Mowing your lawn with a finish mower?

Does anybody here mow their lawn with a 3pt mounted finish mower?  I have a Deere compact tractor with a 72" mid mount mower, it's how I cut all of my grass.  It does a pretty good job but I hate servicing the deck, it's very heavy and awkward to mount/dismount from the tractor.  Which means blades don't get sharpened as often as they should and the deck doesn't get cleaned as often as it should. 


There are two big downfalls I can see in a 3pt finish mower but maybe these are not that big of problems once you use them.

1) you are running over the grass with all four tires before cutting it making it harder to lift and cut the grass blades.

2) when mowing around an obstacle the mower is swinging away from the obstacle so you need to go around everything backwards.

Any thoughts?

I have a rhino 5ft finsh mower on the back of my 5020 It works great running over the grass is not a problem.  Triming its not great on.  I send the girlfreind out with the cub zero turn ahead of me to trim.    The 3pt mower is easy to clean and sharpen blades on.   I would recomend rhino mowers they are heavy duty and rear discharge so you dont have piles of grass like my dads brush hog 720 will do. 

my bro has a 3-pt finish mower on the back of his toy JD tractor, he mows the same way and direction each /every time he mows, his yard looks bumpy. i tell him to change directions once and awhile and it would look better...i coulda just saved my breath! 

LOL on the girlfriend Claus!   tehehe... I have L306 on CA with no problemmo and the WDNF pulls a 7 foot LawnHandler painted PO#2 and Cream by world famous Gary Alley which is actually a Land Pride. No problemmo, no tire marks. The Woods I jack one side at a time with hi lift...and sharpen 3 x a season and in the spring I take the 3 blades off and have em prof sharpened. The lawnhandler gets unhooked and tipped up against the telephone pole yearly for sharpening.

For your belly mower, a couple of car ramps work great for serviceing the blades, and deck.  I have a 5' AC on my 5020

I use a 6 foot First Choice finish mower behind my D14. Great combination. Trimming is done with a smaller mower.

I have been using a 5' Fred Cain finish mower for about 15 years  which I pulled behind a (excuse me) JD 870 as that is all I had.  I use a zero turn for the trimming and such.  As the Fred Cain was wearing out, I replaced it with a Frontier 84" finish mower which really puts a pull on the 870 but it still works great.  Recently I purchased a D17, but I think it's way too heavy for the yard work but will be fine for the pasture.

jaybmiller wrote: I got tired removing decks from 'riders' a few years ago,plus every neighbour now knows me.... so for servicing the local garden/lawn tractors I just winch the front end up good and high with my chain falls in the garage.Don't know what your 'compact' weighs in at, but might be an option for servicing the blades and cleaning out the deck.Having wet grass stay in there will rot them out, and new decks are thin tin ! Won't last as long as 30 year old machines.

Too heavy for the chain fall.  The deck is 7 gauge, it's pretty heavy and I do clean it atleast once or twice a season but would like to do it more often.

Belly mount mower under tractor - remove belt from back pulley and lift deck, block it, and remove blades with impact gun. Sharpen on the bench and reinstall.

   The best mower I have seen as far as deck and blade service goes is a Grasshopper.

Claus wrote: jaybmiller wrote: I got tired removing decks from 'riders' a few years ago,plus every neighbour now knows me.... so for servicing the local garden/lawn tractors I just winch the front end up good and high with my chain falls in the garage.Don't know what your 'compact' weighs in at, but might be an option for servicing the blades and cleaning out the deck.Having wet grass stay in there will rot them out, and new decks are thin tin ! Won't last as long as 30 year old machines. Too heavy for the chain fall.  The deck is 7 gauge, it's pretty heavy and I do clean it atleast once or twice a season but would like to do it more often.

If you keep the loader on all the time I would just set the loader bucket on edge and put the down pressure to it and raise the front end of the tractor off the ground. I do this with my NH TC18 to clean the deck and sharpen blades,I can get about 2.5 ft of ground clearence that way,but your still working on your back.

im confused, is the "rear discharge" apply to the wife or girlfriend? also while we are addressing wifes and girl friends why did they put the intake so close to the exhaust?
thanks in advance, hm

CTuckerNWIL wrote: I wouldn't work under the tractor while it was being held up by the loader unless there was some sort of mechanical lock on the loader. You could drive it up the ramp of your trailer, if you have one, or use the loader to lift it and block the wheels after it's up.

I'm like the guys above, I have a 84" Woods under green paint (Frontier) finish mower and a 7' 80 R to mow the road banks and a Grass hopper with a 60" deck to trim with and a 6' Bush Hog brand mower pull type to mow around the fields. they make mowing all my place a nice little job. Don