lawnmowers? Are they all crap?

[Jules]

Up-front - they like screwing folk for parts and services though when they can :-)

Agreed on both counts (they do almost always seem well-built though, unlike a lot of the far-east import crap we see for other goods)

That's an interesting one. The grass here (middle of MN) is pretty variable - we've got areas of patchy, weed-choked stuff as well as bits that grow extremely thickly and quickly.

Ahh, I just don't bother here - I rake up some of the heavier patches, but the wind and wildlife seem to take good care of the rest.

Ha, yes... our ride-on's got a big crack in one of the lifters on one of the blades, presumably after some collision, but replacement blades are cheap - I've just not quite got the tuits together to go fetch a replacement.

Know exactly what you mean about stones - thankfully I think I've got nearly all of them cleared out from amongst the grass now.

:-) Smaller walk-behind mowers in the US all seem to be extremely heavy - very solid build to them. Having grown up with a hover mower they all seem a bit unwieldy though, and IME not particularly good at starting.

cheers

J.

[Appin]

The message from [e-mail] (Steve Firth) contains these words:

Not one that would meet OUR needs which include a caravan site where the

5-metre gap between vans has to be cut as well. After more than 30 years and having used a wide range of machinery I think we know what is required to cut the grass we have. There's also half an acre with the only access through an opening not even 5' wide and in a listed (not listing! :-)) stone wall.

[Appin]

The message from Jules contains these words:

Trouble with that one was (it was a US-made machine being used in the UK) that with one huge blade underneath with horrendous tip velocity, the loss of just one lifter would throw the blade horrendously out of balance. And with no lifter at all the feed to the grassbox wouldn't work.

After that it was such a relief to go to machines with three much smaller blades and other methods of getting rid of the grass. New machine has a convertible mulching deck.

[Jules]

Our one has a pair of blades, so it's not so bad - they're really unbalanced though, so it could definitely benefit from being treated to a new set. See other post - it now runs, but doesn't stop :-)

One goofy bit of design is that there's no belt tensioner as standard; it seemed to rely solely on the weight of the deck to keep the blade belt tight - so it'd slip if cutting anything thick and on slightly uneven ground. I ended up homebrewing a tensioner using the hub from an old bike wheel, which seemed to work pretty well.

(That's one benefit of a single blade, I suppose - the belt wraps around much more of the pulley, so it should be less prone to slipping)

cheers

Jules

[Steve Firth]

Well... 1.5 metre wide mowers are common for compact tractors and compacts are a lot smaller than you seem to think.

Have you ever used a tractor as opposed to a toy tractor?

Whatever.

[grantly]

I blame my grass for being the wrong type!

[Al]

And, sure enough, another one bites the dust.

Sadly, can't find a 40 quid replacement - Now 67 quid.

Al.