2020-06-7 reel lawn mower review

Gopherspace benefits from a diversity of content so I'm doing my part by
publishing a review of my new lawn mower.  Yes, I'm an American, and of course
this was the first thing I could think of to review.

My previous mower was a rechargeable electric mower and it died recently.
Actually the charger (with unique, custom-fit adapter) died and not the mower,
but a new charger costs more than half the price of a new mower.  I don't seem
to be able to repair it either, so I am forced into the classic consumer
capitalism pattern of replacing rather than repairing... :( 

But no more.  Rather than buying a new "high-tech" mower, I decided to go the
other way and buy a reel mower.  These are the old style mowers powered by the
human rather than a lithium battery or a combustion engine.  Yes, I probably
passed up all the great new mower innovations-- bluetooth, GPS, wifi,
artificial intelligence, and who knows what else --but at least I will be able
to repair it if something goes wrong. 

The mower I bought is made by the American Lawn Mower Company.  Is there
anything more "American" than this company!? It is a 16 inch (not 40 cm!),
5-blade reel mower and it cost less than $100.

The mower arrived on Saturday and I had it assembled in less than 10 minutes.
Very easy assembly.  Once assembled, squirt a little WD-40 on the blades and
you're ready to go.   

The first thing that struck me about the reel mower was its sound.  It is
quieter than a gas or electric mower, but not by a lot.  It sounds like the
noise a giant pair of scissors might make if they were used at rapid speed.
But more of a whirring rather than a snip, snip, snip.  And unlike a gas or
electric mower, the sound of the reel mower stops whenever you stop walking.
Because you're often backing up or repositioning the mower, this means that the
sound is constantly on and off.  I wonder if this might be slightly more
irritating to the neighbors, despite the lower volume.

The reel mower is a different beast than a gas or electric mower.  The
gas/electric mowers are super powerful and they can rip apart anything that
gets in their way-- sticks, dirt clods, lost kids toys -- pretty much anything
that goes under the mower is coming out in pieces.  Not so with the reel mower.
The whirling blades of the reel mower jam on pretty much anything larger than
grass.  The smallest sticks get caught in the blades, and even thick weeds will
sometimes stop them.  What this means is that you have to walk your yard before
mowing and remove everything but the grass.

If something does get caught in the blades though, it is very easy to turn them
back a bit with your foot and shake it out.  Unlike a gas/electric mower, there
is almost no way a reel mower is going to hurt you, let alone rip your foot
from your leg.

However, purely by accident, I discovered on first use that the blades continue
spinning unimpeded when they strike a blue tailed skink.  I didn't see the
thing until it was running away, minus its tail.  Incidentally, this was the
second time I've mowed down a skink in my yard.  The previous time was with the
electric mower and that skink didn't survive.

The reel mower also does not deal with long grass like a gas/electric.  Long
grass mostly just gets pushed down flat to the ground rather than cut.  If you
run the mower over the grass multiple times, it will end up cutting most of the
long grass, but it's still not perfect.  This is certainly one area where I
miss the old mower.  This means that you have to be careful not to let your
lawn get too long between mowings.

The reel mower also does not always cut evenly in one pass.  The manual
suggests that you mow the lawn in overlapping passes, so each patch gets
covered twice.  This may work fine if you have a rectangular yard with no
obstacles, but if like me you have to do a lot of zigzagging and loops to go
around bushes, trees, swigsets, piles of deer poop, etc, it means that you're
often pushing, backing up, pushing again, and checking to see that you've
covered an area.  But the smaller footprint of the reel mower also means that
you can more easily get into tight spots.

One big advantage of the reel mower is that it is very easy to push.  My
previous mower was not self-propelled and while it was relatively easy to push,
it was nothing like the reel mower.  The reel mower can easily be pushed with
one hand.  The light weight of the reel mower along with the small footprint is
a welcome change in my tight-packed garage as well.  I can even hang it on a
wall hook rather than needing a place to "park" it.

I never used a grass catcher bag on my electric mower, preferring to let the
grass clippings fall down as mulch.  The reel mower does have an add-on grass
catcher available (not included) but I didn't buy it.  It costs around $30-40
extra, if you need one.  Another tip from the manual is to mow frequently to
keep the clippings small so that they make good mulch.  I suppose this is the
same advice you would get with a gas or electric mower.

In the end, I give the reel mower two thumbs up.  The inability to pulverize
any obstacles in the mower's path is not such a bother to me.  Having to spend
more time to ensure that all grass is cut also doesn't bother me.  It's
exercise after all!  I am disappointed about the challenge of cutting long
grass.  But all of these negatives are outweighed by its nimble, light weight
and the fact that I CAN REPAIR IT if pretty much any part of it breaks.

But my recommendation comes with one caveat.  I have a pretty small yard, and I
doubt I would appreciate the extra work if my yard were much bigger.  If you
have a large yard, a reel mower is probably not for you.  It would take forever
to cut your grass.  For small yards, I endorse the reel mower.