Mr. FG’s been eying the Fiskars StaySharp Max Push Reel Lawn Mower
It came while Mr. FG was at work, so I did the easy assembly myself.
And here it is!
It’s kind of the Cadillac of reel mowers.
The mower spits the grass out in front, which keeps it off the pants of the operator. Veddy nice.
You can get a grass catcher
One thing that sets this mower apart from other reel mowers is that the blade height is adjustable. You just have to move the orange lever that you see on the far side of the mower in the picture above. That’s way easier than adjusting the blade height on our regular mower.
The mower is 18 inches wide, which is on the wide end of things for a reel mower but a little on the short end compared to a gas mower. So, you’ll have to make more passes with this than with a gas mower, but it’s as wide as you could hope for with a reel.
It’s fairly easy to push, depending on how high or low you have the blade set. If it’s set high, Zoe and Sonia can do it, but if it’s set low, Joshua’s the only kid in the family who can push it.
Since there’s no motor, it’s super quiet and totally not smelly (Joshua can even talk on the phone to his friend while he mows!)
Plus, there’s never any worry about whether it will start.
Also, this mower requires very little maintenance…most reel mowers need annual sharpening, but since the Fiskars blades cut without actually touching each other, they stay sharp longer.
I took a video of it in operation so you could see and hear it. (email subscribers, just click on this link to see the video.
This mower is kind of fun to use…it takes some effort to push, but watching the grass fly out the front is entertaining. And the kids are always wanting to use the mower, so that’s a pretty great upside!
We used this first in our backyard, where the grass had gotten kind of long. It cut the grass without a problem, but refused to cut the tall, still grass pieces that had gone to seed, even with multiple passes…they just wanted to lay down instead of being cut.
To compare, we ran over the same section with a gas mower, and it cut down the weeds with no problem.
Fiskars does say that the mower works best when the grass isn’t too tall, though, and I’d say it did a much better job in our front yard, where the grass wasn’t as overgrown.
It doesn’t cut as cleanly as a gas mower does, but I think the job it does is quite good under the right circumstances.
The mower definitely works best when it’s cutting grass as opposed to a mixture of grass and weeds. Our front and back yards are mostly grass, but our side yard has a lot of shade, and the ground covering is a wide variety of weeds. Plus, there are all sorts of twigs over there which can jam up the reel mower’s blades.
So the gas mower is a better choice for that part of our yard.
Should you buy this mower?
If you have a huge yard filled with twigs and weeds, you should probably stick with a gas mower.
But I think the Fiskars mower would be a great choice if you:
- have a yard that’s mostly grass
- don’t let your grass get too long between mowings
- don’t have a lot of tree debris
- don’t have acres to mow
- are interested in a greener mowing option
- want a quiet lawnmower
- want to avoid maintaining a lawnmower engine
Where can you get a mower of your own?
The StaySharp Reel Mower is available at Amazon for $199
Do you use a reel mower? I’d love to hear what you think of this mower if you’ve got one!
Disclosure: Fiskars sent me a mower to try but I was not otherwise compensated for this review. All opinions and text are my own.
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Lisey and I have a new recipe up on our baking blog. Go check it out! It’s super easy and it doesn’t even require any flour.
Today’s 365 post: I think they’re trying to say they want their allowance.
Joshua’s 365 post: Toadstool
{ 52 comments… read them below or add one }
I love our reel mower. Living in a small city house, we have very little grass (weeds) to mow, and we don’t have a detached shed/garage in which to store the mower. I certainly didn’t want a gas mower in our basement! So, our reel mower is a very practical choice for us! Now, having the kids use it… for some reason I thought they were really too young but I bet my 7 year old could do it! I’m still in in a power mower frame of mind I guess
We just “upgraded” from a reel mower to an electric mower. We had a Scott’s 20 inch, and it actually is quite adjustable too (I think it has 6 or 8 settings along the low-medium-high spectrum). Since we have a small townhouse yard it worked for 3 years, but the biggest challenges are that our back yard is almost all hill and we often had those long “seed” grass blades to go back and pull. The electric mower was free from a neighbor so I am loving the change! It takes about a quarter of the time to do the yard now…that hill was brutal. I agree that a shorter and flat lawn is easiest for the reel mower too.
