On 31/05/2018 19:37, Harry Bloomfield wrote:
Martin Brown was thinking very hard :
Odd. I have used both sorts and never had an electric one stall on me.


Every mower, electric hover (the early orange hover machine), rotary
engined and even the current tractor and its immediate predecessor have
suffered stalls. More so in the first cuts of the season, but better as
the weather warmed up and the grass became drier. I had to be ready to
lift the hover off the grass, when I heard it labouring too much.

All those which collected grass, have suffered frequent choking with
cuttings too. Today the grass was warm and it was fairly dry - using a
14HHP tractor/mower as usual without any grass collection, it managed to
choke up it's duct around 5 times, to the point where I had to stop and
poke the duct clear with a stick. I have tried running without the duct,
but that blows the cuttings onto the drive pulleys and eventually jams
the drive system at the back axle/ diff.


I'm going to look at this from a very different angle.
I suspect you don't cut your grass often enough so you are cutting
longer grass.
One of the best lawns I knew was from an elderly chap who used a push
mower without a box to cut his grass. He did it every day without fail,
even if it was raining, as there was only a little growth he could just
walk the mower, no going back and forth to get it through the grass.
If you cut a couple of times a week or even more then you would find it
much easier and as you would be taking off a lot less grass every time
it would be an easy walk for both you and your mower.
Also have a look at the underside, is it clean or has it got grass built
up there which will imped the flow of air and clippings.
You are only cutting a small area and will be walking (if you cut a 12"
strip each time) less than 300 yds, so doing that 2 or 3 times a week
will only take you minutes each time and as the grass will be shorter
then you wont have to empty the box often, and you will end up with a
much better lawn.