Types of Lawn Mowers – Reel Type
There are two main mower types : Reel Type Lawn Mowers and Rotary Type Lawn Mowers. There are many. Making the right choice for the best lawn mower can ensure that your beautiful lawn is kept green, healthy and really, without a doubt make your lawn care and maintenance much easier in the long run. Usually, what can help determine what type of lawn mower that you will use, is the TYPE OF GRASS and what lawn mower will cut it most efficiently. Then you may need to move your thoughts over to the comparison on features and costs.
Reel Type Lawn Mowers
Reel mowers can cut lawns shorter than rotary types because of their shearing action similar to scissors. That is why they are used on golf courses and short cut Bermuda lawns. The sheering action of reel mowers makes a cleaner cut than that of rotary mowers. Reel mowers also leave finer grass clippings than ordinary rotary mowers, but not quite as fine as mulching rotary mowers.
Push Type – Reel Type Mower:
- Push type Reel lawn mowers are very basic and use blades on a revolving cylinder, called a reel, to cut grass. When the reel mower is pushed forward, the reel moves cutting the grass across the bedknife.
- The basic push mower mechanism is also used in gangs towed behind a tractor. The individual mowers are arranged in a vee behind the tractor with each mower’s track slightly overlapping that of the mower in front of it. Gang mowers are used over large areas of turf such as sports fields or parks.
Engine Powered Reel Type Mower
- A gasoline engine can be added to a reel mower to power the reel, or both the reel and the wheels. A typical arrangement for residential lawns have engine spinning the reel while the operator pushes the mower along. Some variants have only 3 blades in a reel spinning at great speed, and these models can cut grass which has grown too long for ordinary push mowers. Usually they are setup so that the engine is on top of the lawn mower and it drives a series of chains and belts to finally turn the cutting blades.
- How they work is the mower moves forward, the rotating blades come in sliding contact (or almost within contact if it is a silent cut design) with a stationary bar that is parallel to the ground. The stationary bar is called a bed knife. The grass is held up by the bed knife and is cut by the shearing action of the reel blades against the bed knife. The mower can be adjusted to various cutting heights.
- Greens (roller) mowers are used for the precision cutting of golf greens. The reel is followed by a large roller which smooths the freshly cut lawn and minimizes wheel marks. Because of the weight of the roller, the engine also needs to propel the mower. Much smaller motorless and lighter variants of the roller mower are sometimes used for small patches of ornamental lawns around flower beds.
Of all the mowers, a properly adjusted reel mower makes the cleanest cut of the grass, and this allows the grass to heal and regrow quicker and better. The cutting action is often likened to that of scissors; however, it is not necessary for the blades of the spinning reel to contact the horizontal cutting bar. If the gap between the blades is less than the thickness of the grass, a clean cut can still be made.
The reel mower has a horizontal cutting blade is carried close to the grass, at the desired height of cut. Over this is a fast spinning reel of blades. Each blade in the reel forms a helix around the reel axis, and the set of spinning blades describes a cylinder. The spinning blades force the grass past the cutting bar.
Riding reel mowers are also produced. Typically, the cutting reels are ahead of the vehicle’s main wheels, so that the grass can be cut before the wheels push the grass over onto the ground. The reels are often hydraulically powered.
