Hi Everyone,
I thought I might post an update on the SB a little later on into the project because once the mowers are finished, we often don't hear much more about their performance.
After the mower was all finished (late autumn) I went about mowing my lawn with the old rotary mower and knocking down the height to a suitable level to use the SB. This was a biiiiig mistake as I stressed the lawn coming into winter and it caused the lawn to really suffer through the cold months. A lot of the lawn died right back and I have some bare patches, also there was a lot of weed (winter grass, clover, etc) in the lawn as it started to take off again in the last couple of months. Tip one: wait until the grass is growing before you cut it right down to SB level!!
The mower itself is amazing, it does such a fantastic job on the lawn and cuts it so flat. Now that the lawn is recovering (QLD Blue Couch), it loves to be cut by the mower. After cutting, the grass has noticeably grown after a couple of days and looks really healthy. As noted above, I have had to do a bit more spraying to get rid of the weeds but the grass seems to handle it well. The mower leaves the tell-tail stripes in the lawn which looks great. The stripes have been lasting around two days.
One thing the mower doesn't do as well as the rotary is vacuum the lawn! The old rotary sucks up all the leaves and mulches the branches (I don't mow the branches with the SB!) The SB picks up nothing and I either have to rake the lawn prior to mowing or I get the rotary out, set it above the grass and vacuum away!! Something which I'm sure my inquisitive neighbours find hilarious!!
Another thing about the mower is its nostalgic value, every single one of my neighbours has walked over and had a look at it when I have been mowing the lawn, everybody is interested! Cars and walkers slow down and take a good look at it, I think half of them are trying to work out what it is and the other half know what it is and want a look at it or complement the fine job it does on the lawn!
Problems so far:
Cutting surfaces; Nil, the thing is still razor sharp and I have not had to touch it yet!
Engine; a couple of weeks ago I could not get it to fire - a quick check of the spark plug and there was no spark. I fiddled around with it for half an hour or so, gave up and took it to the local mower shop (Saturday afternoon), after thinking about it over night I decided that I should fix the bloody thing myself, after all I had totally rebuilt it once already and I was prepared to have a crack at fixing the engine up (I didn't really do much to the engine, just clean up and paint). I went back to the mower shop, picked it up and took it home. When I got home, I thought to myself "I'll give it one more go". So I pulled the starter cord and the bloody thing went first pull!! I don't know whether it was the trip to the shop that scared it into running again or the bumpy ride over and back in the trailer that got it going but it hasn't missed a beat since!! (BTW a coil for my engine is $75!!)
The only other issue I have with the engine is it seems to 'hunt' a bit if it is revved a little high. I don't think it is over revving, I seems to me that it could run a lot smoother than it does. I think it hunts at normal engine speed and I have to drop the revs down to get it to run smoothly. Any tips here fella's?
I haven't got a photo of the lawn handy, I will post one next time I do the lawn.
Cheers
wilso_ac
