Lawn Mowers

[PoohBang]

Today I highlighted a vintage reel mower that I restored.

A Mast Foos reel mower. Anybody else have an old mower?

the whole story on my blog today

 

[Flivver]

That's a nice looking mower!

When I was a kid in the '60s, I used a mower very similar to that one to mow lawns for the neighbors to earn money to buy car models. My mower was a Clemson...painted bright yellow with black trim.

 

[Ghostsoldier]

When I was a kid, I would mow my grandparents' lawn with an old reel mower that had a huge steel drum that acted as the axle/wheel setup; I'm assuming it was to "mash" the grass over to make it easy to cut...I don't have a picture of it, and haven't seen one since....but it was smooooth to use, I remember that part.....
Rob

 

[Viggen]

After the last gas mower died I was going to do the trade/rebate for an electric mower with the power company picking up the cost of the rebate. Then I looked at the price of electric's - way expensive. I thought for a moment and realized that I didn't need any of it and found a used reel mower. This happens to be one of the newer ones with some plastic but it's still a reel mower. Works great, weights little, cost used was like $25. But I am on the lookout for one of the older real reel mowers. Something will surface eventually.

 

[David Conwill]

When I became a homeowner back in March (very cool 19th Century house with WWI-era updates that I really should post here sometime), I rushed out and bought a new reel mower from Ace Hardware. It’s no antique, but it’s an identical design and great to use. Unfortunately, it doesn’t deal with weeds well at all - it just bends them over instead of slicing them off.

After a warning from the village, I broke down and bought a gas-powered rotary mower. I think that if I had a nicer lawn (i.e. all grass), I would go back to the reel mower. Nothing compares with the silence and nice smell of a non-powered lawnmower.

The upshot is that the rotary mower is heavier and therefore harder to push, which plays better into my lawnmowing-as-exercise idea.

-Dave

 

[Viggen]

David, just get a sling blade for the popup weeds - give it a try.
You will run across something at a garage sale, sharpen it up, and go.

 

[Ghostsoldier]

The upshot is that the rotary mower is heavier and therefore harder to push, which plays better into my lawnmowing-as-exercise idea.

-Dave

Ahhh...another believer in that fallacy... ...I try to convince my wife it's a legitimate concept, but she's not buying into it: she says I'd have to move half of Florida to lose any weight....lol
Rob

 

[PoohBang]

the great thing about a reel mower is how simple it is to operate and restore.

It's just the spinning blade and some gears hidden in the wheels. I took mine apart and cleaned out the antique pieces of grass, greased them up and away you go.

About 12 years ago I tried to buy a new reel mower and nobody carried one... last week at sears, they had three models to choose from!

Funny how times change... backwards..

 

[retrogirl1941]

When I became a homeowner back in March (very cool 19th Century house with WWI-era updates that I really should post here sometime), I rushed out and bought a new reel mower from Ace Hardware. It’s no antique, but it’s an identical design and great to use. Unfortunately, it doesn’t deal with weeds well at all - it just bends them over instead of slicing them off.

After a warning from the village, I broke down and bought a gas-powered rotary mower. I think that if I had a nicer lawn (i.e. all grass), I would go back to the reel mower. Nothing compares with the silence and nice smell of a non-powered lawnmower.

The upshot is that the rotary mower is heavier and therefore harder to push, which plays better into my lawnmowing-as-exercise idea.

-Dave

My husband bought us the one that Ace hardware was selling too. (We also work therelol ) We have the same problems. We had to go back to borrowing his parents lawn mower to get our yard looking somewhat ok.

Samantha

 

[Forgotten Man]

I recall one of them things in my back yard when I was a kid and up till I was about 12-14 or so... When I was around 10 I recall pushing that thing around... it didn't really cut grass very well due to the rust on the blades but, I liked the sound it made when the blades would spin. The wood handle was all aged and weathered and all the metal parts were rusted pretty good... may have been restorable but, I think it was on loan from the land lady we used to have (the ol' Crab!) before she provided a green gas mower from the 50s... had a huge basket in the front to catch the clippings... and you could put it into drive and it would mow by it's self... I would laugh when my dad would show me that!

