Things get a little ugly...
Turns out that this is not an all terrain mower. Merely a long grass mower. Five years of being enthusiastically driven over many and varied a landscape (whilst mulching inconvenient vegetation) by my mechanically unsympathetic mother left the blade guards heroically bent and twisted. So bent and twisted that the mower blades often had their way with them.
My late stepfather’s way of dealing with this was to simply tie the bitter and twisted guards up and out of the way.
Now that we have it, I got tired of ducking and cowering as my equally mechanically unsympathetic M’lady used it to chuck rocks and sticks everywhere as she wrangles the grass and weeds into line.
So now I have commenced the Straightening. Which involves much hitting and bashing...and then welding...
... horrible welding!
But now...at least one side sits flat again. And might be slightly more bend resistant. Though never pretty....
If it all goes bendy after this... I'll have to craft a couple of new guards. At least, clean steel will weld much more easily...maybe?