If you’ve got a self-propelled lawnmower, a stake and some rope then there’s no reason to waste your day sweating. Just use setup like this and your lawnmower will be on autopilot.
Then again, your mileage may vary and you could very well damage something with a runaway lawnmower if things go wrong, so perhaps this isn’t the best of ideas. [YouTube—Thanks, Jess!]
JWilly48519
Saturday, April 24, 2010 at 11:07 AMHmmm. Can afford drum and rope, cannot afford oil for squeaky moving parts? Odd.
Also…this setup requires watching, so that the lawnmower doesn’t escape and charge off after the neighbor’s dog when it gets to zero rope length. That’s a disadvantage…you might be inside getting another beer, or visiting the facilities.
Perhaps it would be a safety improvement to add some sort of moveable bumper to the mower, and link it to a release on the dead-man’s-control that presumably at present is being roped or duct-taped into run position.