Today's entry is a guest entry from Eric in NC about maintaining your push mower.
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If your push reel mower isn't cutting the grass like it used to, one likely culprit is the blades not being properly set. Here's a quick way to check to see if this is the case. First, raise the height of the mower to the tallest setting. This makes getting at the blades easier:
You'll see here that the reel mower cuts grass like a pair of scissors. The rotary blades spin and come very nearly in contact with the stationary blade, where my finger is. Note that safety warning about not putting your hands inside this area, which is what I'm doing lol
First, push down on the rotary blades to simulate the cutting motion. You should feel no resistance and it should spin freely. If the rotary blades touch the stationary blades, you'll hear a metal on metal noise and this could be the reason why your mower is very difficult to push. If this happens, adjust the blades so that they are as close together without actually touching.
If you find that your blades spin freely, take a strip of paper and position it in between the stationary and rotary blades like so:
Push down on the blades and the paper should be cut. Do this all alone the length of the stationary blade, being careful not to amputate your fingers.
If the paper does not get cut, you'll want to position the blades closer together. This is done different on each mower but what you'll be doing is adjust it little by little until the blades actually touch (you'll hear the noise when the rotary blade spins), and then back off the tiniest amount so that there's a tiny bit of space separating the two blades.
This is how it's done on my Fiskars mower. Now go out and enjoy your newly adjusted mower!
