Fiskars Push Reel Lawn Mower Blade Maintenance Kit, Lawn and Yard Tools

Works well, easy to push and not terribly heavy. Most cons below are just the nature of real mowers, but useful to know if you haven't used one.Cons:*Struggles with tall thick grass, and weeds that are taller and have either reedy stems or soft bendy stems like dandalions. It tends to push them over and you will probably need to pull or weedwhack those.*Not great at leaf mulching*The blade adjustment bolts were incredibly difficult to loosen at first. I had to put a pipe over my wrench to get more leverage. Drill might have worked better.* sharpening is a chore. If you can set it up with a drill, do. Or see if your local hardware store does it.* can jam with twigs, but easy to unjam. Stay away from or clean up wood chip mulch.Pros:* Works great for my small shady yard* easy to push in most conditions* because it struggles with tall, thick grass, you have good motivation to get it done and not procrastinate* low maintenance. Most cutting problems can be resolved with adjusting the blade. So far I have not needed to sharpen in at least 3 seasons, although I did once to learn how.* doesn't take up much storage space* very little assembly.If you don't mind the limitations of reel mowers, this is a good product.

I watched a few videos online and realized that I wanted to buy this kit rather than McGuyver my own method of turning the blades on my Fiskars mower (people use short pieces of rubber hose + hose clamps to attach to a drill, or they reposition the chain so you push the mower around to make the blades go backwards and sharpen themselves). My blades were pretty dull, so I had to do the process twice before they would cut strips of paper. Sharpening your own reel mower's blades is certainly do-able, though you may have a learning curve like I did that involved attending a bit of The University of YouTube on the subject. It may seem like a lot of money for a handle, a paintbrush, and some lapping compound, but the handle is made for my particular mower by Fiskars, and it was convenient to wait a few days to get everything I needed in one box rather than have to run to three different stores.I have heard that the lapping compound may dry out if you don't seal it up well; I put it in a ziploc bag and hope that'll do the trick.Another tip: put some newspaper down to catch splattered lapping compound, wear clothes you don't care about, and wear eye protection for sure. I also wore some hearing protection, as the scraping sound is pretty loud and harsh. I also took the opportunity to clean and oil / use BreakFree CLP on the chain and other moving mechanicals on the mower.My mower is now sharp and properly adjusted, and does a great job. I like that I am holding out and using my body to drive the mower instead of stinky, dangerous fossil fuels, and making a loud noise in my neighborhood. I can't imagine an electric mower doing a better job than my properly-maintained Fiskars reel mower.

The media could not be loaded. Just like using their mower, you have to be really committed to use the Fiskars Reel Mower Maintenance Blade Kit.The attached fast real-life sharpening exploration/demonstration video was filmed over a period of about an hour really, and was the second day of trying to sharpen my Fiskars StaySharp Max Reel Mower.The enclosed instructions refer you to the owner's manual about how to adjust the blade; Which is just wrong for Fiskars not to document better about their own Fiskars StaySharp Max Reel Mower model;For this reason, On day one, I loosened the wrong things, also during which I spoiled the blade adjustment screws.Nevertheless, we tough it through with some ad-hoc tools, and achieved a reasonable accuracy of blade setting.The actual process of lapping was much fun (I love tools); just watching how the grit removed metal so well;You can see how, in just the first few turns of the reel, the situation changed from hard-to-turn to rotating easily.Most places of most blades of the reel can now cut a piece of paper, which was thinner than they said to use.Before sharpening, I could not push this damage-deformed mower very well, and it did not cut grass very well.Tomorrow I intend to do my first mowing of some 6000 sq ft of Bermuda grass, just coming out of dormancy.Glenn Johnson Scheper, Texas.

This did an excellent job of sharpening my mower. The mower was a few years old, and was knocking down more grass than it cut. I tried adjusting it and even tried sharpening the blades by hand. This didn't do much. The kit seems a little overpriced to me, but it works very well. By the time it was finished, the blades consistently snipped paper without effort. (Cutting paper is test recommended in the instructions.) It took, overall, about half an hour.When finished, I had used maybe 10% of the lapping compound, so the kit should last for years if I don't lose it :-)

It works, but I don’t think it’s worth the price.