My experience was similar to yours. We had the Scotts mower for our 60′ by 160′ lot and it worked ok, but our back yard is a hill and we don’t spray our yard so we’d get a lot of weeds and tall grass going to seed and the reel mower just couldn’t cut it. Our yard is also surrounded by trees and and lots of sticks fall and had to be picked up or they’d get jammed in the mower. After a few years we bought an electric mower and now cut the grass in half the time!
I bought a reel mower a couple of years ago from Sears in an effort to be more “green”. But it has the same problem as yours – there are some types of grass it just won’t cut. I’ve tried going in more than one direction, but then it takes much longer to cut the grass. Now I’m trying to rotate its use with my gas mower, but sometimes I just don’t have the time for the reel mower. I think my solution will be to just turn more grassy areas over to beds., which seems to be an on-going project with me anyway.
In my last house I had a reel mower but we also had a lot of trees. I found it so frustrating to be mowing along and come to a complete stop whenever a stick got into the blades. (Think cartoon-like with me starting to fly over the mower’s handle bars!) The Fiskars mower sounds great!
I love that you reviewed this. I can’t stand gas mowers. Noisy and polluting. Almost as bad as that idiotic invention, the leaf blower. I won’t get started on that.
We purchased this Fiskars reel mower this past fall when our old traditional mower died. We have a small yard, and a son who we want to start mowing. This is a very safe mower for kids to use. You also do not have to worry about starting it. It makes no noise, so mowing is very peaceful. There are some drawbacks. If the grass is thick or high (or both) mowing is more of a muscular challenge. If you have a hill, it is easiest to start at the top and mow sideways back and forth downhill. You really need to stay on top of the mowing to make it easier on yourself. During peak growing season, this means mowing twice a week. Do you have a weedeater/string trimmer? We also purchased a “green” trimmer that runs on a rechargeable lithium ion battery. This is useful for those tall stalks that the Fiskars mower misses. Overall we kind of like this mower, even though my husband has to go over the lawn twice to really get it looking nice. But he considers it as his exercise, so if you think of mowing as a workout, it’s double duty! I have mowed with this about 3 times, and it IS pretty hard. But even mowing with our old gas mower on a really hot day was hard. So you can choose hard and loud (gas mower) or hard and peaceful (reel mower). I prefer hard and peaceful
As much as I’d love to save on buying $4/gallon gas the only option for mowing an acre of land is a gas mower (I tried to avoid getting an expensive tractor too but after barely getting through half the yard with a hand mower my brother really pushed me to get a nice Cub Cadet tractor.
My only other “green” options were a scythe (or cradle) or some sheep.
For a push reel, this one sounds quite good. (No sharpening the blades–that’s an improvement.) Our old push reel was difficult for me to use (and actually get the grass cut). Tall grass was always a problem for us. Our county used to have offers for the residents, like a compost bin for $15 (that’s how we got our bin) and they had electric mowers. We chose a rechargeable electric mower (Mikita, super quiet and no cord to get tangled in) I think we paid about $80 for it, 10 years ago, which was about 1/2 price. These green yard care offers were not well publicized and for all I know are still being made. We heard about it through a neighbor, and my husband called the county office for more info.
“No sharpening the blades”? Doesn’t that mean you CAN’T sharpen the blades, and when they get dull you just have to throw the mower away? A disposable mower? I am a big fan of reel mowers but prefer one that can be sharpened, and will last for many years. The Mascot mowers are the best ones on the market with metal parts where other ones have plastic parts.
I’m looking in to getting this. The website states that you can sharpen the blades of the mower. In fact, they offer a kit so you can. Though, one of the complaints that I read on a few forums is that the blades don’t stay sharp as long as advertised, but still, in my experience, you have to sharpen gas mower blades at the end of every season.
