Lawn Striper: The Maiden Voyage
 

To follow up on the earlier thread, for those who care...my Lawn Striper
came via UPS today, which was handy as the yard was ready to be cut.
(Because they are close to my home, I ordered direct from Inventtek, the
company that makes it; it was here in two days.) I had the thing out of
the box and attached to my Craftsman in less than five minutes. Luckily
there was one hole in the wheel adjustment thing that I could use, otherwise
I would have needed the extension bracket, or I would have had to drill a
new hole. I did have to play around with it a little to get it lined up
with the cutting deck. Once attached, there was only about 1/4 to1/8 inch
clearance between the roller frame and back wheels, which meant there would
be some drag. Still, not too bad, but some of the powder coat on the frame
was rubbed off in the cutting.

Since I cut my grass long, I tried it first without any extra weight, but I
didn't see any real striping effect, so I added some sand. That worked a
little better. Even with the added weight, it was pretty easy to push
around, although I did opt to remove the roller for some of the tighter
finish work around my landscaping. Still, maneuverablity wasn't much of an
issue. But I will probably "frame" the yard first before the main cut in
the future.

Ultimately, I would describe the striping as somewhat less than stadium
quality. (Of course, it didn't help that I am apparently incapable of
walking in a straight line.) When the sun is at your back it looks pretty
neat, but when facing the sun the effect is much less obvious. Across the
grain, forget it. I didn't fully load the thing with sand, so that might
have made a difference, but I'm not sure the trade off would have been worth
it. At some point it would have become too labor intensive, especially up
slopes. And I'm still not sure how good it is to be mashing the grass flat
like that.

Overall, I would probably give it about a 7 out of 10. Not perfect, but not
bad, and definitely better than not using it. A pretty good toy.

The next test will be the cross cut in a few days.

Lawn Striper: The Maiden Voyage
 

On Wed, 21 May 2003 18:27:34 -0500, "Rick and Dana Siekmann"
wrote:

To follow up on the earlier thread, for those who care...my Lawn Striper
came via UPS today, which was handy as the yard was ready to be cut.
(Because they are close to my home, I ordered direct from Inventtek, the
company that makes it; it was here in two days.) I had the thing out of
the box and attached to my Craftsman in less than five minutes. Luckily
there was one hole in the wheel adjustment thing that I could use, otherwise
I would have needed the extension bracket, or I would have had to drill a
new hole. I did have to play around with it a little to get it lined up
with the cutting deck. Once attached, there was only about 1/4 to1/8 inch
clearance between the roller frame and back wheels, which meant there would
be some drag. Still, not too bad, but some of the powder coat on the frame
was rubbed off in the cutting.

Since I cut my grass long, I tried it first without any extra weight, but I
didn't see any real striping effect, so I added some sand. That worked a
little better. Even with the added weight, it was pretty easy to push
around, although I did opt to remove the roller for some of the tighter
finish work around my landscaping. Still, maneuverablity wasn't much of an
issue. But I will probably "frame" the yard first before the main cut in
the future.

Ultimately, I would describe the striping as somewhat less than stadium
quality. (Of course, it didn't help that I am apparently incapable of
walking in a straight line.) When the sun is at your back it looks pretty
neat, but when facing the sun the effect is much less obvious. Across the
grain, forget it. I didn't fully load the thing with sand, so that might
have made a difference, but I'm not sure the trade off would have been worth
it. At some point it would have become too labor intensive, especially up
slopes. And I'm still not sure how good it is to be mashing the grass flat
like that.

Overall, I would probably give it about a 7 out of 10. Not perfect, but not
bad, and definitely better than not using it. A pretty good toy.

The next test will be the cross cut in a few days.

Keep us posted. I am really interested in how long the effect lasts.