot of people don't understandis, you know, I think a lot of
us, including me were taughtthat you measure your attitude.

(40:34):
Just like we were talking about.
So, your base plane on therollers being zero and measure
the angle of the bed knife andthat's our attitude and if that
gets more aggressive, our cut ismore aggressive and if it gets
less aggressive, our cuts lessaggressive and that's not always

(40:55):
true and I think it's reallymisleading too when you add an
extended bed knife.
Because just for instance, onthe Toro with a standard bed bar
and you're four and a halfdegrees behind center line, but
you put on the extended knifeand you're actually in front of

(41:15):
center by a little bit, but yourattitude doesn't change that
much.

Jim Nedin (41:20):
right.
The base, the bottom of the bedknife stays the same.
Okay, but you're, so with theToro bed knife, they use the
exact same bed knife, whetherit's extended or standard.
They just push the holes back inthe bed knife by two hundred
thousands.
It's like 191, 000, so I alwayssay 200, just keep it simple.

(41:44):
But so that's 5 degrees.
So we're pushing now the bedknife ahead by 5 degrees.
So that, that kind of creates acan of worms how you, how you
grind that bed knife as well.
Because you can't use thestandard.
Early days, and I still usethis, the front of the bent

(42:05):
knife is 15, the top of the bentknife is 5.
Just keep it simple.
I know that they give you thismatrix, it's like 14 plus 2
minus 3, whatever.
It's like, forget about it.
15 in the front.
And it's five on the top.
However, when you use anextended bed knife, because now
you pushed the cutting edgeahead, but you didn't move the

(42:25):
circle on the reel, you now needto make that steeper.
So that's between seven and ninedegrees.
Toro says seven I mean a littlebit heavier.
Because if you do grind that atfive degrees, the top of that
bed knife, it will cut, it willcut paper.
or grass for a day or two, butnow the reel hones itself into

(42:49):
the center of the top landrather than contacting the, the
point, if you will, or the, youknow, the cutting edge.
So that's why you have to grindthat a little bit steeper.
So there's, you know, as youkind of chase, chase that bed
knife back and forth, those kindof things.
What we do find is if wheneveryou have an aggressive bed

(43:11):
knife.
It tends to gouge a little bitmore because as the Rio is
pulling up more aggressively onthe grass, the opposite reaction
is it pulls the cutting unitdown.
So whenever you're getting intosofter turf wet turf, those kind
of things where you can get somegouging the cutting unit on set

(43:32):
down, if it's a triplex orsomebody, on a walker is
dropping a cutting unit prettyabruptly.
It kind of bites and then aftera foot or so it kind of relieves
itself and you don't see that,but you get that initial bite
because it's pulling the cuttingunit down because you're pulling
up on so much grass.
And so, that's where theextended bed knife came, came

(43:54):
about as far as pushing thatcutting edge closer to the
bottom of the reel.
So for instance, if you, if youtake If you take a DPA cutting
unit, let's say today, and youtake it out of the box, and you
measure it, and it says four anda half, okay, degrees, and you

(44:17):
find that whenever you drop thatcutting unit in turf, whatever
your species is, or however firmyour turf is, or not firm, and
you get a gouge.
Our recommendation is, and italways has been, put an extended
bed knife on, but then insertOne spacer.

(44:39):
So now we took that from fourand a half and we shoved it down
to negative half, And now we puta spacer and it pulled it right
back to like two.

Ah,

Jim Nedin (44:52):
darn near split the

Yeah.

Jim Nedin (44:56):
of that.

Yeah.

Jim Nedin (44:58):
pretty much voila, the, the, the gouging is gone,
right?

yeah.
Yeah, No, that is awesome.
And I.
really wish, you know, this waspublished everywhere.
You know, and all the operatorsmanuals, this is really good
stuff.
And thank you so much forsharing it.

Jim Nedin (45:21):
well, that's

Yeah, this is, Yeah really good.
I do.
I want to tell a quick storybecause that made me think of
it.
A friend of mine, he's Toro andtriplex and greens and standard,
you know, setups of four and ahalf degrees behind or whatever.
And he got, and I don't rememberexactly if he got it from the

(45:43):
distributor or not.
He ended up with a new mower andit had the spacers on the back.
And he also, this club collectsa clipping volume and this was
their first mow of the season.
So in the spring on bent grass,and they got almost double the

(46:07):
amount of clippings with thespacers added.
And this was a mistake.
They didn't mean to do that.
He just didn't, you know, setthem the same height.
They're both at one 40 orwhatever it was.
They send them out and they'relike, Hey, why is this smaller
getting almost twice the amountof clippings?
And that's what it was.

(46:29):
Yeah.
I just thought it was, yeah,super

Jim Nedin (46:32):
aggressive.
So it's

Yeah.
Cause it, Yeah, it was moreaggressive.
It was getting more clippingsand

Jim Nedin (46:38):
right, You know that as we kind of look at that and
the attitude changes the, the,the circle of the real or the
real itself goes deeper into theprofile and starts to cut on an
upward sweep.
And that's where that's where ittends to.
Really pulling a lot more grassor Cut a little bit lower

(46:59):
because it's really pullingitself down.
It's not, it's not as smooth onthe turf.
It starts to cut the grass, thegrass blade on a bias rather
than more blunt.
Because it's pulling it into thebed knife on an upward sweep
rather than kind of cutting itsquare.
So it's, it and that's where youget into the different shadings

(47:20):
of sunlight and so on and soforth that can really affect the
grass.
That's what we used to get intoif you take a full size reel
versus a worn reel that you'llget more grass in the basket
with a full size reel than aworn reel, even though they're
set at the same height of cut.
It's because that reel is whatwe call blade path.

(47:42):
It has its ability to reach outa lot further and start to play
or, process that uncut grass.
So it starts to work on thatgrass to stand as much of it up
as possible.
And it does a better job than areel that's worn because it
can't reach out as far becauseit's a smaller diameter.
The radius is, is tighter,right?

(48:05):
So, but you're going at the samerate of speed if it's triplex.
So another quick story is kindof funny.
Back in the day Whenever I was,working at the distributorship
and a customer would send in acutting unit that maybe had a
broken reel blade or somethingand didn't have time to repair
it or whatever.
We'd always measure the reelsize immediately before we'd do

(48:28):
anything else.
And we'd call the customer andsay, hey, this reel is darn near
shot, came off your triplex.
We put a new reel in it, it'sgonna cut different.
It's just because, one, itweighs more.
Right?
It weighs more.
Like, for instance, you take an8 bladed reel compared to an 11
bladed reel compared to a 14bladed reel.

(48:50):
There's about a 3 pounddifference between an 8 and an
11 and a 3 pound differencebetween an 11 and a 14.
So, you know, you have to kindof manage all that when you're
adjusting heights and so on andso forth to understand that.
But we say it's going to cutdifferent because it's going to
be a larger diameter reel.
And just so you know.

