34 replies to this topic

[Zippity]

Go Electric..

 

[blue&orange]

The neighbors laughed at my dad when he bought our Sunbeam electric mower, but in 18 years of service we replaced the drive belts once.  It was a dandy mower as long as you mowed moving away from the outlet.

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[Eddie Fleming]

Uh and just how do you mow moving away from the outlet?

[blue&orange]

You mow in a pattern that moves away from the outlet so your are not running over the cord.  Or, you could do like my wife did the first time she used a corded electric mower and "vacuum" the yard.

[James Wendel]

Uh and just how do you mow moving away from the outlet?

 

Back in the early 1960's my best friends dad worked for PP&L (Pacific Power and Light), so naturally he had an all electric home and mower his yard with an electric mower.

 

The power cord attached to the side of the handle, and the handle flipped from the back of the mower to front, so it could mow in either direction.  Instead of turning around after each pass of the lawn, he flipped the handle over and pushed from the other side.  Thus the cord was always on the "outlet side" of the mower.  You mow away from the outlet for obvious reasons.

[Eddie Fleming]

When you said outlet I was thinking of the grass outlet. 

[Phil Smith]

We had an electric lawn mower when I was a teen. That's when I learned how to splice an extension cord back together. More than once.

[Dave Crevie]

When I was a teenager mowing lawns, I had a next-door neighbor who worked for Seeburg Corp. He was an electrical engineer, and designed the circuitry for juke boxes and vending machines. He knew nothing about internal combustion engines, and let his lawn mower engine run low on oil and seize up. He replaced the engine with the motor out of a washing machine, which worked pretty good. Except that if he hit something with the blade the motor would stall. He had an in-line fuse holder on the handle, which took the little 10 amp glass tube fuses so popular back then. He would mow his lawn with a pocket full of those little fuses. He had some kind of trigger switch on the handle that if you let go of it the motor stopped. No blade brake like today's mowers, so you had to remember to wait for the blade to spin down before sticking your fingers under it to clear clods. My Dad took a picture of that mower, it may be in his box of photos.

 

During those years the neighbor became very busy at work and was not able to take care of his yard anymore. After several weeks of letting his 12 year old boy do it, he hired me to take over. The kid was a genius at math, but he couldn't develop a pattern to mow the lawn. There were tufts of grass left standing all over.  

[MattD]

We had an electric mower back in the 50's.    We never had trouble with the cord.    You just learned to flip it to the side like you do when you run a vacuum cleaner.    You guys do vacuum , don't you?

[Dave Crevie]

   You guys do vacuum , don't you?

 

Occasionally. Normally I do laundry on even numbered years, and clean house on odd numbered years.