Fiskars StaySharp Max Reel Mower

This mower is worth every dollar – I did hesitate first looking at the price, but went with it as it had great user reviews. Now I have to admit it, it certainly is a great mower. Comes almost assembled and impressed me when I used it for the first time. I have never seen my grass cut so clean actually I felt the grasses looked happy :) I used to use a petrol model for many years… Read more

and I now believe it really slashes the grass leaving them look so unhealthy. Use it to believe it.. best investment I made ! Moreover it occupies little space in my garage as you can fole the handle.. what a invention this Fiskars mower is !

Best Lawn mower in its category – Very Easy to put it together - less than 10 minutes. Slides thru the grass lawn quite easy Worth every dollar Appears to be simple & great design No smoke or cables or recharging batteries Easy to maintain Wish I found this earlier Feels like I am doing my bit for the planet Show details

An expensive hunk of junk – I used this mower four times. Initially it worked great and was easy to use, but then I hit a stick and everything went to hell. The blades stuck and I nearly took a pinky off trying to get them unstuck to see why it was jamming. I went online to trouble shoot and watch the tutorials on blade adjustment etc., which made it all look pretty straight… Read more

forward. Let me tell you, it isn't.

Firstly, Fiskars tell you need an 11mm and 13mm spanner. The 13 mm (used to adjust the nuts on the side of the mower) is the wrong size. You actually need a 1/2inch spanner. The nuts on my mower were screwed so tight (cue swear words) I couldn't get them undone. I eventually took the mower to a local hardware store where the guy had to use full force and leverage to get the nuts undone. One nut still wouldn't turn.

Secondly, adjusting the nuts did nothing. In fact it made the blades jam even worse. Now I can't even unstick them at all. They're stuck fast and going nowhere now. Even if I try tightening the adjusting screws again the blade won't move.

I rang Rock Around the Block in Sydney where I purchased it from. They were really nice, particularly considering I was mighty upset and ready to take to the damn thing with a hammer by the time I got on the phone to them and they tried to talk me through how to adjust it, but their instructions were the same as what I'd watched online and needless to say my mower is still jammed fast.

They suggested sending it back to them to have a look at, but to do that is going to cost me almost as much as the mower is worth. For all that hassle I might as well just go ahead and buy a petrol mower.

So much for trying to be environmentally friendly.

Why buy a petrol mower? – I bought one of these around Christmas 2013. It's been an amazing mower to use over summer. It is just so quiet, quick and easy to use. It's light enough I can pick it up and carry it if needed. It's easy to push, but most importantly it cuts the lawn perfectly. Great lawn cut, forces me to do exercise, excellent build quality Price - not the cheapest, but I got it on a free delivery promo at least.

The world's most advanced design of this reel mower makes it 60% easier to push and offers an eco-fr – I can't believe how good this mower is. My lawn doesn't get a chance to grow anymore - I love to walk around pushing this mower. It's a beautifully engineered product! This Fiskars mower is designed for cutting a healthy well maintained lawn. My lawn proves that there is no non-powered push reel mower or petrol or electric rotary mower that… Read more ·  4

compares to this in both lawn finish, the little effort required and speed of the job.

I have used it now weekly on my lawn in Sydney since Oct 2012 and the resulting lawn is stunning in comparison to the scoured result always left by my now retired petrol rotary mower. I always cut the lawn on about mid height. I hardly raise a sweat, there is peace and quite and no smell of petrol, just the smell of freshly cut lawn...simply a joy to use.

If you have a weed infested lawn or the area has stones or gravel through it, don't bother with this mower - stick to a slasher. Ready to go - no petrol, no noise.

Unwieldy product – I was excited to buy this product. The Fiskars promotional material made it sound like a marvel of engineering and it certainly has prestige pricing. After using it for some time, however, I have found it to be disappointing. The main problems are that it is really difficult to turn around and it doesn't cut tall stalks. It's also large,… Read more

incredibly heavy and is brought to an instantaneous halt by the tiniest twig.

To expand, you have to do a 3-point turn with it to obtain the slightest change in direction. A 180 requires a 5-point turn. Given the size and weight of the device, this makes mowing with it highly tedious.

By tall stalks, I don't mean tall grass. I mean the small proportion of long stalks and weeds that poke up from even a short lawn. It just pushes them over without cutting them, which means your lawn always looks messy even after mowing.

On the plus side the unit is very solid, generally well engineered and does cut grass marvelously well once you get it moving in a straight line (until you hit a twig). However, this is more than outweighed by the above factors. I can't imagine any situation to which this device would be well suited overall. The obvious application for a push mower is small lawns, not ones characterized by long, straight lines. If your lawn is irregularly shaped, sloping or uneven (as is mine), forget about it.

I'll add that while well built, the two forward wheels on my unit were misaligned, meaning that only one rides on the ground. The construction is such that the only way to fix this would be to cut one off and re-weld it.

The size and weight were a surprise to me. Reel mowers are generally lightweight devices. I get the impression that Fiskars' premise is that the extra weight provides momentum. That it does, but it also requires a great deal more effort going uphill or on uneven terrain. Wrangling it out of the shed is also a major weightlifting exercise. If you're in the market for a reel mower, I suggest opting for a more conventional design. Solid, cuts very well in a straight line Expensive, bulky, incredibly heavy, doesn't cut tall strands, brought to a dead halt by miniscule twigs