Rotary lawn mowers are far and away the most popular lawn mower design type in use in Australia and around the world. Rotary lawn mowers consist of the classic lawn mower style which we are all most familiar with, consisting of a base with four wheels, an engine on top of the base, with a catcher and handlebars at the rear of the lawn mower.
The rotary lawn mower design is highly versatile and suited to almost all types of lawn mowing requirements, from slashing long overgrown grass to regular lawn mowing of more well kept lawns.
The cut quality of a rotary lawn mower can vary greatly between different lawn mower brands and the different models and designs they offer. Cut quality of a lawn mower can also very obviously depend upon the condition of the lawn being cut and whether that lawn is regularly well maintained and cut, or whether perhaps that lawn may lay on the more neglected side of things.
Types Of Blades On A Rotary Lawn Mower
There are two main blade systems in use on rotary lawn mowers, though each blade system will cut in essentially the same manner, being the engine powering spinning blades which are housed within the base of the lawn mower.
The bar blade system consists of usually a single long blade, while there are some bar blade lawn mower models which have two long bar blades to do the lawn mowing work. The main issue with the bar blade system is that it is prone to cause bending of the engine crankshaft if and when the blades may inadvertently hit a hard solid object. Now obviously a bent crankshaft will not happen at every occurrence of the lawn mower blades hitting solid immovable objects, though it is a risk factor which needs to be considered as it can and does happen. The only method of repairing a bent crankshaft on a lawn mower engine (as far as I’m aware) is to rebuild the engine with a new crankshaft. In which case it may be more economical, depending on the lawn mower model, to discard the lawn mower in question and to purchase a new one, to to perhaps source an entirely new engine for the mower repair.
Bar blades can generally be resharpened many times over the life of the blade.
The more common rotary lawn mower blade system is one which uses a blade carrier with either two or four shorter blades attached. The blade carrier is circular by design, with the individual blades bolted on at the outer edge of the disc. The blades, while rigidly attached to the blade carrier have the advantage that when they may hit a solid object they will shift out of place, which thereby greatly lessens any direct solid impact to an engine crankshaft should the mower encounter a large solid object.
Blade carrier blades are generally worn through faster and replaced when the blades become worn. Always be sure to also replace nut, bolts, and washers each time the blades are swapped over. The stresses these components endure is immense and so these parts should be replaced regularly also, this ensures that these nuts and bolts holding the blades maintain their integrity with no chance of these critical parts failing, which would of course discharge the blade they are holding at incredible speeds, and we can only imagine the damage to people or property which would be possible in such an event.
Petrol And Cordless Rotary Mowers
Today there are many cordless rotary lawn mowers available on the market for the homeowner to choose from. Cordless lawn mowers continue to keep improving as this new battery technology also continues to race forward. Run time on these batteries that power cordless lawn mowers still remains limited, so it would be a very wise idea to do as much research as possible to ensure a cordless lawn mower is suitable for your needs and the size of your lawn.
Personally, I do keep closely monitoring cordless lawn mower offerings as they continue to so rapidly improve, and I am very keenly waiting for the day when I can finally retire my petrol lawn mower for good.
Petrol lawn mowers for the time being still remain the king of the field, with far greater raw power at hand for every possible lawn length and lawn size. There remains a vast array of petrol powered lawn mowers which also continue to be updated and improved regularly. Many of today’s lawn mower engines are now inexpensive, very reliable, and very easy to start, most often starting on the first pull of the cord.
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