Brill reel mower best?

[me]

I wanting to buy a reel mower....human powered

Is Brill the best there is?

I understand that when it comes to human power you want well designed and quality machines

[Ron Hardin]

Brill will not cut some kinds of grass at all. The thing just stalls locked up on such grass.

If you have the right kind of grass, it's a nice mower.

The Great States (who also makes Scott's line) mowers are more general and work fine. They rise up over grass that is too tall, or too hard to cut (say when the blades dull), but remain always easy to push.

I myself went to a scythe for an acre of grass, and the hell with the mowers of all kinds. Nothing stops a scythe. It takes much longer, doing a little each day, but is a pleasant hobby once you get the hang of it.

has the right kind. An ``outfit'' will run you about $150. I recommend wide anvil, hammer, smooth stone, stone holder, straight snath (or with a 5/8" bend out of 9") and one of the house grass blades. You'll buy more blades as you notice that different conditions recommend them. The 26" is versatile but slow on a large area; the 32" is a nice lawn blade. 36" on a straight snath for really easy conditions.

The secret is insanely sharp blades, stopping to resharpen every 20 strokes or so (takes a few seconds), and re-peen the edge every hour or so.

It takes a couple of years to really get the hang of it, and get good at diagnosing what's wrong when things don't work as well as they used to.