(49:11):
And I actually had a techniciansay to me, Can you take that new
reel and grind her down to thesize of that worn reel?
And I was like, oh my god, yougotta be kidding me.
But I said, look, it'sSeptember, you know, deal with
it.
And in the wintertime you canchange your reels out or we can
help you out with that, howeveryou want to do that.

(49:33):
But yeah, I mean it, you know,back in the days when we used
sticks and stones to fix thingswe didn't.
really think about that.
But I've always been kind ofcurious about things.
My father, you know, again,being a mechanical engineer and
having a full blown shop withmilling machines and lathes and
all kind of He always taught me,you know, to really, really

(49:57):
research and process, take astep back.
He'd always say, you know, ifyou're troubled about something,
you go to bed at night.
Wake up the next morning, you'redriving to work or whatever, you
go, I ain't got the answer tothat.
And he said, the reason for thatis your mind never sleeps.
Your mind is always processing.
It's always working.
So, and, and that's happened tome so many times over the years.

(50:20):
You know, I'd be, go to bedperplexed about something and
wake up in the morning and go,Wow, I, I bet if I try that,
that's going to take care of it.
And a lot of times it does, youknow.
And I'm sure that's happened toyou and

Oh Yeah.
.Yeah.
Sometimes in the middle of thenight.
Wake up and say, why didn't Ithink of that yesterday?

Jim Nedin (50:38):
I know.
Yeah,

Whatever it is.
No, that is, that's awesome.

Jim Nedin (50:42):
Yeah.

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Let's get back to the episode.
That's good.
So I want to stay on this topic.
And I remember this was quitesome time ago and it's one of

(51:27):
your slides and yourpresentation about a real
becoming more aggressive when itwears.
So when the real diameter getssmaller, that it actually gets
more aggressive.

Jim Nedin (51:41):
that that it all depends on what type of real it
is.
So, and it all depends on themanufacturer of the real.
All right.
So the standard cutting unitthat adjusts from the front.
Whenever the reel wears, the bedknife becomes more aggressive.

(52:04):
Now, how does that happen?
Well, when you take a 5 inchreel, brand new, you adjust it
up to its cut paper or whateveryour, whatever your measurement
is for, for quality of cut, andyou have it set, let's say, at
125 thousandths, an eighth of aninch.
The reel, when it's totallyshot, is four and a half inches.

(52:27):
So it's a quarter of an inch itcame off of the radius, right?

Yep.

Jim Nedin (52:32):
Right?
So, if you never, ever adjustedthe height, you would now be
cutting at three eighths of aninch.

Yep.

Jim Nedin (52:42):
Right?
So, as the reel wears, you'reconstantly bringing the front of
the cutting unit down.
So, as you're bringing the frontof the cutting unit down, the
cutting edge of that bed knifeis moving back further and
further and further.
Thus, therefore, it gets moreaggressive because it's, we're
working on a circle, right?

(53:03):
So further and further back.
So, what we've done a lot ofcalculations in, in field work
when I started working with Toroas a field operations manager.
Part of my detail was done inFlorida.
And it was at the Y World ofSports and the five golf courses
that they had down in Florida.

(53:24):
So, Toro did a lot of work with,with Disney and a lot of the
product was Toro product.
So they actually, we had a likea little condo down there that
we would go down and, anddifferent, different people
would be in at different times.
But I spent a lot of time downthere.
And So that's where we, westarted to really look at at

(53:47):
when reels wear, theaggressiveness, the gouging, and
so on.
Because in Bermuda, typicallythe blade is green one third of
the way down.
So whenever it gouges and so on,like 419 or whatever, you really
see it, right?
Zoys is a little different,green all the way down.
And single strand grass, likebent grass, and even though bent

(54:09):
grass is, It's a warm seasongrass, more tolerated in cooler
seasons, the climates you know,it's green all the way down to
the, to the crown.
So having said that, we startedto really, really look at the
aggressiveness of a cutting unitand, and the way things work

(54:31):
and, and wear.
So having said that, that's onthe standard cutting unit.
The way that works is it getsmore aggressive as the rail gets
smaller because you're loweringthe front on to match the height
of cut that you originally hador, or desired with a rear
height of cut, like a.
A a QA5 John Deere, they lowerin the back, right?

(54:55):
So that reel becomes lessaggressive as it wears.
So with John Deere, you havewhat they call eccentrics,
right?
They're little eccentric shoeson the bed bar that you flip.
And when you flip that, it pullsthe bed bar back half the
distance.
So it gives you another shot atusing that reel until the reel's

(55:16):
worn down to four and a halfinches.

Mhm.

Jim Nedin (55:19):
Now with the DPA cutting unit, And the DPA
cutting unit, Jerry Gohman, hasa patent on that.

Mhm.

Jim Nedin (55:28):
that never moves.
And the way that is designed is,it is the relationship where the
axis of the bed bar is and theextension of the high adjustment
arms.
that go up to, you know, thelittle clickers.
That whenever that reel startsto wear, that bed knife cutting

(55:50):
edge is actually pushed forward.
It's up and forward slightly.
But now you readjust the cuttingunit by lowering it down.
So it chases it right back towhere it was.
So that constantly is Teetertotter in a little bit forward
when she wears, and then you'relowering it back down to the
height that you, you desired.
So it, it pretty much keeps itin alignment pretty much through

(56:14):
the life of the real.
So that, that's something that,that has really proven out and,
and it works very, very well

No, it's yeah, that was incredible that they
were able to figure that out.

Jim Nedin (56:29):
Yeah.

And so since they figured that out and the behind
center distance doesn't changemuch, if any, throughout the
life of the real.
Does the real steel, the aftercut appearance look different
because

Jim Nedin (56:48):
it does.
Because of the blade path haschanged, right?
The diameter of the reel, theability for that reel to reach
out.
And gather more grass than thesmaller diameter reel.
So typically you'll get a littlelighter.
Green out of it, a littlelighter hue out of it.
So let me, let me tell you aquick story.

(57:08):
Hazeltine, I think it was theyear 2000, they had PGA there.
Jim Nichol was superintendentthere at the time.
And I showed up on a Monday andhe knew me.
And it's, it's in Minnesota, ofcourse.
And he said, you come with me.
So I went with him, took me outto number 12 green.

(57:32):
He said, and they were usingflexes, and flex 21s, right?
They're not 2120s or any of thenewer style, but these are
original models, flex 21s.
And he says to me, I don't knowwhat that is, but every pass
back and forth is light on oneside of the path of the cutting

(57:52):
unit and darker on the other.
He said, that's gotta be gone byThursday, because we go live TV,
back nine, Thursday.
So I went back to the shop.
And spoke with the equipmentmanager, and I pulled out my
Vermeer caliper, and everycutting unit, every cutting

(58:15):
unit, from the left side to theright side, the, the trailing
edge of the reel, was 40thousandths larger than the you
know, the leading edge of thereel.
Now 40 thousands.
That's diameters.
But my, my, my depth gauge wasonly reading 20 thousands, which

(58:36):
you'd, you'd kind of almostdismiss, right?
But you've gotta add that backin.
You've gotta multiply that bytwo.
So it's 40 thousands on thediameter of that reel.
So what that was causing is onthat reel itself, and it was two
different diameters.
The blade path was differentfrom the left side of that reel

(58:57):
to the right side of that reel.
Even though the height was setexactly the same, The blade path
was different.
So, the reel had more ability totake in more grass on the larger
size, side of that reel than thesmaller side of that reel.
So, and they just ground all thereels, and they ground them tip

(59:19):
to tip, tip to tip.
You know, they, they didn't havea relief grinder, just spin, tip
to

Yeah.

