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I suppose I have become a little fixated on grass …
So, I convinced the local gardening and hardware store to lend me a cylinder mower. It was a used and somewhat noisy (not free shear) Klippo Perfect, but I nevertheless got an idea of what mowing the lawn by hand would be like. That is just about the only thing I can say for certain so far.
The lawn looked good even though there were some straws left standing here and there. But then again the mower was not exactly in prime condition and I guess the knives just didn’t do their job. Or I failed to set it correctly. Plus, as I said the mower was not a free shear design, meaning that the knife cylinder will actually touch the bottom knife, making an awful sound and obviously it requires quite a bit a tuning and know-how, something that I just didn’t have time for. I did however notice that the mower was somewhat less responsive, when set to a contact level that I felt was ok, compared to the Husqvarna free shear model that I’ve had limited experience with.
Slopes: On the topic of slopes and uneven terrain the mower did a reasonably good job. At least better than I had anticipated. Because a hand cylinder mower weights just around 8-10kg, it’s not as exhausting to keep pushing it up a slop as opposed to pushing a mulcher motor mower of at least 30kg.
Grass cuttings: Something that I new beforehand would be a problem is the excess of grass cuttings produced. Unlike a mulcher of course. This is also dependant on how often you mow of course. But as it turned out today, it felt like to much was left on top of the lawn. We’ll see how it looks after a couple of days …
Cutting width: About the width of the machine, I had though that the loss of 5cm would be a problem. It wasn’t really. In the end it probably means 2-3 more runs but with this design I can also move and mow so much faster than with a mulcher so … this feature is difficult to evaluate.
Design: My main gripe with the Klippo Perfect was probably the length of the machine. Something that you also can do nothing about. I’m of average height, around 6′1, and the grip was just way too low. That means back pain and that you wont be able to exert the the kind of forward force that you’d like to. Really cheap of Klippo. But then again, this is something that is evident with almost all gardening tools, like consumer trimmers. I don’t know how many garden midgets and gnomes are actually out there mowing but I say this is discrimination.
Kudos to Klippo for using big and reliable rubber wheels though. In fact they’re enormous. Much bigger than what you’d expect even from Klippo’s professional motor mowers.
