Thank you for your responses. I have a Bermuda lawn of about 7,200 square feet in size. My shop always does a full sharpening and the blades. After sharpening, I can spin the reel and cut paper. This only lasts for 7 -10 cuts at best. They suggest brushing the blade with oil after cutting but I have read different opinions on this.. I do not think this is causing the problem as I have not brushed the blades the time around. Today when I cut my lawn, I now have uneven back and forth cuts. I do have a roller on front of the mower but it seems to cut (rip) the grass at different lengths depending on the direction I am cutting.. Is it possible that there is a problem with the mower itself not holding adjustment after the sharpening ? I am very confused at this point. Here is a link that might be useful: My shop

When I lived in Southern California I had about 5000sf of st. Augustine and always used a front throw reel mower. Now living in New Jersey, but still brought two reel mowers (20" Trimmer and 25" Locke) with me for old times sake. You have three practical choices: At the high end, the Trimmer 20" Original or the Tru-Cut 21" Professional would be excellent choices. Both are front throw, the Trimmer being a roller drive, and Tru-Cut being a wheel drive through a differential. Both are all chain drive, and were usually fitted with 3 to 3.5hp Briggs engines. You might see one with a Honda GX120, which is a premium engine. Down market a little would be the McLane 20". It is a lower cost knock off of the Trimmer. Has roller drive, but belt drive from the engine. Also cheaper construction in some areas, such a self-tapping fasteners (rather than nut-and-bolt construction). Ironically, both Trimmer and Tru-Cut produced lower cost "homeowner" models. The Trimmer "Home Model" was a reverse knock off of the McLane, replacing bearings with bushings and using belt drive. The Tru-Cut copied elements of the King O'Lawn and substituted bushings for bearings. Priced new, the Trimmer and Tru-Cut professional 20-21" models are about $1400. The McLane costs about $900 on their website and is found for about $200 less on-line. The Tru-Cut homeowner is about $1100. The Trimmer homeowner was out of production for many years, but apparently is available again for about $1000. I personally prefer the roller drive Trimmer, but the Tru-Cut is also an excellent machine. Since you are looking at used machines, there is a lot more to look at mechanically than a rotary mower. There should be several shops in Alabama and Georgia handling Tru-Cut and a lesser number with Trimmer. Suggest you visit a couple of shops to get familiar with the machinery, and then start looking on Craigslist. McLane is a also a good pre-owned choice, although be carefully as many mowers were poorly maintained. Even if the engine runs well, you've got the complexity of the drive system, and whether or not the blade and bedknife have been properly sharpened and back lapped. I would avoid the 17" McLane. I think their junk, and you're likely to be disappointed. They use a hokey friction drive to the rear wheels and have been cheaped even further than the 20". Also, I would avoid any old King O'Lawn's which may turn up. They were very cheaply made, and the company has gone bankrupt at least twice, for obvious reasons

Ok, I'm gonna touch on a couple of things here. I'm still troubleshooting so bear with me. Your last paragraph clued me in to a possibility. One of the things I see my new employees do from time to time even with powered walking greens mowers is that they will have areas where they miss cutting the grass due to pushing down on the handle of the mower. The way I get them to correct this is for them to slightly lift up on the handle as they are making each pass across the green. This keeps the cutting unit down on the grass surface. Is it possible that you are doing the same thing with your reel mower? As light as it is, it would be easy for you to be inadvertantly pressing down on the handle slightly which would lift up the reel off the ground and when it goes back down it would create the washboard or gouging effect as you move across an area. This would be even easier to do on a downhill slope. Next time you mow, try lifting up slightly on the handle with both hands to keep the cutting unit on the grass surface. The other issue I'll comment on is leveling. You could do your own leveling, just as some others on this forum have done. The link below is a thread from this forum from earlier this year. There are also other threads on leveling from people who did the work themselves and they saw great results. Check it out and see if this is something you think you could do. http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/lawns/msg061042369630.html?45

Time for a bump for this green thread in the relatively dead "Going Green" section. I bought a Gilmour 20" mower from Amazon a few years ago and actually like it in spite of having the worst kinds of grasses and weeds for such mowers. SW Florida here with a lawn full of several types of tuff grasses and lots of scrub weeds. The reel mower is a good device for when grass isn't growing much but I have found that the rainy/growth season overwhealms it. In the dry season I have areas that are dormant and a few low areas where the grass needs to be clipped every few weeks. The reel mower is easy to put to the task at a moments notice to knock down the trouble spots while not having to wrestle the gas mower out of the shed and deal with fuel and oil checks. This year I decided not to use the gas mower at all but instead purchased a Neuton battery electric mower. I still use my Gilmour push mower some but with that thing I often have to mow each path twice to get that perfect look. It misses some blades unless the grass is sparse or areas of tender stuff. The Neuton really kicks butt in that one pass does the job and it's about as quiet as the reel mower, just a different sound. Kind of like a fan. Both the electric and reel mower are better for my allergies. I have sneezing fits almost always when I use the gas mower. Never with the reel or electric. The battery powered mower makes sense for me. It cuts this tuff mess of southern "grass" nicely on the first pass and it doesn't make the ragheads richer or pollute the air. The electric rotary mowers (or any rotary mowers) will cut the seed staulks that none of the reel mowers can get without doing a special dance turning the mower pivoting on one wheel. I have a large solar power system that makes a bit more electricity then I use so it's kinda cool to have a solar powered lawn mower. My yard is fairly large so I bought two batteries so I can cut the place without losing cutting power and not drain either battery down more then about 50% of charge level so the batteries are not cycled hard and should last. Time will tell on that. Still, if I had softer more tender types of grass like I remember feeling so good on my feet as a child in the North, I would bet the reel mower would be perfectly fine for full time duty. For me in the South, it serves as my Winter mower. Oh, and when people walking past stop and ask me what makes the thing go, I tell them it's Beer powered. LOL