Great States 204-14 Hand Reel 14 Inch Push Lawn Mower

We have a lot of lawn to mow, but are not fussy about it being mowed every week or "perfectly". Use the gas mower for some of the big areas, but wanted to try and become more environmentally friendly and LESS NOISY! First, the assembly. Let me say that even tho' I am a 61 year old female, I am VERY handy. I gave 3 stars to ease of assembly. This is the biggest negative about the mower. I am not saying it is difficult exactly, just annoying at times. One good tip I got from reading the reviews was this: ASSEMBLY is a bit of a.....pain. There are 3 bits: the handle, the middle, and the reel. The handle assembles easily. You will have issues if you follow the instructions by attaching that to the middle part and then putting the entire assembly on the reel. The trick is to attach the middle part to the reel as you will have to push on it (compress it) to get it on the posts. That will be impossible if you've fully assembled the handle as it doesn't flex to fit. Once it's on the reel, bolt the handle to the middle bit. THAT reviewer knew what they were talking about! ALSO, regarding assembly I agree with this reviewer: 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. THIS IS TRUE! I did the former.I also found that altho' it is true that ideally one doesn't want to set the reel too low and cut too much height off the grass at any one time, the mower works WAY better if you adjust the blades close to ground. I have not found that doing so causes the usual problem of grass too short and "burning". Oh, the method for adjust reel / blades is just awkward. But, not too hard. Regarding trying to cut longer grass. I have found that the blades are so sharp that even letting the grass get rather long (say 6-7 inches!) is perfectly fine. It is true that it does a much better job on soft grass. If you have a lot of "straw", you will get frustrated; it will not cut this sort of grass. People commented that it is better to walk fast and get the reel turning faster...yes, definitely makes cutting easier. Sometimes you benefit by giving a spot a second swipe. I think no matter the type of mower that overlapping your "lanes" of mowing and essentially double mowing is beneficial. I don't know why, but I like the "cut' produced by this mower much better than the gas mower. It is much greener and thicker looking. If you want a reel type mower, this one is highly recommended. Oh, yes it only goes forward. Not really an issue. Sticks? Well, if they are small and flat on ground, not an issue. If one gets in the blades...it stops SUDDENLY. Just pick the stick out. Hardly an issue for me; most small twigs get mowed right over. Lastly, the best thing is you can quickly grab it, no gassing up, do a small area only if need be...sometimes there are patches that grew faster than the rest. I am glad I bought it. Get the wider one for a few more dollars.

Awesome lawn mower! I am thrilled to go back to basics and get rid of the loud gas mower that is hard to start! This one runs on my calories and is nice and quiet, meaning I can mow any time without worrying about making noise early or late. It is also much easier to move round from front yard to back yard. One time I even carried it through my house for a shortcut! Ha! Yes, it has a hard cutting tall grass but I find that going more slowly, and maybe doing half the blade part on the tall grass and half on the cut grass makes it more doable. It is not heavy but in thick grass going uphill it is a little bit of an effort. It also does not like any form of twigs or clusters of thick grass, and it can't get close to the edges, so you may want to use an edger or weedwacker. I have a small handheld electric trimmer I use for edges. My lawns look so good now, and it will be easier to mow next time as long as I don't let the grass grow too tall again. Assembly of the mower was a little confusing. I could not tell if the handle part was to slant down or up. Drawing in manual was not good. Also, put the lower part of the handle on the wheel part first! That was not easy, but it would have been harder if the rest of the handle was attached to that part. The tricky thing is to get the bottom part of the handle squeezed into place between the wheels. I have arthritis and it was hard to use enough strength to squeeze it so it would snap into place. No screws required there. A few other screws to secure the handle parts, but that was easy. I am super pleased with this mower. It reminds me of my dad mowing with a manual mower like this back in the 70s. Yeah, maybe a little harder but it has so many advantages, too. Sometimes we need to go back to basics. Big, loud,heavy, polluting lawnmowers are gross when you think about it. I see more and more neighbors use these old school mowers. Love it. And you can buy a blade sharpener for this mower, which I plan to do, so we can use it for a loooong time. I think it will last. Great quality. Just avoid running the blades into rocks and branches.