Reel Lawn Mower
 

Bought one of the old fashioned Reel Mowers a few years ago when we had a lawn the size of a postage stamp and no money for a gas mower.

It worked, kind of.

Frankly, when you're renting a house there's not much incentive to make the lawn look nice. Like the economist once said, "Nobody ever washes a rental car."

We bought a house with a decent yard, inherited an old gas mower with a rebuilt engine and used it for a season. This year, there's nothing I want to spend my money less on than my lawn. So the reel mower came out again.

And it was pretty good exercise for a few weeks. We only have to mow up here twice a month with a gas mower, and as it turns out, about once a week with a reel mower. Unless you forget. And then you end up mowing foot high weeds with the mower - which means doing the whole yard in six inch strips, twice.

Frankly, I hurt like hell today. Maybe saving the half gallon on this particular chore isn't the best idea I've had.

B

You need something like a miniature pot still with an oil lamp under it, you seal the output though and run the gases into the carb, and collect the liquid... Stick a load of grass clippings in the still and fire up the oil lamp, wait 5 mins and try and start the mower on it... get about 10 mins of mowing... refill the oil lamp with the liquid, and refill the still with grass clippings...

Well there's a workable theory behind it, but it would take some tinkering to get a good setup. In the meantime, keep the pusher well oiled and push with your legs, not your back or shoulders.

Reel mowers do actually need to be sharpened. But the people that used to do that kind of stuff are long gone. It's a neat idea, but probably more issues to overcome.

Goats might be easier. :D

You can do it with rabbits as well... get a big wire bottomed "run" on wheels and move it around.

from what I've heard, modern reel mowers are a lot easier to use than older ones. I think a recumbent reel mower would to interesting, as leg muscles are generally stronger and the position would be more comfortable.

Think I'll stick to my 20 HP Kohler with 50" cut. I would rather buy 2 gallons of gas every couple of weeks than stay sore all summer. Although I remember as a kid my grandparents having a reel mower and I loved it back then. Shows how dumb a 10 year old is. I wouldn't get done in time to start over with a reel mower. An acre and a half and probably averages about a 20% grade all over. Wouldn't be so bad going down hill, but that trip back up would be HELL.

My Scotts brand reel mower works great, of course it's sharp to, most golf courses can sharpen them as they cut better and leave a healthier grass so they often have a gang of 4 of them that is pulled, a friend just got a 3 gang reel mower that he is pulling with a horse... and loves it.

Yeah, should move okay with standard mountain bike "low range" gearing..... myself I'd probably try to bolt two wheels together on the back, or use a donut spare tire instead or something.

Mine is also modern manufacture, and I'll check in with the local golf course on sharpening the blades or learning who sharpens them for the club. Thanks for the good idea!

I like the quiet - if I were mowing anything larger than my yard, I'd probably break out the 5hp/20" Briggs & Scrap Iron mower.

B

No, they're around in force. You just don't hear about them.

They sharpen the blades of golf course mowers, which are almost always exclusively reel mowers (though not always human powered).

Well at my grandpas we have a ford 9n tractor that pulls an 8 foot wide reel mower we got from the golf course next door. It uses maybe a half gallon to do 4 acres.

At our house we have a kubota diesel that's we fill twice a summer. It is absolutely amazing. 2.5 acres of mowing :TU:

re:reel mowers They're well suited to frequent cutting on very smooth ground, like golf courses. When the grass gets tall they push the blades of grass down flat and cut nothing. My folks had a self propelled A/C electric reel mower. A 50 ft friction drive, self re-winding spool kept the power cord from being run over. That one worked well, too, much as I hated mowing the lawn when I was a kid.
My first home's lot was marginally larger than a postage stamp. I bought one of the recent Scott manual reel mowers with rear wheels, not the traditional rear roller. It was a fine unit. It took perhaps 30 minutes to do that entire lawn. We left the Scott for the next owners.
Now I have a battery B&D rotary mower for trimming and a 17 hp biodiesel powered Bolens with a 48" width triple blade deck for the 2 acre lawn we now have. The tractor is still running on the same 3 gallon tank I had at the end of the winter when the snow thrower came off and the grass deck went on.

Actually, I remember reading how to sharpen a reel mower somewhere.
*looks for book*

OK, it says that you file down nicks/other high spots with a file (but don't try to sharpen it yet). Then you put grinding paste on the blades. Now spin the wheels backward to spin the blades backward. (you will probably have to open it up to remove a ratchet that would keep the blade from spinning this way) Keep spinning them for 7-10 min. then wipe off the paste and you should be good.

Now don't you feel smart that you can sharpen a reel mower!:p


OK, well, I don't think this will make you any less sore, but you should be able to cut the lawn a bit easier.

As for a gas mower, I have one 5 Gal. and one 1 Gal. gas cans, and I don't fill them except for maybe once every 2 months. I do, however, have a fairly small mower, as it's only 4.5 HP and 20".

HAHAHA that reminds me of my old times in Mexico City...

And no everyone has upgraded to real lawn mowers now and were not running in horses everywhere haha.

We had one of these way back when. Part I loved was when you were moving really good and would hit a stick. It would come to a comeplete stop right into your gut. Of course being a dumb kid I would just move the stick and do it again. Never did think to pick up the sticks first.

My grandfather had a briggs & stratton powered reel mower in his basement when he sold his house in connecticut. It was all the way in the back of the basement, and since it was put down there grandpa had built walls down there. I was tasked with taking it out of the basement. That beast was heavy. I ended up taking it apart to get it through the doors, and chucked the pieces in the dumpster. That thing looked very unsafe - I can imagine how many injuries those things might have caused over the years.



-Jay