Any advertisement represents a new lawn mower as a universal tool that can do the work of a dozen mowers in an hour. In addition to high productivity, the lawn mower allows you to get the good quality lawn and mow successfully, regardless of qualification, with relatively little physical exertion. But it is not so easy to work as a lawn mower. You need a certain skill to control the machine and a good knowledge of the terrain features.
Lawnmower Management Basics.
Any lawn mower is a motor with a pair of sharp knives mounted on the motor shaft. The entire structure of the motor shaft with the impeller is covered with plastic or steel protection and mounted on a wheeled cart. Despite the relatively large weight of the unit, in theory, any adult can mow a lawn-mower without special physical training. However, mowing the grass is not as easy as it might look on advertising.
For proper and safe control of the mower, you must:
- Properly serve the device, adjust and prepare the lawn mower for work;
- Good orientation of the mowed area. Before starting work, inspect the site and remove stones, large branches, any debris that can break off the cutting edge, knife and engine;
- If there are beds or shrubs on the lawn, it is necessary to think in advance about the movement of the lawn mower and the place for unloading the container with the cut grass.
Practice working on a lawnmower.
Any complex technical device requires some time to get used it to. If you didn’t have any practice of working with mowers of any performance, the first thing you need to do is to read the instructions to clearly understand which levers and handles are used to control the lawn-mower’s motor and which ones are used to control the trimming parameters. Besides, you will need to learn how to adjust the position of the cutting edge of the mower to mow the grass in an even and neat layer, leaving the laid 3-4 cm of vegetation throughout the site.
Adjusting and starting the mower motor.
Maintenance and adjustment of engine speed are considered to be the most difficult step in preparing the lawn mower to work. Therefore, before you enter into the fight with complex technology, even with some experience, be sure to read and re-read the instruction manual.
The standard procedure for preparing a new engine for work is approximate as follows:
- The lawn mower must be installed on a flat and hard surface, turn all folding elements and handles into working position. The drive lever on the wheels must be turned off. If the lawn mower is equipped with a spark-off system, it is imperative that it be turned off;
- Mowing is necessary only for a serviceable lawn mower; therefore, before starting the motor, it is necessary to inspect it and make sure that there is no leakage of oil and fuel. A gloved hand checks the density of the landing chips on a candle and proceed to refuel and oil;
- The filling of liquids is carried out according to the gauges, for the oil crankcase of the motor it will be necessary to fill in the lubricant by the average measure, no more. If poured over, liquid may be squeezed out of the vent or through the gasket;
- Be sure to change the oil after running. If you decide to use semi-synthetics, do not switch to mineral water, and vice versa. Approximately the first 20-30 hours after the engine has been run in, it is necessary to mow the grass at medium and low revs. The performance will be low, but in the end, you will significantly benefit from the resource of the motor, after a couple of mowings you can mow in normal mode.
What oil in the lawn mower pour? High-quality mineral or semi-synthetics. The most correct would be to follow the recommendations of the manufacturer, and not follow the advice of the seller of engine oils.
Do not believe the sellers’ fables and advertising slogans about the preliminary run-in of engines in the enterprise. This procedure is fully carried out at the enterprise only for powerful high-speed motors with a high degree of boost.
The easiest way to mow on high-octane unleaded fuel, but only if you are 100% sure of the quality of gasoline. The engine of a lawn-mower well holds turns and practically does not heat up. American and Chinese engines normally work on the A-92, the European options may be more careless in choosing gasoline. For two-stroke engines, gas mixes with special oil in the ratio of 50: 1.
We start the motor in the following sequence:
- Before starting, check the position of the lawn-mower movement control knob, the transmission must be turned off, otherwise, at the time of the start of the motor, the mower will begin to move and mow on its own. Turning off the power of the magneto or ignition system and several times scroll the motor shaft with a starting cord or using a starter.
- Turn on the ignition, close the air damper and try to start the engine.
- If the starter does not work, turn off the ignition, open the air damper and, after cranking the shaft with the starter for a few seconds, blow the combustion chamber.
- After a successful start of the engine, we move the gas control lever to the position corresponding to the turns between the middle and the lowest.
The motor of the mower should be started only if there is no fuel leakage at the pipe joints.
Virtually all models can mow and dump grass into the collection box, so we choose a convenient place for lawn-mower parking to remove and unload the grass box and retool the car or inspect it if necessary. There will also be fuel, tools and spare candles.
Lawnmower Knife Adjustments.
Before starting to mow, adjust the height of the knives above the ground. Most often, lifting the mower’s body over the grass is set with one handle, less often with two. on each pair of wheels, this helps mow lawns with very dense and heavy grass.
The heavier the mower case, the lower the cutting edges can be. Most often, it is a value of 20-25 mm. Soft grass is good to mow when the cutting position is low, for severe and high it is necessary to adjust not only the ground clearance but also the angle of inclination of the body of the lawn mower.
Forward tilting helps to compensate for the mower to move backwards when pressing too hard on the handle. Especially if the grass is wet. mowing is difficult, the rear drive wheels can slip. For a front-wheel-drive mower, this tilting only degrades mower performance, gaps appear, and the surface remains uneven.
Knob adjustment.
New lawn mowers make it possible to adjust the position of the handle for any height or features of the constitution and body build of a person. The easiest way to mow and guide the cart, if the hands on the handle are at the level of the center of gravity of the body or 2-3cm higher.
With a large mass of the lawn mower, the control knob has quite a lot of effort, so when choosing a model, choose a design with an aluminum or steel tubular frame.
It is especially true for front-drive models of lawn mowers. Owners of mowers with a leading front end like to hang out the front axle, thereby reducing the thrust and adjusting the direction of movement of the machine, turning the body on the rear axle in the right direction with a handle.
How to mow without blunders?
First of all, you need to mow, without exerting excessive excess effort on the control handle. The lawn mower was designed without taking into account such an overload on the rear axle. For the front-driven mower option, this degrades the quality of the haircut. When working on the rear-wheel drive version, such a “help” wears out the transmission and leads to the appearance of potholes on the lawn, and it becomes more difficult to mow. Also, you can easily damage a knife, a motor, or mow the grass along the ground.
The art of mowing the lawn-mower comes with practice. Most often, the direction of movement is adjusted by moving the handle to the left or right. In particularly severe cases, you can even mow along a steep path by tilting the body of the lawn mower slightly to the left or right, increasing the grip on the wheels on one side and loosening the other. Management techniques are simple but require practice and skill.
It is considered the most difficult to mow at a border or a fence. Such work requires accuracy and a right eye. Most often damage to knives occurs when trying to mow in areas with patches of gravel or under the edge of the stone blind area.
Best of all in such difficult conditions mow down with the model with a piano suspension front pair of wheels. For a complex edge configuration, mowing with such a lawn-mower is much easier.
Conclusion.
A long tradition of mowing grass in the early morning is not only associated with more comfortable working conditions. Moisturized morning dew vegetation is much easier and faster cut even low-power motor. Less dust and plant pollen rise, which is especially important during the flowering of ragweed or similar plants that secrete allergenic particles. But in such conditions it is possible to mow only petrol models, electric lawn mowers should work only in a dry environment.