I put mulching ‘Gator’ blades on my zero turn the other day. They helped, but still aren’t quite ‘cutting it’ (see what I did there…). Read more to see how you can make your own mulch plug step by step just in time for leaf season!
These are the Gator blades I put on my mower the other day. They helped quite a bit, but most of the grass was still going out the chute because there was nothing to stop or slow down the clippings (mulch plug).
I admit that this is a pretty mundane project, but this is DIY Metal Fabrication! I wanted to show how a project goes from idea to creation step by step. The same steps can be used for just about anything you want to build.
Space saving tip: If you have a spring loaded chute and it is taking up too much room in your garage (like mine was), drill a hole in it and hook a bungee cord to it to keep it in the up position and save some space!

Then transferred it to cardboard with a sharpie and sliced through just the outside layer of cardboard with a box cutter.

I cut a slice in the corner and tucked the vertical piece into the deck. There is a good 1″+ between this spot and the blade so I’m not worried about them interfering.

If you look closely in this pic, I put an arrow on the top right of the cardboard that points to a hole in the deck. The point of this is so that each time I put the template back on, I could line the arrow up with the hole to be sure it is in the same position every time.
The left side is going to be tucked into the deck, and the right side has a bend in it to line up with a tab on the deck for an extra bolt (under my thumb in the pic above).

Once I was happy with the cardboard template, I put it on a hefty piece of aluminum sheet and traced around it with sharpie.

Most of the time, you can’t get it all in one cut. I had to go back and trim out a couple of tight spots.
It was all going well until this point where I realized I BENT IT THE WRONG WAY!!!!!!!!!!!!! AAARRRGGHHH, well that is what I get for not paying attention. The metal was too thick for me to bend it back by hand, so I had to get out my DIY Press Brake to bend it back. I show this part because it is important to know how to fix your mistakes.

Since the plug was wider than the frame of my press, I turned the DIY Press Brake die 90* so I could insert the piece from the front.

I jumped on the piece to get most of the bend back out then put it into the press and started bending.

After moving it back and forth and adjusting the die a handful of times, we are back to how I should have bent it the first time!

What it looked like after more trimming and bending with pliers. Again, there is about an inch on the inside between this and the blade, I am not worried about it at all.

Put the plug on the tractor and marked through the two chute bolt holes from the bottom with sharpie then drilled them out.

Then dropped those bolts in and drilled the front hole to attach to the tab at the front. (again, eyeballed. This isn’t a rocketship)
Next step is to clean the aluminum up. I don’t like painting things especially when they will be in a situation where the paint is likely to get chipped off. The aluminum won’t rust, and I don’t want it to say Omaha either. To do take care of this, I grabbed my favorite 3M rust stripping drill brush attachment.

I didn’t want this plug to scratch the deck of the mower or rattle, so I put some window foam seal on the backside.
There you have it. In about an hour and a half-ish including cleanup I saved myself over $220 and rather enjoyed being in the garage. If it ends up not doing the job as well as I wanted, I can always go buy the official mulching kit but at least I can say I tried.
Now YOU, go outside and build something! It doesn’t have to be this specific project. The cardboard and posterboard prototyping method is pretty standard and has been used by fabricators forever. Once you have learned the steps, they apply to just about any project.
Have questions, comments, or other advice? Post your comments below!
Hey Paul,
Nicely done! 🙂 Doing some welding job for a kid’s Christmas wish – swing. Getting some ear plugs ready. Wish me luck! 😉
Hello, stumbled upon this, while looking to do the same thing to my 797 72″ deck. I already have the Gator G6 blades, just want to try closing up the deck, without buying the whole expensive ($350) kit.
So, how did this end up working out for you? Did I miss the follow up to this article?
Regards
Nice! How did it perform? Look like it would do well