Jim Nedin (59:26):
And so, we went about, you know, first it was in
disbelief.
And I said, we need to truethese up.
So I used the depth gauge.
40 thousand, 20 thousandths airgap on one side of the stone.
Touched on the other side.
Brought both dowels up until itground the whole way across.

(59:46):
And then took it out and mowed.
Jim was happy.
It was a happy day.
So we had to re grind all therips.
All the cutting units.
And they were just done like theweek before.
But that's where the tip to tipcan get you into trouble.
If you're mowing at threeeighths of an inch or even a
quarter of an inch, you'llprobably never see it.
But when you're mowing at 85 or90 thousandths, or 100

(01:00:08):
thousandths.
So basically, that started medown a path of research.
I've done a lot of research inthe field over the years, and
started me down a path thatbasically if we look at a reel,
it's 20 thousandths out or moreat 100 thousandths or lower.
You will see it.

(01:00:29):
So that's kind of the rule ofthumb.
So I bring up one of my slidessuch as that, you

Trent Manning (01:00:34):
I don't, can, will you say that again?

Jim Nedin (01:00:37):
So if you're looking at a reel that is out more than
20 thousandths left to right,okay,

Yep.

Jim Nedin (01:00:46):
at 100 thousandths or lower, you will see it.
You will see a difference in thecolor of green across each path,
each pass.
left to right.
Now if it's higher, you're notgoing to notice it.
So the lower you go, the, themore sensitive things become,
right?

Right, right, right,

Jim Nedin (01:01:06):
yeah, so that's some of the research that I've done,
you know, done tons of researchand on, on a lot of different
things.
So ask away.

Yeah, no, I know.
I wish I knew all the researchyou've done.
So I would know better questionsto

Jim Nedin (01:01:23):
Oh, no, it's

you know?

Jim Nedin (01:01:25):
can stumble, stumble around here a little bit.
That's okay.

yeah.
Because I don't that's somethingSince the aggression fork, and
measuring behind centerdistance, and those things, I
mean, I've learned, I feel likeI've learned more about cutting
units in the last year than Ihave in the first 27 years of my
career.
And, I mean, it's just amazing.

Jim Nedin (01:01:49):
yeah, just one thing leads to another, you know, and
that's why I say, you know, youknow the very first thing that
you need to do with a cuttingunit is make sure that it's
cylindrical.
The real is cylindrical beforeyou do anything else.
Because, one as far as the taperon the reel is so important
whenever you're at, at microheights.

(01:02:10):
Very, very important, so ittakes the guesswork out, right?
So, we have specs.
So, you want to make sure thatthe, the reel is within spec,
which is cylindrical.
You can't, you can't, use aparallel plate, table, or roller
check, whatever you want to useto square the rollers off,
unless the reel is cylindrical.

(01:02:32):
You can't parallel a roller on atapered reel

Right,

Jim Nedin (01:02:37):
because you're going off the reel itself, right?
You're only using the bed knifeas a prop to make sure that
you're going straight acrossthat circle from left to right.
That's what the bed knife'sdoing for you.
But the diameter of the reelleft to right is so important.
reel's tapered, yeah, we cancheat and Whatever, put a shim

(01:02:58):
underneath one side of the rearroller, the fixed roller.
But, that's not really gettingyou anywhere.
Right?
You still take that cutting unitand put it on a perfectly level
surface.
After you adjust the height,it's going to rock and roll on
you.
Right?
It's going to tip one side orthe other.

What's been your experience on the DPA and it
being square?
So, if the real cylindrical isthe frame, have you seen frames
get out very often?
Yeah.

Jim Nedin (01:03:27):
often.
So there is a tolerance withthat.
It, you know, it's within twothousandths, should be within
two thousandths as far as theplow bolts, what we call plow
bolts, that fit in from theframe into the, you know, inner,
the backing plate.
So those you almost have todrive in, they're really form
fitted, so to speak.

(01:03:47):
So those should be about no morethan two thousandths out.
So whenever you now, everythingis clean and you, you take the
rear roller and you fasten it tothat frame.
That rear roller should prettymuch parallel what the axis of
the reel is doing, right?
So, so the differential is ifthe reel's coned.

(01:04:11):
So if the reel's coned.
Now Toro did come up with acouple of things that I wasn't
real keen on.
One, shim to put between theroller, the rear frame and the
roller bracket.
And they came out with aneccentric to put on one side.
In my opinion, if you have touse those things, something's

(01:04:34):
drastically wrong.
You know?
So let's find out what the rootcause is before we try to put a
band aid on something that wereally don't know.
What's going on?
Did you drop it off theworkbench?
Well, that's probably a giventhen, right?

Yeah.
Yeah.

Jim Nedin (01:04:50):
twisting.
So maybe you have to go to thatextreme, but at the same time,
you know, the cutting units areare very well fitted.
And, and I always tell folkstoo, you know, we have all these
springs and so on and so forthon the cutting units, right?
We have the little coil springin the back that that with that

(01:05:11):
big flat washer we run it downto a collapse as a spring and
back it off a half a turn.
It's not, it's not scientific.
We just do it so that, that hasthat, what that does, it stops
the bed knife from being pushedup into the reel.
Whenever the bed knife is goingover a high spot.
So if that, if that, if youdon't have that tension on that

(01:05:38):
coil spring correct, then thebed knife is going to push up
into the reel and it's going torifle.
Right?
It's going to cause too muchfriction.
If you have it too tight, I'vebeen to shops where they take an
impact and they blow that springapart.
It's kind of like, what did youthink that spring was for?

Right, right.
Yeah.

Jim Nedin (01:05:56):
what are you trying to do here?
But, you know, so we get intomore scientific things as far as
whenever we look at the littleclicks on, on the the adjuster
itself.
So that, that adjuster is seventenths of one thousandths, all
So Toro, for the last number ofyears, since about 2016, I

(01:06:20):
think, has provided a twothousandths feeler's gauge, a
two thousandths shim.
It's four inches long, about aninch wide, and is two
thousandths of an inch thick.
So, It's always been this bigquestion about what is light
contact.
You can never really achieve itsufficiently with 4 bolt cutting

(01:06:42):
units.
You know, the ones that, youknow, we had

huh.
Yeah.

Jim Nedin (01:06:45):
that you tightened up, loosened.
However, with the DPA cuttingunit, it kind of, it works like
this.
If you take that 002 fielder'sgauge and just kind of swipe it
between the reel and the bedknife, and get the same amount
of friction or, or, or drag fromleft to right side, we could
then say that we have a parallelof two thousandths across that

(01:07:08):
real embed knife.
So each click is seven tenths ofone thousandths.
So if I click it one time onleft and right, I'll still get
free spin.
Only one seven tenths.
If I click it twice, that's onepoint four thousandths.
I may have a little whisper hereand there.

