OK, i will add some photos of the striper. The main idea is that it is a weighted heavy cylinder pulled behind the mower that turns, and does not get caught under the deck when reversing.
It is sort of crude, but works like a charm. I guess you could say it is a prototype until I want to spend some money and build one with some ball bearings and bushings that fit better. I have used it for 2 seasons of mowing 4 lawns a week, and worked like a charm. I love the way it leaves stripes in some nice thick, manicured, healthy Missouri grass. I will intentionally drive past lawns I have used it on just see how long the stripes are lasting.
The construction of the mounting brackets would be based on your mower deck and lay out, but basically it is a 3" piece of pvc pipe cut long enough to leave a stripe between the track of the rear wheels of the mower. Each end cap has a hole drilled in it large enough to fit a bolt, with a nut and a washer on the outside of the mounting brackets. Because I did not go through with finding ball bearings to fit it, the loose fit of the bolts inside the bracket and pvc end cap allow the bolts to spin within the bracket and pvc pipe.
The mounting brackets are bolted to the deck with with some nylon bushings the fit just well enough to keep the whole thing from binding. The brackets are all steel, strangely enough some of the steel brackets are fabricated from garage door opener arms I had laying around then drilled and ground down at the ends to fit.
The pvc rolling cylinder is packed full of regular sand bag sand. I fill a third of the way, tap on the sides to settle the sand, repeat and so forth until the the cylinder is as full as possible. The whole striper probably weighs 5-8 lbs.
It will not leave good stripes unless you leave the grass cut 4" or higher, it needs to be able to bend the grass over so that the reflection of the sun bounces of one side or the other so it basically depends on which direction you look at it.
Like I have said, I build this gizmo as cheaply as possible. I probably would have bought the toro rig for the 80 something bux they sell it for, but I didnt want to wait for Lowes to order one in, or buy it on the internet and wait, so I through one together that works surprisingly well. Look at the pictures I have and get to work. Its pretty simple depending on how complicated you want to get.
The one in the picture is connected to my Cub Cadet 98m that I trying to get running correctly to sell sometime this winter or spring. I have yet to take the time to fabricate some mounting bracket to put it on my Honda HRB216HXA I started using a week ago because the Cub is an utter piece of American disgrace to so called commercial quality lawn power equipment........:dunno:
