LIVING THE DREAM FOR A DOLLAR AN ACRE
(Page 3 of 9)
Don't try to sharpen it yourself. You'll ruin the reel
trying to sharpen it with a flat file and you'll cut your
fingers trying to hold a well-oiled reel in place with one
hand while you file with the other. You might also damage
the cutting edges or bend the curved blades trying to jam
the reel in place with a stick or whatever is handy. Before
you get a hand-push reel mower, be sure there's an
old-timer in town with a Belsaw and the skill to sharpen
both the straight cutter bar and the compound curves of a
mower reel.
RELATED CONTENT
Mother's Dual-Fuel Alcohol-Powered Van!
January/February 1981
Here's the latest...
More on Canadian Immigration November/December 1970 Since our special feature (in NO. 5) on emmigra...
Lingonberries are a prettier and more edible relative of the Thanksgiving cranberry...
KEEP THAT SAW RUNNING RIGHT September/October 1983 A few minutes of your time and a little attentio...
Power-mowing and much more — without the need to
sharpen anything — can be performed most easily and
safely with MOTHER's nomination for the most innovative
country-homeplace land-care machine of the late twentieth
century: the wheeled trimmer-mower. It is best exemplified
by the DR, popularized by Country Home Products of
Vergennes, Vermont, and closely copied by several other
firms who knew a good idea when they saw one.
With these machines, a twenty-inch or so swath of
vegetation is cut by four lengths of one-eighth-inch thick
nylon cord that revolve parallel to the ground at high
speed. The machine is powered by a modern, quiet,
low-emissions four-cycle gasoline engine mounted on a
sturdy chassis that is supported by a pair of
sixteen-inch-high wheels. They operate on the same
principle as the hand-carried string trimmer — a
little, shrieking, two-cycle engine on a pole that whirls a
length of fishing line to snip off grass around trees and
foundations that a mower can't reach. Yet the motorized,
wheeled trimmer-mower is in fact an entirely different
class of tool, having more in common with a heavy-duty,
flexible, flail-type brush-cutter.
We purchased a top-of-the-line, electric-starting,
six-horsepower DR Trimmer-Mower. We bought it at full price
and anonymously — as is the case with all products
cited in this article and most others reviewed by MOTHER.
We gave it hard use in several natural landscaping locales
over a variety of terrain and weather conditions during
1997. It proved easy to operate, effective, and —
best of all — safe, in home-mowing conditions ranging
from a small, closely-trimmed front lawn, to meadows,
woodland paths, clearings, and the moderately dense mixed
meadow-brush on the rutted and hilly "back forty."
Though not promoted as a fine-lawn mower, the DR proved
able to trim our country-lawn grass as neatly and evenly as
any rotary — though not to the perfect putting
surface of a reel-mower. And, unlike any kind of lawn
mower, it can trim right up to tree trunks or building
foundations, under fences, and close to tender ornamentals
or vegetable plants.
Page:
<< Previous 1 |
2 | 3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
Next >>