(01:07:28):
Whatever.
Right, but if I click it threetimes, that's 2.
hundred thousandths tighter than2 thousandths.
That's the definition of lightcontact.

So, one tenth

Jim Nedin (01:07:44):
Yeah,

is light contact.

Jim Nedin (01:07:46):
yeah,

Yeah.

Jim Nedin (01:07:48):
Super super, you know, so it's just one little
degree.
Now if you're, that's with a 5inch reel, with a 7 inch
diameter reel, It changes a bit.
It's only two clicks.
Because the arm is so muchhigher.
If you go three clicks, you'veover tightened it.
So with the seven inch diameterreel that you use down in the

(01:08:10):
south, right?
two clicks.
So you're going to use that sametwo thousandths feelers gauge,
but you're only going to go twoclicks, not three.
Five inch diameter reel, threeclicks.
Seven inch diameter reel, twoclicks.

That's a new one too, for me.
I knew about the three clicks,but I didn't know that on the
seven inch reel.

Jim Nedin (01:08:31):
Yeah.

But yeah, I mean, that makes sense.
Cool stuff, man.
Cool.
Cool.

Jim Nedin (01:08:37):
Crazy stuff.

Yeah, it is.
And yes, it's exciting

Jim Nedin (01:08:41):
you know, we, I went into this whole, this whole
study of backlapping.
And I don't know if you believein

yeah, let's do it.
This is the next thing we needto talk about.
I love it.
You're

Jim Nedin (01:08:54):
Probably many people out there that don't believe in
backlap.
I always say, go talk to yourgrass, right?
Talk to the grass.
You know, because the grassain't happy, ain't anybody
happy.
The superintendent's blaming iton the technician right off the
bat, right?
So, but go talk to your grass.
And so I always say totechnicians, if you don't have a
prism or a high poweredmicroscope Now, I, I have a 200

(01:09:20):
powered digital microscope thatI, I've used for years.
And I hook up to my laptop andso But lately, I just use my
high definition phone.
And I always use the same amountof depth.
So I'll take a piece of 2x4 andI'll put, just lay my phone on
the 2x4 and then I'll snap apicture of the turf.

(01:09:42):
So it's always the same distanceaway from the turf at the same
power

Okay.

Jim Nedin (01:09:49):
And then you, I can transport that anywhere, right,
off my phone.
So but I used to go through thiswhole thing of hooking up my
microscope out on the green and,and with my laptop and all that.
So, but, but things get simpler.
We learn a little bit along theway.
But, when we talk about backlapping, I did this study over

(01:10:10):
in Hawaii.
I was over there for two weeksworking, and people said, Oh
yeah, I bet you were.
Well, I was.
Every day.
I was on a different island.
You know, I was on a lot ofdifferent golf courses.
And, we were looking at qualityof cut, and they, they have what
they call kukuya over there,which is very, very tough to

(01:10:31):
cut.
Very, very tough.
And So, there's cuckooia greens,and what we had were mowers that
were just sharpened, and then wehad mowers that had some hours
on them, like 2 hours, 4 hours,6 hours, 8 hours, 10 hours,
those kind of And, so we, wetook mowers just sharpened, and

(01:10:54):
we took it out, we mowed, andwhat, what I always do is take a
blue dot of paint, so that I'mtaking the picture in the exact
same spot every day.
So, if you ever wanted to do atest, after you sharpen a mower,
you can go ahead on certaingreens, go ahead and take, put a

(01:11:14):
blue dot at different spots, andjust ID those greens, ID those
spots, and then take a pictureevery day, and whenever you see
something change as far as thequality of cut.
That's microscopic, right?
That's probably still not seenby standing up and looking down
at the turf.

(01:11:35):
But microscopically, things arechanging.
So let me, let me help youunderstand that a little bit

Okay.
Yeah.

Jim Nedin (01:11:42):
So whenever we cut grass, at any point in time, you
cut a branch off a tree, any youknow, anything in that world
produces hydrogen peroxide.
And hydrogen peroxide rushes tothat wound to seal and heal.

(01:12:03):
When I was a kid and I would geta cut or something, my mom would
take hydrogen peroxide and pourit on that cut and it would foam
up like crazy because it'sshooting oxygen to that area.
Now, plants are very, verysmart, right?
So, if my mom put the hydrogenperoxide on today and said, ah,
it worked pretty good, let's putit on tomorrow and the next day,

(01:12:25):
it would become infected.
I'd have to go to the doctor,get a you know, something to, to
take care of that.
But plants are very smart.
They, they, they exchange withthe hydrogen peroxide whenever
they're wounded one time.
It doesn't know if it did, thecut is clean, crystal clear, or

(01:12:45):
ragged.
So we talk about clean cuttingor shredding, right?
So shredding beginsmicroscopically.
And that's why I use A highpowered phone to see what's
going on.
So, over in Hawaii, we did thatsame practice, and we found that

(01:13:06):
after about 10 hours of mowing,we started to see shredding with
the plants.
And that was adjusting properly,but it was about 10 hours of
mowing.
Microscopically, started seeingshredding.
So, we took, and we backlappedfor one minute, went back out,

(01:13:27):
and mowed.
Shredding was gone.
So it gives the plant a betteraccuracy or, or better as far as
utilizing that hydrogen peroxidethat's presented to the wound so
it seals and heals versus, youknow, keep mowing until it

(01:13:48):
doesn't want to cut paper.
30, 40, 50 hours past the timethat that plant has saw some
shredding or wounding.
So I would say, go talk to yourturf.
proper tools.
So if that sets you up into aworld of backlapping once a week

(01:14:09):
for one or two minutes, and yourdisease rate goes down
tremendously over the year, andeverybody's happier, including
the grass, right?
Not do it?
But, you know,

why not?

Jim Nedin (01:14:22):
so, but if you're happy with what you've got, and
nobody's complaining, and noone's ever challenged you, Then
continue to do what you'redoing.
You know, it's funny, I worked17 masters down at Augusta, They
backlap their greensmowers everytime they go out.

Yep.

Jim Nedin (01:14:46):
during the tournament in the morning, we had 54
walkers, and I was the guy thatdid the backlapping, right?
And some had auto backlap, some,but, you know, some had to use
the little fully backlappingmachine or Simplex or whatever
they had.
In the evening, we had 18 mowersthat went out because they were

(01:15:08):
just mowing greens.
I'd still backlap.
So, we used 120 grit.
I had a 5 gallon bucket.
So, all that backlapping for 7days.
At the end of that week, thatlong week, still had an inch or
two of back lapping compound inthe bottom of that bucket.

(01:15:31):
Because you just dip in and yourake it across a couple of
times.
You keep the brush on the reelso that the aggra so that it's
aggravating the cutting edge.
It's kind of like, I don't knowif you've ever back lapped
valves on an engine.