That’s cool! I don’t have a lawn to mow but when I do I think I’d consider a reel mower, given the right conditions. So out of sheer curiosity, did Fiskars give it to you to keep or do you have to send it back to them? Not trying to be nosy– if they straight up gave it to you, I’d be happy for you and impressed by your action-taking skills when it comes to obtaining things you’d like to try.
Yep, it’s mine to keep! They didn’t want it back.
We have this exact same reel mower and LOVE it! It does a great job cutting, just like you said- if the grass isn’t too tall.
Our only complaint is that it doesn’t cut the crab grass- it just runs right over the top of it and leaves those pesky tall fronds standing up.
However, our chickens take care of them anyway, so it’s not a huge issue.
We love the mower because the kids can be outside and near us when we mow and it’s not loud or dangerous for them (other than the spinning metal blades of course).
We also love that our grass looks nicer after mowing than it does with a gas mower, and it doesn’t make as much of a mess with grass clippings everywhere like a gas mower does.
There are definitely pros and cons to it, but overall we love our reel mower and we really enjoy getting a little workout when we mow.
I live in Arizona, where most of our yards are rock gardens. Sadly, no grass for me. I still thank you for the review, though! If I move back to the land of green, I would love to consider something like this. Our local home depot lines their entrance with riding lawn mowers . . . kind of a silly thing to do in an area that has no grass. It would make a lot more sense for them to carry these mowers for the few people who do have lawns.
We had a reel mower too but since we don’t try to make our grass perfect ( we don’t really care about weeds) it didn’t work well for us. We were very sad not to be able to use it but it didn’t make any sense to cut the grass with a gas mower AFTER we cut with the reel mower. Hopefully in the future this problem can be resolved and we can switch back!
We loved our reel mower when we lived in our old house that had grass to mow. Unfortunately, though, we had to stop using it because our grass became so thick it was too hard to push it. We also lived in Oklahoma at the time so the summers were really hot to be laboring with the mower. We switched to an electric mower. We never had a problem with it starting, and it did a great job. It was a lot easier on both our backs….but, to be honest, I kind of missed the reel mower because I felt it was so much better for the environment.
We have a reel mower. I have to mow about every 4 days but I just look at it as a great 30 minute workout.
Cindy, that’s actually how we looked at it, a great workout, for free — no gym costs. There are so many things we could be doing around our homes and yards for our workouts, yet we spend $ on gym memberships (by “we”, I’m meaning the general public). But for me, I have a shoulder issue and could no longer push the mower. A rechargeable electric was the next best option.
I use an old fashioned reel mower of unknown vintage, but looking to upgrade to a better model like this soon.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! We’re about to move into our first house and are considering buying a reel mower, so this was really timely for us!
Alison, if you haven’t settled on a particular mower, you might want to check Craigslist or Freecycle before you buy. I saw a bunch of push reel mowers, in our area on Craigslist, the other day.
I love using our push mower. And I like being able to start and stop without any issues.
You forgot to mention how push mowers are so much better for the environment and air quality than a gas powered mower.
Katy
I thought I did mention that…down in the bullet list.
Great mower! I wish I could hand mow my 3/4 acre….. I do the trimming though with a second hand battery operated mower I bought at a yard sale. And good for you, for assembling the mower all by yourself!
You forgot to mention that using a reel mower is a FANTASTIC workout! The summers of reel mowing are the summers of sculpted arms, golden tans, and strong legs! I love my reel mower, but it isn’t the best option for parts of our yard that tend to gather tree debris. It has also been a challenge to maintain using the reel mower with an infant. I have never felt so gloriously hippie as when reel mowing with my infant daughter in the Moby wrap . . . but that takes more dedication than I can reliably muster. I am now relying on the kindness of neighbors to help out with riding mowers. Another amusing benefit of the reel mower? It is a novelty to friends and their children, and they often come for dinner and then want to try it out
. So we end up entertaining our guests by putting them in our service with some brisk manual labor!
