Anyone ever try one of these gadgets? Any success with it?

http://www.tiny.cc/Og4m9

(If this link doesn't work for some reason, try brookstone.com, search
for lawn sweeper)

Thanks in advance!

Jo Ann

"Jo Ann" wrote in message
ups.com...
Anyone ever try one of these gadgets? Any success with it?

http://www.tiny.cc/Og4m9

(If this link doesn't work for some reason, try brookstone.com, search
for lawn sweeper)

Thanks in advance!

Jo Ann


My neighbor has something like it that he pulls behind his riding mower. He
hates it.

Since you have to empty that sweeper, what were you thinking of doing with
what it collects?

Jo Ann wrote:
Anyone ever try one of these gadgets? Any success with it?

http://www.tiny.cc/Og4m9

(If this link doesn't work for some reason, try brookstone.com, search
for lawn sweeper)

Brookstone doesn't sell even one item that's useful and reasonably
priced. Such a lawn rake would only be useful for a very small area,
like no more than 5,000 sqft, and for such small lawns I'm positive
that contraption couldn't out perform an ordinary leaf rake

On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:11:41 -0700, Sheldon wrote:

Jo Ann wrote:
Anyone ever try one of these gadgets? Any success with it?

http://www.tiny.cc/Og4m9

(If this link doesn't work for some reason, try brookstone.com, search
for lawn sweeper)

Brookstone doesn't sell even one item that's useful and reasonably
priced. Such a lawn rake would only be useful for a very small area,
like no more than 5,000 sqft, and for such small lawns I'm positive
that contraption couldn't out perform an ordinary leaf rake


I wondered how I would get all the leaves under my dogwood trees with
that lawn sweeper. A rake does the job--fast, easy, and quiet. For
the rest of the lawn I have a gas-powered backpack-style blower which
also sweeps the walks, driveway, garage, and deck.

"Jo Ann" wrote in message
ups.com...
Anyone ever try one of these gadgets? Any success with it?

http://www.tiny.cc/Og4m9


I remember my dad bought one of those sweepers from Sears (looked exactly
like your picture but had "Craftsman" across the front) when I was a kid.
This sweeper is not a new idea. We had a HUGE lawn and my three brothers and
I had the task of twice weekly lawn care closely supervised by Dad from the
upper deck barking fatherly instructions and encouragement over the top of
his newspaper. Dad had two push mowers and the lawn sweeper thing. The
sweeper was great when manually pushed by a hulking young jock to sweep up
the clippings left by the other two guys pushing lawn mowers. My job was
neatly clipping all the edges with huge grass clippers I had to use both
hands to squeeze. Leaves were always raked, the sweeper wouldn't do the job,
the four of us kids, all supplied with rakes, were highly effective.
Apparently the push mowers, grass clippers, rakes and lawn sweeper ceased to
operate soon after the last kid left home......a John Deere riding mower
with all the bells and whistles to mow, suck up clippings and leaves and
push snow (all the shovels must have been worn out) miraculously appeared,
as did a gas powered edger/trimmer.

In summation, those sweeper things work great for lawn clippings, they don't
do squat to pick up leaves and you should probably have an endless supply of
unpaid child labor to operate any manual equipment to be truly efficient.

Val

On Oct 12, 8:01 am, "Val" wrote:
"Jo Ann" wrote in message

ups.com...

Anyone ever try one of these gadgets? Any success with it?

http://www.tiny.cc/Og4m9

I remember my dad bought one of those sweepers from Sears (looked exactly
like your picture but had "Craftsman" across the front) when I was a kid.
This sweeper is not a new idea. We had a HUGE lawn and my three brothers and
I had the task of twice weekly lawn care closely supervised by Dad from the
upper deck barking fatherly instructions and encouragement over the top of
his newspaper. Dad had two push mowers and the lawn sweeper thing. The
sweeper was great when manually pushed by a hulking young jock to sweep up
the clippings left by the other two guys pushing lawn mowers. My job was
neatly clipping all the edges with huge grass clippers I had to use both
hands to squeeze. Leaves were always raked, the sweeper wouldn't do the job,
the four of us kids, all supplied with rakes, were highly effective.
Apparently the push mowers, grass clippers, rakes and lawn sweeper ceased to
operate soon after the last kid left home......a John Deere riding mower
with all the bells and whistles to mow, suck up clippings and leaves and
push snow (all the shovels must have been worn out) miraculously appeared,
as did a gas powered edger/trimmer.

In summation, those sweeper things work great for lawn clippings, they don't
do squat to pick up leaves and you should probably have an endless supply of
unpaid child labor to operate any manual equipment to be truly efficient.

Val

LOL! Great story, Val. Thanks for the input. Doesn't sound like the
gadget for me.