Right?
Yeah.
Yeah.

Jim Nedin (01:15:49):
on an engine, right, you put the compound on the seat
or on the valve itself.
And you take your tool and yougo back and forth with it.
It gets quiet.
You pick it up and you drop itagain.
You don't add more compound.
And that's where keeping thebrush on the reel to keep the
grit to the cutting edge, that'swhen it does the backlapping.

(01:16:12):
And that's why you only need tobacklap one or two minutes.
And if you use any more than twodips on a reel, that, that's
overdoing it.

Right.
Yeah.
Just wasteful.

Jim Nedin (01:16:24):
and back in the day, Augusta National had express
tool grinders.
So they didn't, they didn'trelief grind.
They spun ground, but they stillbacklapped every single day.
Fairway mowers, they backlappedtwo to three times a week.
the tournament, it was threetimes a week.
But every day, they backlappedmowers.

(01:16:46):
It's just their process.
And, you know, keeps the, thedisease pressure down.
Because, you know, we're, we'reallowing that hydrogen peroxide
to do its job.

So one to two minutes,

Jim Nedin (01:17:01):
Yeah, one to two minutes.
But keep the brush applied.
Keep the

right?
Keep the rush on there.
I do think that is one of, andthis is my personal opinion, but
I do think back lapping ismisunderstood.
I think you've done an excellentjob of explaining It

Jim Nedin (01:17:18):
Yeah, it's not to re sharpen, not to re sharpen a
reel.
One of the big things that wefound with back lapping, because
people would say, you know, itseems like it cuts okay in the
shop and you get it out.
You've got to remove the burrfrom the front edge of that
back, from that bed knife.
And I use a bed knife buddy.

(01:17:40):
And I think AccuProducts makesthat bed knife buddy.
Are you familiar with that, the

Yeah.
Yep.
I

Jim Nedin (01:17:45):
Yeah, I don't care if you use now my bed knife buddy
I've had probably for 8 or 10years, I've never changed the
file.

No way.
Really?

Jim Nedin (01:17:54):
use it to sharpen anything.
I use it to take the burr off.
A bunch of files, I'll sell themto you.

No, that's

Jim Nedin (01:18:00):
You know, I've never, I've never changed the file
because I don't use it tosharpen anything.
I use it to take the burr off.
One or two swipes across andwe're done.
And now you adjust, so you'readjusting.
Light contact metal to metal,not light contact metal of the
reel to a burr.
So, what we learned when I wasat Toro is if you just

(01:18:23):
backlapped an adjusted reel on afairway mower, let's say, and
went out within probably one ortwo fairways, you had to
readjust.
Because the burr has now wornoff, and now you have a gap, and
now you're getting thatshredding rather than cutting
cleanly.
So, why not do it while it's inthe shop?
And you wind up getting ninefairways out of it, you know,

(01:18:47):
before you need to readjust,those kind of things.
You know, the other thing is,too, it's so crazy, when I was a
kid, we used gang mowers to mowfairways, right?
Gang mowers picked, cut thegrass, threw it out the back,
we're done.
That was it.
We're done.
Right?
We sharpened the gang mowersmaybe twice a year, once a year
for sure.

(01:19:07):
Lasted a whole year.
And people would say, now we'reusing these lightweight mowers
and we have to grind them allthe time.
Why is that?
You know, so I asked a question.
Do you forward throw?
Yeah.
Do you catch?
No.
It's, it's, it's way too much.
Too much labor.
All right.
So you're recutting that grass,depending on how far it's

(01:19:29):
throwing it, five to 15 times.
So you've got 5 to 15 times morereel wear on those two
components, the bed knife andthe reel, than you had with the
good old fashioned gang mowerthat threw it out the back.

That's interesting.
And I've never thought aboutthat.
like that and we use a Toro gangmower 1988 model to my rough.
That's our primary rough mower.
We got a couple 3100s to do thetrim work

Jim Nedin (01:20:00):
Yeah, so you have the old reel master, huh?
Your old reel

master and I am proud I converted it electric
over hydraulic valve so theoperator doesn't have to, you
know, reach behind the tractorand, you know, raising lower
cutting units.
But, like you said, I grind itonce a year, in the winter, and
I don't touch it again.
And we do have a really goodoperator, and he knows how to

(01:20:27):
keep the cutting units adjusted,and it cuts.

Jim Nedin (01:20:31):
Yeah.

All summer long.

Jim Nedin (01:20:34):
Yeah.
The other thing is with, withcutting units, like if you have
a, A 5 Plex fairway mower, andyou open up the rear doors,
right?
So you're discharging to theback.
I've always gotten comments fromcustomers, and I'll know where
they're going with it as soon asthey make the statement.

(01:20:54):
And they'll say to me, Theserear cutting units are a pain.
I've got to adjust them liketwice as much as the front ones.
They wear down a lot quicker.
And I'll say, Are you operatingyour fairway mower with the
doors open?
That you're just throwing it tothe back.
yeah, well, the front cuttersare cutting the grass once, the

(01:21:18):
rear cutters are re cutting thatgrass 5 to 15 times.
Why they're wearing out so muchfaster and they need to be
adjusted constantly.
You

Yep.

Jim Nedin (01:21:28):
so let's do it to all of them if we're going to do it,
you know, throw forward.
Yeah, so there's just some, somethings that we ran into whenever
we started with a lightweightmowing that we never, you know,
anticipated.
So there were back in the 70sthere were just a boatload of

(01:21:49):
people that were manufacturingtheir own lightweight mowers out
of greens mowers and add anextra cutting units to them.
And some were.
Some were pretty unique in, inthe way they were, they were
trying to do it.
But it's pretty wild.

Well, Yeah.
I remember having a 5100.
This was late nineties.
It was that one.
Was that one of the first

Jim Nedin (01:22:13):
223 was, 223, yeah.
So it was a series 2, series 2size mower with a 23 horsepower
engine.
That's where it came from, 223.
And

Okay.

Jim Nedin (01:22:25):
then the 5100 was like a 223.
Then I can't remember if we putturbocharged on that or not.
But then it came out with a5200, which was a little
different predecessor.
Then it came out with a 5300that had a turbocharged engine
on it.
And all those kind of things.
So, yeah, a lot of historythere.

Yep.
Fun times.

Jim Nedin (01:22:49):
Stuff.

yep.
Yeah.
And I remember if we got.
Very much rain mowing four 19Bermuda that we couldn't use the
5,100,

Jim Nedin (01:23:01):
No,

If we missed three days or

Jim Nedin (01:23:03):
Yeah.
Well, see, the problem is thereagain.
Like, whenever you're in warmseason grass, like Bermuda, even
zoysia, zoysia you can kind ofmeet, well, zoysia's tough.
Zoysia's very tough.
You know when I started playingwith zoysia, as far as the
density of zoysia, when you'remowing on zoysia, the guys are

(01:23:24):
constantly, Playing with thesteering wheel trying to keep it
on track because the cuttingunit is floating across the
zoysia.
When you're on a golf cart onzoysia, it feels like you're on,
you're on ice, right?
So it's so dense, but so withthe five inch diameter reel, you
don't quite have the torque thatyou need that the seven inch
diameter reel provides.

