If you
have any reel mowers it is important to understand what clip is. When we talk about cutting units, the term
clip is used to explain the distance between cut marks in the turf.
To fully
understand clip, you need to understand basic cutting unit theory. A reel will gather grass before it cuts
it. At a magnified level you will see
waves in the grass after any reel has cut it.
The distance between the bottoms of these waves is your
clip. This is why crosscutting still
produces clippings, and makes for a smoother surface.
There are
several factors that determine clip. The
number of blades on the cutting unit, the speed of the reel, and the speed of
the machine. It is important to match
your clip to your height of cut.
So how do
we make sure it matches? To start, we
need to make sure we have the correct reel for the job. Make sure you match your height of cut to the
number of blades. Next use the reel speed charts to correctly set your reel and
traction speed.
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| Reel chart on Greensmaster |
Can we
have a clip too small? - under certain conditions you can have a clip that is
too small. Think of trying to use a 14
blade reel to cut heavy grass at 1.5 inches.
There is just nowhere for the cut grass to go. The other thing you can see is your clip will
be so close you are introducing more stress to the turf. I compare it to double cutting every
day. Under certain stressful situations
you may not want to introduce more stress.
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| Clip Marks in turf |
If this
shows up on turf that normally looks fine.
You are typically seeing either an operator going too fast, or a reel
that is not spinning fast enough. If you
can slow down and the problem goes away, then you are fine. If you have to slow down more then normal, or
slowing down is not helping, the reels are not spinning fast enough. At this point try to adjust the reel speed
faster. If the reels don't spin faster,
you are looking at a hydraulic issues.
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| Reel Speed adjustment on 5010 series Mowers |
The two
biggest things I see contributing to this are o-rings in the reel control
cartridges or reel motors worn. It is
important to remember that one worn motor can cause a series of reels to slow
down. One motor on a triplex, will slow
down all three, one motor on a fairway unit will slow down either all three of
the front or both of the rear. In a
future post I will cover testing reel mower wear.
