Reel (cylinder) Mowers

There are four major types of reel mower: push, walk behind power, ride-on power, and tow-behind gang mower. Push mowers are powered by people pushing them and are usually used on very small lawns. The walk power reel mower can be divided into two types: a (largely obsolete) powered version of the push mower, used for residential lawns and a ‘greens mower’ used for the precision cutting of golf greens. Riding power reel mowers can also be divided into two types: the ‘triplex’ which has three hydraulically driven independent cutting heads and is used for golf greens, and the larger ‘fairway’ machine that has five or seven hydraulically driven cutting heads. Gang reel mowers are towed behind a tractor in sets (gangs) of three, five, or seven. They are ‘ground-powered’ that is, the tires of each cutting unit are geared to drive the reel. Gang mowers are used to mow large areas of turf such as sports fields or parks.

Presently several companies are producing cordless electric reel mowers. The performance of the batteries vary in terms of how long the batteries can power mowers and the recharging cycles. An hour and a quarter (75 minutes) to half an hour (30 minutes) is the range of running time. Six hours to twenty-four hours is the range of time required to fully recharge batteries. Most batteries can be recharged several hundred times. Cordless electric reel mowers weigh 30 – 35 pounds.

The cutting action of the reel mower requires contact between the spinning reel and the stationary bed knife. The reel is first adjusted until it spins free. It is then adjusted back until it barely touches the bed knife on one side. The other side is then adjusted until it too makes contact with the bed knife. Contact is judged by cutting strips of slick magazine paper. The machine should be gradually adjusted until it is able to cut paper all along the bed knife. If the machine is too tight to be easily pushed, the left and right sides should be loosened slightly, by the same amount on each side, until it is loose enough to push. It is sometimes helpful to spray the reel with oil or silicone lubricant to allow it to turn freely. During use, the blades are lubricated with juice from the freshly cut grass.

The scissor-like action of a reel mower provides a much cleaner cut on the blades of grass than a rotary mower, avoiding brown ends that result from tearing or bruising of the remaining portion of the blade of grass.