Over the years, I’ve had a reel mower, a cordless electric mower, and just this year I bought a gas self-propelled mower, and I LOVE IT! My yard is full of weeds and ruts, and I have a bad back, so it used to take my 3 days to get my yards mowed. I’d have to stop when my back told me to, or when the battery on the electric mower slowed down. Now I can get the front AND back yards mowed in less than 1-1/2 hours. That’s in ONE DAY! And no pain in my back for days on end thanks to the self-propelled function.
On the negative side, well, it IS a gas mower. Noisy and stinky, and I can go along so fast that I get bugs in my teeth.
Still, we do what we have to do.
We’ve had a Craftsman reel mower for a little over ten years. I used that exclusively until we got an electric lawn mower last year (which I love!). It took a long time to cut our grass/weed mix and even then it didn’t actually cut the weeds. I did like how quiet the reel mower was, but the electric mower cuts so much better and faster that I don’t think I’ll switch back unless the electric mower breaks. I don’t think I’ll ever have a gas mower unless we have a much bigger yard.
We have a Brill Reel Mower and love it so much. Our yard is small and we love that we can mow during nap time or after the kids are in bed.
Or early on a Saturday, without disturbing the neighbors!
I just got a reel mower this year and for the most part I love it. It has multiple settings from low to high, although as mentioned in other posts, it does not do long grass or weeds well. I use it to keep up with the grass before it gets long and just mulch in what I cut. It’s a great workout!
If you are looking for the perfect looking lawn this isn’t it. My friend came down and cut my lawn after all the rain we had (to get rid of the tall weed/grass) and I do have to say the grass looked so nice after he cut it with the gas-mower. But, to not drive with smelly gas cans in the car and to help the environment….and burn calories….I definitely recommend it.
So love this! We are slowly getting rid of the bulk of our grass and this would be perfect to take care of the remainder.
Awesome job with the putting together C:
Also, this isn’t me wanting your readers to go to my blog (that’s just tacky)I’m just wondering if everyone could do me a favour.
My niece is in the hospital after a devastating asthma attack that had her pass away, be brought back and now we’re waiting for her to come out of a coma, hopefully with all of her faculties intact.
Could everyone spare a moment of prayer for her? We so very much want her back.
Absolutely.
All of you are in my prayers.
S.
We bought a reel mower when we bought our house because it was the most frugal option available to us at the time. Our experience is the same – it does not do as well cutting through tall grass stalks. We have trees as well, but our yard is not very big, so it’s not that much of a pain to pick up the sticks beforehand. If things get a little too wild, my husband just takes the weed whacker to it, but that would definitely be impractical for anyone with a big yard.
I’m pretty sure my husband would mow our lawn once with a reel mower and go back to the gas one!
I’m happy that our mower came with the house, and when it stopped working this past weekend we only had to spend $32 to fix it…and it was a service that probably needed to be done anyway!
I LOVE my reel mower, and actually just did a post about it:
http://ecocatlady.blogspot.com/2012/05/my-lawn-mower-is-reel-green.html
I’ve had mine for over 15 years now, and I find it soooo much easier to use than either the electric or gas variety. I actually think it’s much easier to push because it’s so light, plus it has much bigger wheels that don’t get stuck in every bump and hollow. I’ve found that the real key to making it easy to push and getting good performance is to keep it properly adjusted.
The sticks thing is a real issue, but I find that if you just take 10 minutes and walk through the yard picking up sticks before you start it solves 90% of the problem.
I’ve had mine since 1999 (Lee Valley…friends got it for me as a housewarming gift) and though I’m embarrassed to admit I’ve never sharpened it, I love it.
Yes, it gets stuck on pine cones. I have a rake. No, it doesn’t cut either crabgrass or dandelion stems well. I have a pair of clippers with long handles that take care of those nicely…I just wander around snipping things when I’m done edging.
Granted I don’t have a lot of lawn, but, oh, the peace and quiet…
I was wondering if you had to purchase this for $199, would you be happy with your purchase? I appreciate your pros and cons and even handed reviews. Thank you.