(01:23:46):
Plus the larger reel gives youbetter blade path.
It reaches out further.
It starts to work on thatcomplexity of the 419, right?
It's a, it's a very complexgrass versus a single strand,
cool season grass bluegrass.
Rye, rye grass, you know,different species like that

(01:24:10):
compared to ones that look likelittle Christmas trees, right?
So, you're 419.
So, it's very complex.
So, it has, so the, the heaviermower weighs 147 pounds versus
117.
Plus the, the ability for thatreel to reach out much further
and start to play in the grassand, and, and process that

(01:24:32):
grass.
is, is a benefit, a hugebenefit, plus the torque of it
being able to cut through that.
That's why you had to mow somuch more often with the 5
bladed 5100, or 5

Yeah.
Yeah.

Jim Nedin (01:24:44):
reel.
It just didn't have the capacityto, to really work that Bermuda,
you know.

Well, our our other fairway mower at the time
was a four 50 D.

Jim Nedin (01:24:55):
oh yeah,

And it did have the capacity to to mow the,
thick stuff.

Jim Nedin (01:25:01):
the nightmare and a half as far as the reel
adjusting down to the bed.

yes yeah.
And that center cutting unit,adjusting the center cutting
unit.
Oh, Yeah, nightmares.

Jim Nedin (01:25:14):
crazy

Tonight, Yeah, thinking about

Jim Nedin (01:25:16):
of history there.

Yeah, Yeah.
Well, one question I justthought of.
What about top face reliefangle?
Is there any magic there otherthan what the manufacturer
recommends?

Jim Nedin (01:25:34):
Well, what I always recommend is this it all depends
on what we're, we're speakingto, but on a fairway mower, for
instance.
Toro come, came out with anumber of years ago originally
the 5410s 5510s, 5610s, they allhad bed knives on with the

(01:25:59):
inserts as far as the, you know,the EdgeMax inserts.
And we adjusted, we ground thoseto 5 and 5.
5 in the front, 5 on the top.
And so in 2016, I think it was,Toro changed the top angle to 5
on the front.
and 10 on the top.
So, and that was to give itbetter discharge.

(01:26:22):
In other words, so that itreleased the grass quicker, no
drag of that grass on the bedknife.
You know, just minor things, butit helped.
So they went across the board, 5on the front, 10 on the top.
No matter what fairway knife youlook at, it is 10 on the top, 5
on the front.
So that's good.

(01:26:43):
But the problem is that if youhave to regrind that knife, And
you regrind the top to 10 again,you will be deep into the
gauntlet.
You will be deep into thegauntlet.
You throw the knife away.
So my recommendation is thesecond time you grind it, you
grind 5 on the top, not 10.
5 on the top, 5 in the front.

(01:27:04):
Because the original theoriginal adjustment was 5.
The original measurement or theway we adjusted that.
The grind was 5 and 5.
So, if you're gonna get, if youwant to get a second chance with
that bed knife, the secondchance is reduce the top angle
from 10 to 5.

(01:27:24):
Maintain that 5 in the front.
So, like if we look atgreensmores with 15 degrees in
the front, and a fairway mowerwith only 5 degrees in the
front, with 15 degrees in thefront with a greensmore that
we're mowing at an eighth of aninch or lower, We want to get
that bed knife out of the way asquick as possible, so that it's

(01:27:46):
not causing any disruption tothe plant as it's trying to be
taken into the reel.
So if we box that, but we wantfive degrees on the front, the
bottom edge of that bed knifepush some of that grass over
that's kind of leaning away fromthe reel and it wouldn't have a
chance to get caught.
So we try to get that away asquick as possible.

(01:28:08):
With a fairway mower, we, wehave some body there, but we're
cutting higher too.
We're cutting three eighths ofan inch or half inch or
whatever.
So so we can have a little more.
A little more body there withthat bed knife so it doesn't
have to be as steep.
And again, we're trying to holdthat, that hardened edge in

(01:28:31):
there as well.
Cause that's silver soldered in,that, that D2 steel.
That, that makes the EdgeMax bedknife, that's silver soldered in
there.
So we don't want to thin thatout by having too steep of
angles.
And now it winds up windingitself out of there.
Get worn down, that kind ofthing.

It seems like, I'm sorry, this is just the way
my brain works.
I jump around a lot.
Do you think we get less riflingnow than we used to?
I don't think rifling is as muchof a problem as it used to be.

Jim Nedin (01:29:04):
Yeah, I think I don't think that rifling is as big an
issue.
I think if, if anything peoplehave begun, become a little bit
gun shy of over tightening thereel on the bed night.
So that's why there's some exactmeasurements for that with the
Toro product, with the, theclickers, you know, that kind of
thing.

(01:29:24):
But all that has to work veryfluidly, right?
I mean, I've been out inCalifornia where they're using
reclaimed water and they'readjusting their DPA cutting
units with the reel to bed knifeadjustment with a breaker bar

Wow,

Jim Nedin (01:29:42):
get them to move, right?
And we'd have to dismantle themcompletely.
And you have this dissimilarmetals, right?
You have aluminum, you havebrass, and you have an alloy
that all this is making likebattery.
You know, corrosion compoundinside of the, inside of the
adjuster.
So I literally had to drive themout with like a two pound

(01:30:03):
sledgehammer and an awl.
And just clean them up, put themback together.
So I do like to see those comeapart once a year and put just a
touch of anises in, in themechanism.
Because it has to work veryfluidly, right?
It has to send, send that clickall the way down to the cutting
edge of the

Yeah, right, right.

Jim Nedin (01:30:26):
And that's where we get into Torquing the bed knife
the bed knife axis boltscorrectly.
Like with a fairway mower, theyshould be 30 foot pounds.
A greens mower, they should be20 foot pounds.
That nut should never be tight.
And as a matter of fact, Earlyon, we, on the Flex 21s, we had

(01:30:47):
a steel washer and a plasticwasher inserted between the bed
bar and the frame on both sides.
And that was sometimesinconsistent.
Some were tight, some wereloose.
And if you got ones that weretight, you usually went and
pried to get it in there.
And what would happen is itwould wind up flexing the bed

(01:31:08):
bar.
And so now you grind it real,you grind the bed knife.
On your precision grinders, youput it together and it doesn't
cut in the middle or it doesn'tcut on the ends.
So, we went through thiscampaign of, one, originally
engineering said get rid of allthe internal washers.
And us guys in the field said,whoa, whoa, wait a minute.

(01:31:30):
We get rid of all the washers,customers are going to see this
huge old gap and they're goingto want to tighten it down.
To get rid of that gap andthey're going to want to break
things.
They said, okay, well let's justleave the plastic washers in.
And so, it's just kind of amental thing, but they don't
really do anything.
But, you know, just put them inthere and they'll take up some
space.