Am mildly curious about why others think that what I plan to do with
whatever it collects has any effect on whether the lawn sweeper
works....

Jo Ann

"Jo Ann" wrote in message
ups.com...
Am mildly curious about why others think that what I plan to do with
whatever it collects has any effect on whether the lawn sweeper
works....

Jo Ann

I would understand Joe's comment as more of logistical problem. Once you get
it full of whatever.....where does it go? Where being more of , how the
hell far are you going to have to haul that catcher that's about 4 times the
size of a standard mower's grass catcher. Would you be able to lift it and
carry it?

I'd suggest you start doing some research on a nice chipper shredder, you
can dump the raked leaves in that. I had an electric one that worked
perfectly for what I needed. I wasn't clearing brush and grinding tree
trunks. It chewed up all my shrub and fruit tree pruning and dead head clean
up, ground up what was cleaned up from my veggie garden in the fall and did
a great job shredding the raked piles of leaves. I had some 50 pound onion
sacks, just fastened those to the chute the shredded stuff blew out of and
then when it was full I'd pile them in the wheelbarrow and go dump the stuff
in the compost or spread it straight on the garden. Easy to use, instant
mulch, quicker compost, lots more bang for the buck IMO. Plus I had a really
long, heavy duty extension cord so I could just wheel my chipper/shredder to
pretty much anywhere handy I was working.

Val

"Jo Ann" wrote in message
ups.com...
On Oct 12, 8:01 am, "Val" wrote:
"Jo Ann" wrote in message

ups.com...

Anyone ever try one of these gadgets? Any success with it?

http://www.tiny.cc/Og4m9

I remember my dad bought one of those sweepers from Sears (looked exactly
like your picture but had "Craftsman" across the front) when I was a kid.
This sweeper is not a new idea. We had a HUGE lawn and my three brothers
and
I had the task of twice weekly lawn care closely supervised by Dad from
the
upper deck barking fatherly instructions and encouragement over the top
of
his newspaper. Dad had two push mowers and the lawn sweeper thing. The
sweeper was great when manually pushed by a hulking young jock to sweep
up
the clippings left by the other two guys pushing lawn mowers. My job was
neatly clipping all the edges with huge grass clippers I had to use both
hands to squeeze. Leaves were always raked, the sweeper wouldn't do the
job,
the four of us kids, all supplied with rakes, were highly effective.
Apparently the push mowers, grass clippers, rakes and lawn sweeper ceased
to
operate soon after the last kid left home......a John Deere riding mower
with all the bells and whistles to mow, suck up clippings and leaves and
push snow (all the shovels must have been worn out) miraculously
appeared,
as did a gas powered edger/trimmer.

In summation, those sweeper things work great for lawn clippings, they
don't
do squat to pick up leaves and you should probably have an endless supply
of
unpaid child labor to operate any manual equipment to be truly efficient.

Val

LOL! Great story, Val. Thanks for the input. Doesn't sound like the
gadget for me.

Am mildly curious about why others think that what I plan to do with
whatever it collects has any effect on whether the lawn sweeper
works....

Jo Ann


I asked because obviously, you have to empty the thing. If you said "I'm
gonna use it to feed a big compost pile", I would've suggested getting a
bagging mower instead, because the mower will chop the stuff up and you'll
get faster composting. It would also have to be emptied, so the sweeper and
the mower are equal in that regard. The chopped stuff would also work better
as mulch, compared to whole leaves which are more likely to blow away.

If you said "I'm gonna bag the stuff and put it on the curb", I would've
suggested that you just mow the leaves without a bagging attachment on the
mower. That works quite well, except in extreme situations where there are
way too many leaves, or they're wet, etc.

On Oct 12, 10:43 am, "JoeSpareBedroom" wrote:
"Jo Ann" wrote in message

ups.com...





On Oct 12, 8:01 am, "Val" wrote:
"Jo Ann" wrote in message

roups.com...

Anyone ever try one of these gadgets? Any success with it?

http://www.tiny.cc/Og4m9

I remember my dad bought one of those sweepers from Sears (looked exactly
like your picture but had "Craftsman" across the front) when I was a kid.
This sweeper is not a new idea. We had a HUGE lawn and my three brothers
and
I had the task of twice weekly lawn care closely supervised by Dad from
the
upper deck barking fatherly instructions and encouragement over the top
of
his newspaper. Dad had two push mowers and the lawn sweeper thing. The
sweeper was great when manually pushed by a hulking young jock to sweep
up
the clippings left by the other two guys pushing lawn mowers. My job was
neatly clipping all the edges with huge grass clippers I had to use both
hands to squeeze. Leaves were always raked, the sweeper wouldn't do the
job,
the four of us kids, all supplied with rakes, were highly effective.
Apparently the push mowers, grass clippers, rakes and lawn sweeper ceased
to
operate soon after the last kid left home......a John Deere riding mower
with all the bells and whistles to mow, suck up clippings and leaves and
push snow (all the shovels must have been worn out) miraculously
appeared,
as did a gas powered edger/trimmer.

