MOWER OF THE MONTH
Number Thirty Five
RANSOMES BOWLING GREEN MOWER
When the first lawn mowers were introduced in the 1830s they
helped to revolutionise the way people managed the lawn.
Within a few years a number of manufacturers were promoting
their mowers for their ability to help prepare sports surfaces although it was
some time before special machines for the task were introduced.
The Ransomes Bowling Green mower was introduced specifically for
use on bowling greens and other high quality sporting surfaces.
The mower is designed to ensure an extremely fine finish by
producing a high number of cuts per inch of forward travel. This helps to reduce
the "ribbing" often seen with conventional mowers on fine turf
surfaces. Ribbing occurs when a mower misses a row of grass leaves as it moves
across the lawn because the cutting cylinder is not making a cut as it passes
over. Increasing the number of cuts made for any given length of forward motion
reduces the potential for ribbing and increases the quality of cut. For domestic
machines this is not normally a consideration but it is important on surfaces
used for sports such as bowls, golf and croquet where an uneven surface can
spoil the game.
Many people wrongly assume that the quality of cut is determined
only by the number of blades on the cutting cylinder. However, in reality, the
number of cuts per inch (the traditional way of measuring quality of cut) is
governed by a combination of the number of blades on the cylinder and the number
of times it rotates for a given amount of forward motion. This is dictated by
the size of the rear roller and the gearing between it and the cutting cylinder.
Therefore a cutting cylinder with four blades rotating quickly will give more
cuts per inch than a six bladed cylinder rotating slowly.
The Ransomes Bowling Green Mower had a number of design features
that helped improve the quality of cut:
- a large diameter rear roller (compared with conventional
mowers of a similar width)
- self aligning and dust proof ball bearings helped ensure a true cutting action
- high speed cutting cylinder with ten knives or blades. These had a hard steel
face to give a clean cut and were backed with wrought iron for added strength
- cylinder adjusted to bottom blade by a single screw at each end for greater
accuracy
- extra thin bottom blade allowed the mower to cut extremely close to the lawn
surface
- special fine screw adjustment allowed the user to set the cutting height very
accurately
The Ransomes Bowling Green mowers were generally available in
15" and 18" cutting widths during the 1920s and 1930s.
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