Scotts Classic reel mower

This is the best mower out there for lawns in the southern states. :) -ken

I got so tired of using gas-powered mowers. This retro gem cuts my lawn evenly, quickly (only 15 extra minutes compared to my old gas mower), and best of all, quietly and without using a drop of increasingly exoensive gasoline. It also gives me a great physical workout. My lawn looks great, and I am very satisfied!

The mower handle could not be adjusted and it was very difficult to push. I don’t understand why it so highly recommended. The regular gas mower was easier to use.

We have thick St. Augustine grass and were skeptical as to whether the reel mower could do a good job with our grass. We have a good sized corner lot but were committed to an environmentally friendly mower. This little mower is a workhorse and it it truly easier to push than the gas engine mower. Our grass was over 4" long and it still did a good job of cutting. We did have to go over a few areas more than once to get a neat cut, but the effort was minimal and rewards were many. We can both share the mowing responsibility and on our first run our dog Rosie ran along with us as we mowed. It was truly a pleasant experience. Thanks for your excellent advise! This is the reel deal!

This reel mower is easy to use, simple to adjust, and cuts well. If you are going to compare it to a gas mower, it ceratinly takes more effort and time, but the rewards of supplying all of the power yourself are tremendous. Great workout, great looking lawn, curious neighbors.

I like the mower, the blades are good and the mowing mechanism cuts well, but the handle is not strong enough and flexes way too much making it difficult to navigate the mower on inclines and in taller grass.

I haven’t used a gas or electric mower in more than a decade, so I can’t say how this compares to one of those. However, this one is easy to use and does a great job on our St. Augustine grass. I was worried about maneuverability, but I have no problems mowing our large lot. I haven’t experienced any problems with the handle mentioned in some other reviews.

I tried both the Scotts Classic and the Brill Luxus 38.
The Brill is super easy to use, push, and cuts like a dream. It has one problem, the max. cutting height: It was a little too low for my lawn.
So, I got the Scotts Classic. While the cutting height is fine, and easy to adjust, it simply doesn’t cut nearly as well as the Brill. Cutting is uneven and spotty. After painstaking adjustments on several occasions, it still doesn’t cut very well, and requires twice the time the Brill did to mow, because I have to go over areas twice. In retrospect, I would have been better off with the Brill. The ideal situation would be for Brill to make new model with a higher max. cutting height.

I received my mower very quickly. It was easy to put together, no tools required. It took me about 20 minutes to screw it all together with the thumbscrews. The mower works great! It pushes easy and cuts well. It is definitely easier to use than a power mower. I am amazed by how it is as easy or easier to push than a power mower and how maneuverable it is! My only complaint with the mower is the cheap feel of the handle. It accomplishes its purpose, but feels very cheesy. I think it would feel better if it was one piece. Being several pieces just makes it feel shaky. Overall, I love the mower!

I’m new to this non Mechanized lawn cutting tool; it’s not at all what I thought it might be for 5,000 sq feet. For me, this thing works great! This is multitasking at it’s simplest form. I’m older and in relatively good shape for my age. Three things I noticed, it cuts almost as wide as my self propelled mower but with a little more dragged brought on by the lack of “self propelled. The time it takes to cut the lawn is almost the same as my self propelled. With this type of unit, some friction on the cutter blade is needed to have that scissor action to quickly and effortlessly cut each blade of grass. Too much friction and your conditioning will tell you how much you hate this unit :^) Not enough, it won’t cut very well and once again you’ll hate this unit.

Out of the box this unit wasn’t hard to push. You will quickly determine your conditioning level regardless of what type of terrain you’re cutting. I suggest walking about the same pace as your walk behind self propelled mower. Once you’ve figure out how fast the blade needs to spin to cut X length of grass, you almost tackled the whole non mechanized cutter. Hills are a different story. Going down, no problem! Climbing backup… Lack of form will break ya here. I found putting the handle right at the top of your hips allows for the most efficient pushing action with the least amount of effort. By no means will it be as easy as the self propelled mower climbing that hill, but you’re getting the exercise you normally wouldn’t get. In today’s society everything is easy, our wastes attest to that. A little effort won’t hurt ya. Now each person is different, my suggestion is to try this unit out. You will love the cut these nifty units give. If your age plays a factor, try a model with frictionless blades or a self powered unit. Like with self propelled mowers there are all types of reel units for all types of people.


Great product, they are not like the units 40 years ago and let’s face it, the cost of gas doesn’t play a factor into the decision. Now if you care about the environment it might. I bought this unit to make my lawns appearance better, it worked. The bonus, I n a 30-45 aerobic walk 2-3 times a week.

I bought this mower in April and have used it weekly since that time. I LOVE mowing the lawn. It is easy to push and makes that lovely clicking sound that turns lawncare into a zen experience. I am 57 years old and don’t have any problems managing the mower.......it is extremely light and doesn’t require any more effort than my old gasoline mower. It cuts cleanly and all my neighbors have commented that my lawn has never looked so good. I recommend this mower for any small to medium yard.

Great Mower. Would highly recommend for those who have a small to medium-large area of grass to mow. Very little effort to push(for the ladies out there who think a reel mower is hard to push. Again, Great Mower.

I picked up a reel mower somewhat skeptical of the performance and ease of use. This thing blew me away. It’s so easy to push, my wife wants to mow the lawn now. Once we found the height we liked, it was set. This is an excellent mower for a small to medium yard. The only negative I can say, the handle is not sturdy. It seems somewhat flimsy. The assembly is a no-brainer...10 minutes. All in all, we are very satisfied with our mower and we’re sure the environment is satisfied with it. I would recommend this mower.

