These Lowe's Tools Can Sharpen Your Lawn Mower Blades

While Lowe's carries a variety of tools for sharpening dull lawn mower blades supplied by its various partners, there are only a couple of options available from the store's brand, Kobalt. Kobalt's line of tools come from a variety of overseas sources. Kobalt power tools are supplied by Chevron, a multinational power tool supplier for brands like EGO, Flex, and Skil in addition to Kobalt.

In addition to power tools, Lowe's offers a number of Kobalt hand tools priced under $20. One of the Kobalt tools from that list, an 8-inch Single-Cut Bastard-Tooth Mill File, is one of the cheapest Lowe's tools you can buy that can sharpen your lawn mower blades. While it's a bargain at $8.98, you'll want to add a file handle to it to protect your hands before using it.

Another 8-inch Kobalt file option is the Dual-Sided Bastard/Second-Cut Tooth Handy File. In addition to the precise nature of the Bastard-Cut present on the Mill File above, the Handy File's second-cut side allows for faster metal removal to quickly eliminate nicks and gouges often present in a lawn mower blade. As a bonus, the Kobalt Handy File includes a built-in handle for the same $8.98, and both files include what Lowe's calls a "hassle-free lifetime guarantee." Of course, using a Kobalt 5-inch 24-volt Cordless Angle Grinder to sharpen your lawn mower blades is much faster. It's also more expensive at $129.00 plus the cost of the 24-volt battery, unless you're already part of the Kobalt power tool ecosystem.

The first obstacle you'll encounter when maintaining your lawn mower blades is whether to sharpen or replace them. While there's nothing set in stone about how often lawn mower blades should be replaced, if they're bent, cracked, or showing significant signs of wear, it's something to consider. Next, you'll need to decide whether to use one of the Kobalt files or the angle grinder. While the file method is slower, faster isn't always better. The first pitfall you should be aware of is that using any kind of power grinder incorrectly can overheat the metal blade. This could cause the metal to become softer than desired through a process known as annealing.

Whichever method you use to sharpen your lawn mower blades, you may be tempted to make the edge razor sharp. Unfortunately, that razor-edge won't hold up very well under the abuse of cutting blades of grass. While you're sharpening your mower blade, you'll want to strive for a knife edge, except more butter knife sharp than steak knife.

A mistake that often occurs during the sharpening process is removing material from the bottom side of the blade edge. Be sure to only remove material, whether you're grinding or filing, from the top of the blade edge. It's also a good practice to remove the same amount of material from each end by counting sharpening strokes. However, it's a good idea to balance your lawn mower blades after sharpening them, no matter how careful you are.