On lawnmowing
Day 5: “Nice straight stripes”
There are two sorts of lawnmowers: the ones with a spinning blade on a vertical axis that decapitates the blades of grass; and the ones with a spinning barrel of blades on a horizontal axis that strike against an edge and slice through the grass.
When I was growing up in the 1970s, a barrel blade that sliced the grass was the norm. We had a push mower: my parents minimised the physical exertion this involved by having four children. Our neighbours didn't have children, instead they had a Suffolk Colt petrol mower. It was around this time that the first FlyMos came out: initially they were petrol powered, later there were electric ones. The FlyMo created a strong down draft and moved on a cushion of air which regulated the height of the cut. It allowed a steep grass bank to be cut by attaching a piece of sash cord to the handle and lowering the mower down the bank on its air cushion.
Today almost everyone uses a rotary mower, and nowadays they typically are supported on driven wheels. Cylinder mowers with a striking plate are the preserve of those with a rather precious disposition.
I got my first cylinder mower in about 2001, not long after moving to where I now live. For reasons I can't remember I was dawdling in Sainsbury and so looked at the board of small ads. I saw someone nearby was selling a 17” mower and went round to look (an aside, domestic barrel mowers come with 14”, 17” or 21” cutting widths, though today they're expressed in centimetres)(a further aside, as an engineer I recognise metres and millimetres as valid units of length).
Reader, I bought it there and then. A 1970s Webb that cut beautifully and could hold its own on my street: I have a neighbour who repairs and runs a classic car, a neighbour who repairs and runs classic motorcycles and a neighbour who repairs and runs a classic tractor. I paid someone else to do servicing and repairs, but I could stand proud running a classic walk-behind mower. Being from the era when petrol had lead in it, I put a few drops of Redex lead substitute in every tankful to keep the valves lubricated. And it ran and ran and ran. Until last year.
I had it serviced regularly, but not annually. Last year it was due, and I loaded it in the back of the car and took it to Sharnford Horticultural. They had a look at what needed doing: the cutting barrel had been reground enough times that its diameter was too small to be reground again. A new barrel was needed. To be fair, the grass hadn't been flying to the collecting box properly for some years. And a few days later they advised me that they couldn't source the part: it had mown its last.
While mowers haven't improved much in the last 20 years, they have since the 1970s. A bit of eBaying found me a 2008 17” Atco for just over £400 – you could get a new rotary mower for less money, but the precious disposition precludes that. This has an industry standard Kawasaki petrol engine and, as the model is in production now, there should be spares available until I'm 6' under (or 2m or 2000mm). Continuing the precious theme, I run it on Aspen 4 – it costs more than unleaded out of the pump, but repays this premium by running sweetly even after winter storage.
And every time I mow with it, I look at the finished work an think to myself “Damn, that looks good”.