Hi Ollie,
Steve did it back in October last year and I use it nearly every 2 days, so it's done a lot of work.
Yes powder coating is a big no no on lawn mowers as they are subject to the surface being broken and sucking in moisture underneath, thus prematurely allowing corrosion to set in without you even knowing, thus a reel has one edge ground away in the sharpening process and that instantly lets the gremlins in to do their damage.
As far as blasting is concerned, I've still got a catcher to do for my Verti-Cutter that's been featured on the forum and that needs to be done at low pressure otherwise it'll be destroyed, even then the surface left behind is very rough. The only way you'll get a smooth finish is to bead blast, but now we're talking big reddies for that to be done.
Honestly I prefer to use my survivor 20 inch machine as another scratch is of no consequence to me at all.
Cheers,
BB.