We also have a reel mower – Craftsman brand – and have used for the last 8 years. Works well though the blades are in MAJOR need of sharpening. At our local farmers market there was a guy offering to sharpen blades but it was going cost $40 – no thanks. Half the price of the thing. So he found at NAPA auto parts lapping compound and you reverse the blade rotation for a little while and the circulation sharpens the blades itself. Genius, I tell ya…genius! But we might want to get something with a guard if the kids want to start helping – i’m all for my kids mowing the grass too! Thanks for sharing Frugal Girl!
We ended up getting a reel mower after my parents decided they did not use theirs enough and gave it to our six year old. He enjoys mowing the lawn..my husband runs a small property preservation business and maintains about 60 lawns a week so it is nice to be able to do our lawn without having to worry about his schedule with the mowers but I am not sure he is always impressed with the job a six year old does mowing but he is happy to have him mow and learn to work hard. Our reel mower also has problems if the long seedy weedy grass gets out of hand but we just try to keep ahead of it by mowing frequently. Whenever my son has friends over they enjoy mowing the lawn too. One nice thing about having a reel mower is that our son can do a chore he feels is “real.” I like being able to have my children do chores that I will want them to do when they are older because then it just seems like something they have always done versus something they always wanted to do but we would never let them do so as much as possible if I can figure out away for them to do chores that they want to do now safely I do it.
I have 2.5 acres of land. About 3/4 of them are grass/weeds that need to be cut. I don’t think my husband would appreciate it if I came home with a reel lawn mower! I would love one for small jobs but not for the entire lawn. I think he would rather have a goat to eat the grass/weeds than a reel mower.
I still use my grandad’s old push mower. The blades have to be sharpened by hubby and we’ve had to replace the wooden handle but I love that old mower. Our yard is really too big for a push mower and hubby gets out the trusty gas mower when I don’t want to mow, but I generally love getting out there and getting a good workout pushing the old mower around. And nobody bothers me while I’m doing it because nobody else likes mowing with it!
We bought this same mower last year. I love that there are NO issues with starting it, or with the need to spend money on gas, or with figuring out what on earth brand/level of oil to mix with the gas. We went through two gas mowers having mechanical problems in the previous years (yes, one was due to operator error), leading to breakdowns, needing to pay a neighbor to mow the yard, etc. Plus, I could not for the life of me get those gas mowers started, which meant that I had to mow when my husband was home, which, since he works crazy long hours in the summer, was practically never, and was frustrating and defeated the whole point of my doing the mowing.
I personally don’t find this mower any harder than mowing with a self-propelled gas mower. Yes, it’s a workout, but so was trying to keep those things under control. At least with this one, I’m in control, and not afraid of it running away from me. I don’t think it’s ready for kid mowing yet (our daughter is 5), due to the strength needed, but I like the safety aspect of it, and believe me, I’ve been calculating at what age the kid mowing can begin.
I very much appreciate the quiet, too — it’s possible to answer requests for popsicles, share toad sightings, etc., while mowing — and I feel OK about mowing out in the yard with her in the house, knowing that we can hear each other if need be; I didn’t like the idea of leaving a small child alone in the house when using a gas mower that was so loud it drowned out conversation, and was dangerous for the child to approach. You don’t have that problem with the reel mower.
My one complaint is that, like others have said, it flattens instead of cuts tall grass and weeds. (Not that I think dandelions are weeds, but my neighbors do…)
Great review. We also have just purchased a reel mower Friskars. We do love it. We went from a motor mower to the Friskars. I wrote a little review on it also.
http://www.menprogress.com/#!Friskars Mower/c1wia
Thanks
Keith
The comment you made about the reel mower not cutting the grass as cleanly as the power mower isn’t accurate. The cutting action is the key part of a reel mower as it sheers the grass like scissors instead of hacking it like a swinging knife. Powered mowers horizontally opposed rotating blades split the grass ends causing the blades to dry out and become brittle (much like hair).
