The classic luxury grade lawns are on the whole cut with cylinder mowers as they can potentially give an excellent even cut. Cylinder mowers have a cylinder that has a number of blades that spiral around it. As the cylinder rotates the grass blades are forced between the spinning cylinder blades and fixed straight cutting blade. This gives a ‘scissor-like’ cutting action and provided that your mower blades are in good condition and aligned correctly the cut will be of very good quality.
The number of blades that spiral around the cylinder determine the quality of the mowing finish. The more blades the better the cut. Some cylinder mowers come with about 5-6 blades and these are suited to a utility grade lawn. Cylinder mowers with around 10-12 blades are used on ornamental luxury lawns and provide the best finish.
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The width of the cylinder can vary, a wider cylinder will mean less trips back and forth when mowing but this must be balanced against how easy the lawn mower is to manouvre. A wider cylinder will make the machine bulkier and heavier and so turning corners will be more difficult.
Some cylinder mowers are entirely hand driven whereas others may have the blades driven by a power sources such as petrol or electricity. Self propelled cylinder mowers use a power source to propel themselves forward as well as to turn the blades. This can save the operator a lot of energy as little effort is required to manouvre the mower around the lawn. Therefore self-propelled mowers are definitely worth worth considering for medium to large lawns.
A cylinder mower with a rear roller will give the best ‘striped effect’. Cylinder mowers usually come with a grass box that attaches to the machine and collects the grass clippings as you mow which can save the job of raking up the clippings.
Disadvantages of cylinder mowers
Cylinder lawn mowers are suited to flat uniform lawns. If your lawn is quite bumpy or contains rough, long grass types then you should avoid a cylinder mower as they will not handle these types of lawn very well.
Maintaining a cylinder mower in good working order is generally harder than maintaining a rotary mower.