In summation, those sweeper things work great for lawn clippings, they
don't
do squat to pick up leaves and you should probably have an endless supply
of
unpaid child labor to operate any manual equipment to be truly efficient.

Val

LOL! Great story, Val. Thanks for the input. Doesn't sound like the
gadget for me.

Am mildly curious about why others think that what I plan to do with
whatever it collects has any effect on whether the lawn sweeper
works....

Jo Ann

I asked because obviously, you have to empty the thing. If you said "I'm
gonna use it to feed a big compost pile", I would've suggested getting a
bagging mower instead, because the mower will chop the stuff up and you'll
get faster composting. It would also have to be emptied, so the sweeper and
the mower are equal in that regard. The chopped stuff would also work better
as mulch, compared to whole leaves which are more likely to blow away.

If you said "I'm gonna bag the stuff and put it on the curb", I would've
suggested that you just mow the leaves without a bagging attachment on the
mower. That works quite well, except in extreme situations where there are
way too many leaves, or they're wet, etc.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I appreciate the additional input but truly, my only concern/question
was whether these sweepers work at all, irrespective of what can/
should/might be done with whatever they sweep up. Sounds like they
work really well, since the over-riding concern is that the full bag
would be difficult to handle and the contents would still need to be
reduced (chipped, shredded, mowed) in some way.

Jo Ann

On 10/12/07 9:01 AM, in article ,
"Val" wrote:

"Jo Ann" wrote in message
ups.com...
Anyone ever try one of these gadgets? Any success with it?

http://www.tiny.cc/Og4m9


I remember my dad bought one of those sweepers from Sears (looked exactly
like your picture but had "Craftsman" across the front) when I was a kid.
This sweeper is not a new idea. We had a HUGE lawn and my three brothers and
I had the task of twice weekly lawn care closely supervised by Dad from the
upper deck barking fatherly instructions and encouragement over the top of
his newspaper. Dad had two push mowers and the lawn sweeper thing. The
sweeper was great when manually pushed by a hulking young jock to sweep up
the clippings left by the other two guys pushing lawn mowers. My job was
neatly clipping all the edges with huge grass clippers I had to use both
hands to squeeze. Leaves were always raked, the sweeper wouldn't do the job,
the four of us kids, all supplied with rakes, were highly effective.
Apparently the push mowers, grass clippers, rakes and lawn sweeper ceased to
operate soon after the last kid left home......a John Deere riding mower
with all the bells and whistles to mow, suck up clippings and leaves and
push snow (all the shovels must have been worn out) miraculously appeared,
as did a gas powered edger/trimmer.

In summation, those sweeper things work great for lawn clippings, they don't
do squat to pick up leaves and you should probably have an endless supply of
unpaid child labor to operate any manual equipment to be truly efficient.

Val



Great chuckle! Amazing what doesn't work when the free labor moves out.
C

Lar wrote in
:

Jo Ann wrote:
Anyone ever try one of these gadgets? Any success with
it?

http://www.tiny.cc/Og4m9

(If this link doesn't work for some reason, try
brookstone.com, search for lawn sweeper)

I had a similar contraption, not sure who made it but it
did the job quickly. Another poster stated it didn't work
well for leaves, but all I used it for was fall clean up
and it did the job great...acorns too. I think it was more
work with it emptying it and taking the leaves off to their
final destination than it was making a pass or two across
the lawn filling it up.

we had a Craftsman push one when i was a kid, which was only
used for leaves & we had a pull-behind one for a lawn tractor
a few years ago. the push model worked better.
they aren't hard to empty, just tip it over. if an 8 year old
kid can do it, an adult should be able to manage
the caveat is that the leaves do need to be dry. if it's been
raining the sweeper has difficulties with wet leaves.
the pull behind one we have mostly sits behind the shed & the
chickens lay eggs under it now...
lee

"Jo Ann" wrote in message
ups.com...
Anyone ever try one of these gadgets? Any success with it?

http://www.tiny.cc/Og4m9

(If this link doesn't work for some reason, try brookstone.com, search
for lawn sweeper)


I have one I don't use. It works fine for leaves, except it doesn't throw the
leaves up in the back of the bin, so you have to dump it very often. It was very
useful for mountain ash berries when that was a problem. Probably also good for
acorns and pine needles. It is some work to push it, depending on the brush
depth setting. I use my snapper mower to clean up leaves. Since it grinds them
up, I go a lot further between dumpings.

Bob