I purchased one of these mowers for the "green" advantages as well as the value from exercise and the ability to cut my grass at almost any hour of the day or night. Due to a really ugly work schedule that is important for neighborliness.
However, in the time that I have owned it, less than a year, both sides of the handle (metal) have broken in the area of a bolt attachment. The customer service folks are very nice and with a 2 year warranty they ship the parts for free. The downside is that it takes a week or so to get the part. If the grass is in need of cutting I am up the creek without a paddle. I think a better design or better material is needed.

I was skeptical of how well a traditional reel mower would work, but I hated mowing the law with a gas mower, between worrying about getting it wet, keeping it running, starting it up, filling it up--and the nasty emissions. I’m kicking myself for not getting a reel mower sooner! Mowing the lawn is not hard at all--don’t let those deceptive cartoons with people hassling with a reel-mower fool you. I find mowing with a reel mower *easier* than a conventional gas mower. It’s good exercise, too. As some people have said, it will go right over taller, stem-like weeds without cutting them, but I found it went over tall grass pretty well--my disaster lawn was over six inches in places and it cut down 97% of the grass on the "tall" setting. (I’ll have to get some small missed patches with some shears, but that shouldn’t be too bad.) My only problems with it were sticks getting caught in the reel, which only took a few seconds to bend down and dislodge. The other thing I had an issue with was bindweed that wrapped around the wheel once and I had to dislodge. Make sure to pull up any vines crawling along the ground before you mow them over! Other than that it was a breeze.

It took a couple of sessions for me to get used to this mower, but I now find it easy and satisfying to use. Since I am retired and not time constrained, I usually mow the St. Augustine grass every three days,

I find for best appearance results I make two passes in opposite directions, that it, I just push the mower back over the same swath it previously cut.

I had some problems with the handle initially. Since it comes apart for shipping, it is not as rigid as it could be. Mine broke where the center section attaches to the bottom section. The metal fatigued at the point where the square headed bolt passes through and simply broke off. However, I solved this problem by obtaining two new center handle sections from www.reelin.com, and using four metal hose clamps to reinforce the handle. I have had no difficulty since.

I purchased the Scotts Classic Reel Mower to use at my new farmstead in Northern AZ. Shipped fast and compact. Assembly was a cinch!! I really appreciate the wing nuts.

No longer a spring chicken, I was a bit concerned about the push power required to properly operate the mower. Pushed easily and lopped off mustard weed and grass equally well. For the stubborn weeds, go at a different angle. Clean, quiet, and real easy machine to adjust for height. Not all grass can grow at 1 inch!

Great value, dependable, well made and from a long standing good company. Get the sharpening kit when you buy. A LOT cheaper and easier to push than self sharpeners and sharpening is not a big deal. Doesn’t lose its edge fast anyway.

Thank you Clean Air Gardening for carrying this mower!!

Lucinda
Cottonwood, AZ

We purchased this mower in 2007. For the summer of 2007, we were reasonably satisfied with the performance, value, ease of use etc. It could be challenging to mow when the grass got higher or thicker, but I think that’s typical for any mower.

In the beginning of 2008, the mower became almost impossible to push, for no discernible reason. After many, many calls with the manufacturer, we finally had to ship it back to them for repair. Only issue was, they couldn’t figure out what was wrong either. Luckily, they sent us a new one for free.

Since last summer we’ve been using the "new" mower. It is difficult to push, and leaves un-mown strips (you have to go over spots multiple times to get everything)

Overall, I’m very much a fan of manual reel mowers, but definitely not this one.

Excellent mower; this is my third one, each previou one lasting ~ 10 years (have a fairly large lawn).

I have used my lawn mower for about one season, I like the weight and lack of noise, it cuts pretty well, but the handle (the right upper shaft) broke and I can’t find where to get the replacement part

DO NOT BUY if you have a lawn that might have small twigs of any size pine cone fall in the mowers path. Reason later.

If you have large even lawn without tight corners BUY IT. It has great momentum but loses it is tight corners.

THE DESIGN FLAW. The blades only turn if the mower is pushed forward by a gearing mechanism that only engages with forward motion. The mechanism essentially has a throw-out pin that meets a nylon interface in the wheel. The throw-out pin erodes the nylon interface whenever the blades stop suddenly such as when get stopped suddenly on a twig or pine cone. Nylon is no match for metal and eventually my blades no longer moved. I packed them with wire and am now in search for parts. What were they thinking?

It is my first reel mower. Out of the box, I installed the handles as per instruction. It was very easy, it took me just about less than 10 minutes. No shortage of screws. There is one spare c-clip and couple of spare screw too! First, I inspected how the "scissor" action looks on this reel mower. Manually rotated the wheels and all the cutting surfaces of the 5 blades were perfectly just touching the bedknife. There was no need for any adjustment. I then pushed it towards my lawn. All I can say is - perfect. Not much effort in pushing this reel mower. I tried walking at slower pace and it still cuts so nicely. My lawn is not the perfect flat type. There are some bumps here and there, but this Scotts still does a good job.I love this reel mower already. I would definitely recommend this reel mower.

I just got one of these and can’t really attest to its ease of use and function. However, A number of people have expressed distress about trying to find parts, I believe the following website is the correct resource:

http://www.americanlawnmower.com/replacementparts.php

I think they manufacture this product for Scott’s. Although their catalog does not list a 20" model, it does contain a listing for a nearly identical 18" model. It seems you can buy any part for this reel mower and that’s really great.