OT: Defeating safety switches on newer lawn tractors (seat, reverse, blade, etc)

[garyhlucas]

Part of the problem of course is that no one keeps track of the accidents that didn't happen as a result of the safety devices. If we did we might not view them so negatively. Some years ago I owned an iron worker and every time I looked the guard was removed. Each time an employee would show me how the guard made it impossible to do the job. Instead of removing it I designed a new one that allowed the work we did to be done safely.

Lots of people warned me I'd be sued if someone got hurt despite the new guard. My response was "So it is okay to have an employee lose fingers or a hand while I can't be sued?" However some years later I was sued when someone got hurt on a machine I supposedly built with no guards. I learned then that as an employer I could NOT be sued as the worst that could happen was a Workmans Compensation claim. That employee was however entitled to sue everyone else. It cost me a bundle and could have been much worse, if I hadn't been able to prove that the machine the guy got hurt on was a copy, not the one I built, with guards!

[metalmagpie]

If you use string heads to mow you will have a lawn that looks like a goat was grazing.

I modified a tractor-pulled mower deck to use individually-clamped strings. The strings were nearly 1/8" thick. The problem with a blade was that when it hit a rock it would deform the blade edge. And the field that was being mowed had lots of rocks, apparently. The mower deck with strings did about as clean-looking a job as the old blade did. Since then the guy has modified it again to use wire instead of string.

metalmagpie