The sheer cutting makes for a stronger healthier blade of grass, and the clippings act as a mulch and deteriorate much quicker than the damaged alternative.
the fiskars needs a big partner. something to cut the tall weeds that it can’t handle while still using human power. there is such a machine here!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4hTAdvkv1Q
I purchased the Fiskars yesterday, the same one that you reviewed. I have to say it was much nicer than the previous mower I was using made by Task Force. My Task Force mower had an internal gear breakdown and needed to replace it, so I got the Fiskars, it was 95% quieter than the Task Force and was just a bit larger also. I have a very tiny lawn, about 10 X 15 and like using a reel mower because they are small enough to store inside and I don’t need to worry about the upkeep other than keeping the blades sharp.
Great writeup. I also just purchased this mower yesterday at Lowes. I initially researched it after seeing the base model Fiskars come up on Woot, but it sounded like their top-of-the-line model had several improvements worth paying extra for, so thus a quick visit to Lowes and it was in my back yard.
This will augment, or perhaps replace (we shall see), my 10-year-old battery electric mower. So far, the Fiskars is about the same effort to push, and it leaves a much nicer cut – much more level and consistent – than the electric rotary mower every did. I think part of it is the shearing action compared to the mulching rotary blade, as well the rotary mower was heavy and left ruts in the turf.
The surprising thing… blissful silence. Even though the battery electric mower was significantly quieter than the gas mower it replaced, there was still the drone of the giant fan/blade, and a slight bit of motor vibration. Instead of that, I heard the birds chirp, kids playing, and even the breeze stirring the trees. Mowing became a zen-like garden time, like anything else, instead of something I wanted to just get done with.
My previous experience with a reel mower was in my youth, and my first house. Both were old style roller-bar machines that had significant friction in the blade/cutter bar interface making that “snicksnicksnick” sound. They also mowed a bit too low, whereas the Friskars can go up to 4″ high.
Positive or negative experience with a modern reel mower like the Friskars will be dictated much by the lawn in question. Mine is not perfect, being typical of Pacific Northwest urban city lots, but I didn’t have any trouble at all… well until I unthinkingly nicked a blade on a piece of jagged concrete (which also can happen when I use the rotary mower if I’m not careful). Unlike the rotary mower which can destroy its blade, the Friskars just plain stopped. The damage to the blade was easy to hone off with a coarse diamond file, and I was back in business. Goes to show, though, as with a rotary mower, you still have to avoid mowing over things that could poke up and into the blades.
I appreciate your post. I purchased a Fiskar reel mower like the one you used 3 summers ago for my first non power mower to use at our new home in Anchorage. We have a fairly small lot, mostly blue grass and mostly level. I found it easy to use unless I allowed the grass to go too long between mowing. It is certainly more exercise which doesn’t hurt me but I became increasingly frustrated with the front thrown cuttings that often piled up in front and caused more work. I finally removed the yellow cover and am much happier with it putting them behind. I haven’t tried to sharpen it myself and there seems to be no reel service around.
I love the Fiskars mower! I mainly use it for exercise and to encourage water consumption. I’m a 63 y/o stay at home grandmother of 1 and it would be easy to sit in my recliner and watch life pass me by. I have found with the purchase of this mower a renewed interest in being outside. After only a few days I have noticed my stamina increasing dramatically. Low maintenance requirements attracted me to this mower and since I’ve been using it, I’ve hung mulch in it and totally jammed the blades to the point that I had to readjust the blade. BUT the good part is that I could easily perform this. This was a huge confidence builder for me. In the past year since my yard man (husband) died I paid men with big mowers to come in and mow my lawn. It always looked awful…missed spots, unevenly cut, bare dirt exposed in places, noisy and expensive. I can accept the tall, thin blades of grass left behind by one pass of my fiskars. If I like I can always hit them again from another direction. I’ve also noticed that my grass doesn’t grow as fast…even the crab grass.
terrible product, terrible design, terrible service. DO NOT BUY. but buy the scissors.