Great States 304-14 14-Inch 5-Blade Push Reel Lawn Mower, Red

My favorite thing about this simple lawn mower is that it’s easy to adjust the height.There is a learning curve so be patient if you don’t get it right away. I prefer a reel mower because it’s easy to maintain, store and use. My lawn was a little overgrown but this still got it pretty good. When I did the edges with a weed whacker and a couple patches that wear too tall I chopped the tops before I used the mower. I set it pretty high since my lawn was neglected and it did great. Very easy to push. Will last many years and very easy to maintain. Will recommend to others.

My Uncle had one these long ago. It took my whole body to try to move it. He left it in the rain and it was covered in rust and so friggin heavy. I hated the thought of getting one of these for my own yard. All my life I've had gas lawn mowers. As my latest expensive gas self propelled was breaking down, I thought I'd try one ofthese as I was getting tired of the hassle of gasoline engines. I also thought I could do with the exercise. I was amazed but apprehensive on how light the box was. Very easy to put it together. Five minutes I think. I was kind of expecting to pack it up after giving it a try. I was laughing at how simple the thing is. Laughing even more on how it cut so well and was so easy to push. Kind of reminds me of a kids toy. But I'm amazed how well and easy it works. I have a small yard. Total time would take half an hour. With this it took twenty minutes. Because I'm not messing with the gas and trying to start the engine. There was something weird that happened after cutting the lawn with my new mower. I looked around and thought, "that's it?" Because before it felt like such a monumental task to cut the yard. The smell of the exhaust, the weight of the gas mower made it feel like cutting the grass was such a monumental task This is easier to push than my self propelled gas lawn mower. I wish I bought one of these long ago.It really does feel like a toy. Not saying it's cheap. It seems sturdy and well built. But because it was fun to cut the grass this time. I did give it a test by cutting some brambles and large weeds. It chewed thru them. As long as there are no rocks or sticks, I think this is a keeper.One thing, buy a can of WD-40 to spray the blades to prevent rust.

I have no desire to be "organic" or to adopt some weird hipster method for cutting my lawn. I use some legitimate equipment on my lawn that is just too brutal on some areas of my lawn. Getting tired of 100 point turns and super spins from my zero-turn mower ripping up my grass. I was looking for a solution to allow my lawn to grow back in some spots that have gotten a little too beaten up by my lawnmower. So, I considered a push reel mower. But I had some major hesitations. There's so many videos and photos out there of people's lawns looking like garbage after using this thing. But I took the gamble and bought it and I'm glad I did so far. I figured "that guy in the video has grass that's 8 inches high. There's no way it's the mower's fault" or "look at this dope butchering his lawn on the lowest setting." Sure enough, I was right. I keep a very well manicured lawn. This was supposed to be my easy quick fix for hitting a few strips of property that are tricky to get to. However, I found myself hitting nearly the whole lawn with it today after assembly and it looks great. It can't beat the striping and the even cut of my zero turn mower, but it does a pretty darn good job for what I need it for and if you are cool with frequent cuts and leaving behind grass clippings, you'll like this thing. It can be used by a lawn manicurist, not just some hippie that would rather be brewing his coffee with a french press and looking at his record collection. I cut my lawn to 3 inches plus, but the highest setting of 2 3/4 inches is just fine for the area I'm doing. It's the setting I would recommend. It does require an easy adjustment. Build quality seem acceptable for a 100 dollar piece of equipment. However, it's engineered terribly. They basically send you two left sides to a handle. And this is actually an issue if you want to fasten the wing nuts/bolt in the same direction on both sides of the handle. Because the left handle is basically the right handle upside down, the bolt no longer fits inside of a dimple in the handle frame. So you're left with two choices: bolting one bolt and wing nut upside down and one right side up, or muscling one of the wing nuts so hard that you make your own dimple in the frame. I chose the second option and don't think I'd do it that way as the wing nut doesn't seem to like that much force. After reviewing some photos of other peoples' mowers on here, I can tell they had the same issue. The manual touches upon this in Chinglish. But in reality it's a lazy design flaw. But back to the positive. I love that I can just grab this from a corner of my garage and quickly do some touchup work with it. I love that it's light. I have an acre of land and prefer to pick up clippings, but if I had 1/4 of an acre or less I would totally use this thing every few cuts for a quick trim. And again, it's perfect for touchup work. It would be even better if the blades didn't sit between the wheels. I'd like it to be able to do edge work better. It looks like some models that Fiskars makes have the wheels behind the blades so that the blades cut to the very edge. You'll understand this gentle complaint once you start using this. If you want to cut up against a garden bed, you need to put the wheel in the garden bed. And if the garden bed is raised a bit, you're stuck with a lousy cut along that bed. Those models with the wheels behind the blades rather than sandwiching the blades sound like an option I would explore. Better, pneumatic tires would be really nice too for lawn work. Oh...this thing chokes on pinecones big time. At the highest setting it goes over sprinkler heads with no problem, so I figured it would clear a pinecone. Nope. Won't do that again.