The advent of gas powered mowers came around earlier on then most think... around the 1920s there were mowers but, they were huge clunky things that only rich people could afford for their gardeners to use... If I can dig up a picture, I'll post one.

Nice Restoration by the way Poohbang, I love the colors!

 

[memphislawyer]

A foos? I was thinking Chip Foos, the automobile expert. LOL

 

[PoohBang]

the major thing you must do when using a reel mower is not let a week go by...

if the grass is too tall then it's really tough to push it through, but if it's just a week old it's like butter...

And the colors are as close to the original as I could find. I didn't paint the wheels, their still original Small bits of green were still on the handle and other areas so I just matched that as best I could.

It probably had a cool Mast Foos logo down the front but I haven't seen that for sure yet...

 

[Story]

Pushmowers1, along with a glass of iced tea2 and a rocking chair2, are excellent tools to help with babysitting your friends' children.

/ 1 - for them. 2 - for me.

 

[Mike in Seattle]

the great thing about a reel mower is how simple it is to operate and restore.

It's just the spinning blade and some gears hidden in the wheels. I took mine apart and cleaned out the antique pieces of grass, greased them up and away you go.

About 12 years ago I tried to buy a new reel mower and nobody carried one... last week at sears, they had three models to choose from!

Funny how times change... backwards..

As the old song goes - everything old is new again!

 

[davestlouis]

I've never touched a reel mower. My first mower was a late 1970s Toro 21 inch self propelled that I used to mow a half dozen suburban lawns for years, and finally wore it out. I have a Honda now, with the Ninja mulching blades, it does a horrible job, always has, but I have too much grass to fool around with a reel mower.

 

[up196]

When I was a youngster, my father had a riding reel mower. It had a 5hp engine mounted above the reel and a tubular frame that came up and positioned a tractor seat above the engine then went down and forward to form the frame for the floorboard. It was steered br a single front wheel which had a triangle shaped handlebar "tiller."

I've never seen another one, or even a picture of one like it.

I believe he bought it at the W.T. Grant's Store.

 

[Joie DeVive]

Mine is an old Scotts labeled Silent.
I love it. I got it second-hand for $8. I think we paid more to buy a new grass-catcher than we did on the mower. lol
Does anybody know anything about sharpening reel push-mowers?

• Does it need to be done?
• How often?
• Any ideas where to get it done?

Thanks a bunch!

Joie

 

[David Conwill]

Does anybody know anything about sharpening reel push-mowers?

Mine came with a crank and some lapping compount (like an abraisive suspended in grease). You insert the crank in the side gears and it turns the blades backward, if you smear lapping compound on them first, it sharpens itself. Your hardware store may be able to sharpen blades, mine does. Of course, if you've only got Big Box stores around you may be just expected to throw them out and buy new.

-Dave

 

[ron521]

I'm kind of fascinated by reel mowers, but have given up on trying to use them.
In my experience, they don't deal well with wide-bladed grass, and they don't cut at a high level, few allow a cut higher than 1.5". I like my grass about 3 inches deep. I have a couple of Sears reel mowers, one I made adapters to raise the rear end higher. The other has adjustments on the front wheels and the rear roller. Still, even lubricated and adjusted, they don't work well on the grass in my yard.
Have even tried gasoline powered reel mowers, still don't give as clean cut as my rotary Toro.
My conclusion is that the reel mower is just the best idea available before there were gasoline engines, but when sufficiently powerful small gas engines DID become available, the rotary took over, and with good reason.

 

[Joie DeVive]

Mine came with a crank and some lapping compount (like an abraisive suspended in grease). You insert the crank in the side gears and it turns the blades backward, if you smear lapping compound on them first, it sharpens itself. Your hardware store may be able to sharpen blades, mine does. Of course, if you've only got Big Box stores around you may be just expected to throw them out and buy new.

-Dave

Thanks. I will have to see if I can find a kit of the crank and compound. I tried to have it sharpened at our local hardware stores, but they won't do reel mowers. Even the specialty mower shop in town won't touch it. I was beginning to wonder if I was missing something. Glad to know I'm not.

Joie