(01:31:50):
So today, anytime I see a DPAcutting unit with a steel and a
plastic washer internal, Ialways throw the steel washer
away,

Okay.
That's good to know too.

Jim Nedin (01:32:02):
in that.
Now, the reason that we're usingthe nuts on the outside, that we
have a steel washer and aplastic washer, and we have the
nuts on the outside, we alwayssay, at the end of the day, you
want to be able to turn thosesteel washers, right?
So, what we're trying toaccomplish by that, is if we

(01:32:25):
look at the forks of the bed barcoming up through the adjusters,
that what we call a double Dlooks like a double D, that
black double D that the forks goaround, right?
If that is misadjusted, leaningone side to the other, what
it'll do is that fork will nowpress against that double D

(01:32:45):
adjuster.
And because of the length ofthat fork, it becomes a
mechanical advantage.
And whenever you assemble thatand it's in that condition, it
causes a bed bar to bow one wayor the other.
So all we're trying to do isdrag that bed bar from one side
to the other to get the doubleD's so that there's play.

(01:33:08):
In the double D's, so you canflop those double D's in between
the forks.
And that's where you're going tosnug up the nuts so that you can
still turn the steel washers butnot be able to move the bed bar
left or right.
So that, that is, that is avery, very important adjustment.
And I often find people thatcomplain that it's not cutting

(01:33:29):
in the middle or whatever afterI adjusted the, that that bed
bar.
is shifted to one side or theother to an extreme and is
causing the fork.
To lay heavy on one side of thatdouble D adjuster where the
clickers are up top and nowcausing the bed bar to bow one

(01:33:49):
way or the other.
The same, the same thing appliesif you tighten those nuts down
too tight.
It can cause some disruptionwith the plane of the bed bar.
So that's why we're alwayslooking for that, that sweet
spot if you will.
You want to drag that bed bar tothe point where the Where the

(01:34:10):
double D's up top, where the,where the forks go through, have
the, a little flip flop thatthey're not rubbing on one side
or the other.
And we want to make sure thatthe nuts are tight enough, but
yet loose enough.
to where that you can go aheadand turn that steel washer.
But first, we want to make surethat the bolts are torqued to

(01:34:31):
the 20 or 30 foot pounds.

Okay.
Yeah,

Jim Nedin (01:34:35):
want to use, you want to make sure you use anti seize.
I've been to so many facilitiesthat are very upset because they
had to buy a brand new bed bar.
Because they've run that bolt inand out X number of times.
And with cast iron, if you don'tlose, use a lubricant of some
kind.

(01:34:56):
Cast iron, microparticles ofcast iron flake off the threads
every time you tighten it.
So eventually it strips out.
So I said, you know, I askedwhat kind of lubricant, what are
you talking about?
Put together dry, I don't wantany, any lubricant on my turf.
No, a little bit of anti seize.
You know, allows the, thefriction to be less and now we

(01:35:19):
don't have microparticles ofcast iron flaking off.

Right.
Right.
No, that's yeah, that'sexcellent.
Yeah, I had a customer when Iworked for Jerry Pate, he said,
I grind these reels and the bedknives.
I'll put them together and theycut great in the middle.
I can't ever get them to cut onthe ends.
I said, how tight do you tightenthe jam nuts?
Oh, I run it in with a half inchimpact.

Jim Nedin (01:35:43):
Oh,

Okay let's back off on that and see how it cuts
and you know, sure enough, thatwas it.
But again, you know, just notlooking in the operator's
manual.
Because I know that informationin the operator's

Jim Nedin (01:35:57):
Yeah, a lot of the information that I, I bring up
as well is in the, in, in, inthe operator's manuals.
And perhaps some of it isn't,it's just kind of trial and
error in the field and, anddoing it over and over and over
again for as long as I've beendoing it, that

Huh.
Yeah,

Jim Nedin (01:36:14):
but

Well, maybe when I get to 62 years, I'll have
half your knowledge.
That's all I can hope

Jim Nedin (01:36:21):
I'm sure you'll surpass me.
You know, today, today is, it'spretty amazing with the kids,
you know, but they, they'restill looking for an app for
everything.
You know, sometimes you just gotto get down and do it, you know,
it's got to be an app for that,you know, it's

Right, right,

Jim Nedin (01:36:36):
I've created a lot of apps, a lot of calibration apps
for sprayers and in differentthings and for clip rates and
for blade path and looking at,you know, whenever we talk about
the diameter of the real,there's what we call a tip speed
that's involved, right?
So the tip speed.
So, for instance, if we'relooking at a rotary blade,
right?
Yeah.
And if you have a 27 inch rotaryblade, and that rotary blade is

(01:37:04):
running at 18, 000 feet perminute.
And we talk feet per minutebecause if it picks something up
and hails it across the room,how fast and how far is it going
to throw it?
equals 200 mile an hour.
So, 27 inch blade spinning at2500 RPM equals 200 mile an

(01:37:28):
hour,

Okay.

Jim Nedin (01:37:31):
tip speed.
If I take a, if I take a 21 inchblade on a 21 inch mower and run
the engine at 3200 RPM, Thatequals 200 mile an hour.
So the long, the, the larger thediameter, the slower the RPM, to

(01:37:52):
equal a shorter, a smallerdiameter, will have more RPM to
get to that same point.
So whenever we're looking at areel, that has tip speed
differential of one side that'slarger than the other, right,
it's ability to transfer that,it's trying to run at two

(01:38:13):
different, it's almost like.
If you take a roller and you gointo a turn with a cutting unit,
right?
The inside of that roller istrying to go faster, or, or, the
inside of that roller is tryingto go slower.
The outside of that roller istrying to go faster.
And that's why they came up withthe split rollers and so on
Because it's constantlyfighting, now it's causing some

(01:38:35):
aggravation to the turf.
And aggravation to the cuttingunit itself, right?
It wants to go straight.
So whenever we're looking at ablade path and The differential
in tip speed with the same RPM,we've got a little differential
going on there.
So now it, it winds up resultingin the look of the turf, the

(01:38:59):
turf being, you know, maybe alittle more bruised than on the
opposite side of that cuttingunit.
And some, some of it's extreme.
Some of it's extreme.
I had Tony Leonard who is thedirector of the, of the field
for the, fields for the Eaglesfootball team.
I worked with, with them, withthem for a year.

(01:39:20):
So I worked with the NFL aswell, Major League Baseball, on
their fields and so on.
And so one year Tony calls me upand he has he has 56 10s.
Okay.
Larger, the larger fieldhomeowners.
And he had them for probablythree or four years.
And he calls me up and he says,Dad O'Winter, Hey Jim, I just

(01:39:41):
sharpened my reels and bedknives, and I got one up here on
the table and I can't, you know,he's the director, he's not
super mechanically inclined, buthis mechanics are working with
him, and so we can't get it tocut.
He said it'll cut on one side,but the other side, he said, I

(01:40:04):
can't even get it to pull up.
He said, it's not even close,maybe a sixteenth of an inch
away.
He said, I thought maybe his bedbar was damaged or whatever.
I've got a brand new bed andI've put it in, brand new bed
bar, same thing.
And I said, did you drop it offthe workbench or what?
He goes, no, you don'tunderstand, I've got two mowers,

(01:40:25):
I've got ten cutting units.
They're all doing the samething.
I'm like, oh my god.
I said, okay.
So, from where I live and wherePhilly where the I'm
Philadelphia Eagles, about ahundred miles.
So I said, tell you what, howabout, you know, one day this
week, whatever.
I think it was, call me on aMonday, it's Wednesday, I went
out.

(01:40:46):
So I pulled out my Vermeercaliper.
On the radius, they were 50thousandths differential from
one side to the other.
So the reel was a hundredthousandths smaller on the
leading side compared to thefollowing side.
And then we're doing the tip totip.
No relief grind, just tip totip.

(01:41:07):
And so I said, Tony.
I said, these reels are so farout of spec.
Well, what are we going to do?
I said, well, here's what we'regoing to put it in a grinder.
I'm going to give myself 50thousandths air gap on this
side.
I'm going to touch the stone onthis side.
I'm going to turn the dials.
And it's going to grind a littlebit.
Nothing grind a little bit.
Nothing.
And eventually it's going togrind a whole reel on.
And we're going to put her backtogether.
And that's what we did.

(01:41:27):
We just dropped the bed kniferight on the reel.
Never even tightened up.
You know, the, the forks and itcut the whole way across and he
says, Well, it was an hour and ahalf.
It took me to grind out thatreal an hour and a half

Oh, I bet.
Yeah,

Jim Nedin (01:41:46):
or 11 blade.
There were 11 blade, 7 inchdiameter reels, right?
He looks at me and he says,Well, you got 9 more to do.
I said, No, I don't.
I sure hope you paid attention.
I'm out of here.
Yeah.
Yeah.

Yeah, that is a

Jim Nedin (01:42:01):
lots of crazy stories, you know?

Yeah.
That's crazy.
A hundred thousands out.
That's

Jim Nedin (01:42:06):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was.
Yeah.
After 3 or 4 years of just.
Yeah.
You know, tip grinding, touch totouch, left to Never paying
attention to it.

Wow.
Yeah, that's

Jim Nedin (01:42:16):
They got a different set of grinders today.

Okay.

Jim Nedin (01:42:19):
Yeah, green

doesn't surprise me.
Yeah.
The green ones.
Yeah.
Okay.
That makes sense.
Yeah.
yeah, No, that's good.
That's good stuff.
Yeah, I mean, I could go on allnight.
I think this is so good.
It's But

Jim Nedin (01:42:33):
you know,

well, no, I love it though.
I do.
I love it.
I would like to do this again.

Jim Nedin (01:42:40):
Okay.

Give it, yeah, give it a month or two and I'll
I'll probably come up with somemore questions too.
But yeah, I think, you know,we're in an hour and 48 minutes

Jim Nedin (01:42:51):
Oh, is that right?

Yeah.
So, I think this is plenty good.
We'll put a bow on this episodeand yeah, reconvene again.
But thank you so much.
For being a guest and I wouldlike to do some rapid fire real
quick

Jim Nedin (01:43:07):
Sure.

What's your favorite movie?

Jim Nedin (01:43:14):
My favorite movie is Christmas Vacation.

Ah I love it.
Yeah, I just watched it,

Jim Nedin (01:43:19):
it every single year, every year, drop in another, you
know, the cranks, watch thattoo, Christmas story, all those
things, but

oh Yeah,

Jim Nedin (01:43:29):
laugh like it was the first time I ever saw it, every
time I see it, it's

I know it is yes it is a classic for sure what
would be your last meal

Jim Nedin (01:43:38):
Chicken cacciatore.

Wow, all right,

Jim Nedin (01:43:42):
Yeah, my wife makes chicken cacciatore like you
wouldn't believe, I mean, everyChristmas Eve, that's what she
makes me for dinner.

no.
All right.

Jim Nedin (01:43:50):
Yeah, for 37 years.
It's it's been good.
Yeah.

That's good.
That's good stuff.
What are you most proud ofbesides your family?

Jim Nedin (01:43:59):
I would honestly say, I think, you know, the surprise
to me whenever I got the EdwinBudding Award.
You know, because I didn't, youknow, we just do what we do
every day, right?
And not really think aboutpeople recognizing what you do.

Yeah.

Jim Nedin (01:44:21):
so that, that was, that was a real thrill for me.
Whenever GCSA called, you know,

yeah.
No, that's yeah.
That's awesome.
And you deserve it too.
I mean, just think about allyou've done for this industry
and all you've given back.
And I know you've been down hereto Georgia to speak for us and
didn't charge a dime.
I mean, that goes a long way.

Jim Nedin (01:44:43):
yeah.
Well, it's, it is all been fun.
I, I've done 102 majortournaments

Wow.
Wow.
That's

Jim Nedin (01:44:52):
Hills, in 18 was my 100th.
And John Jennings is thesuperintendent there.
And, and the USGA.
Kind of had a little recognitionfor me.
I was shocked.
I didn't know that they kept allthose records,

That's awesome.

Jim Nedin (01:45:07):
I did two more after that.
I did the BMW at Caves Valleyand the Curtis Cup at Marion.
And so John wants me to comeback in 26 and do the next U.
S.
Open with him again up atShinnecock.
And I'll probably be doing Cavesthis year as far as the BMW is
back there again.
So, but I'm slowing down, youknow.

Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I definitely, I hope tosee you at Shinnecock.

Jim Nedin (01:45:33):
Oh, that'd be

yeah, I was talking to Rob Renner and he's
across the street, right?

Jim Nedin (01:45:39):
Yeah.
Yeah.

and he's like, you gotta come up for the
tournament.
I said, you let me know.
I'm gonna try to come.
I'm gonna

Jim Nedin (01:45:46):
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, a lot of it's it's, it's agood time.
I mean, you work your butt off,of course, you know,

Yeah.
That's, yeah, it's worth it.
I tell everybody I've alwayspromote volunteering here on the
podcast at tournaments.
If you get a chance and you getway more out of it than you put
in, Yeah.
it's a lot of work, but

Jim Nedin (01:46:07):
Yeah.
I mean, you just you

the way.

Jim Nedin (01:46:09):
A lot of people you meet and you never know, you
know, all of a sudden you're,you're, you're in need or, or
you get a call from someone.
So it's, it's good.
It's a a very, very goodcommunity.
You know, it's a small knitcommunity.
You think about what we do.

huh.
Yep.
Oh

Jim Nedin (01:46:29):
you know, it's all I know.
It's all I know.

Yeah.
Well, we're glad you're a partof it for sure and thanks again
for being on and we'll be intouch soon.

Jim Nedin (01:46:40):
okay.
Well, thank you.
Take care.

thank you so much for listening to the Reel turf
techs podcast.
I hope you learned somethingtoday.
Don't forget to subscribe.
If you have any topics you'dlike to discuss, or you'd like
to be a guest, find us onTwitter at Reel turf techs.

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