Types of Sickle-bar Lawn Trimmers

Sickle-bar Push Mowers

• At the beginning of the 20th century, several patents were taken out on ground-driven sickle-bar push mowers. These small, human-powered mowers consisted of a handle, two wheels and a front-mounted sickle bar driven by a simple transmission that used power from the rolling wheels to slide the reciprocating blades on the sickle bar back and forth. The sickle-bar push mower was replaced by the more familiar cylindrical reel mower, still seen today.

Powered Walk-behind Sickle Mowers

• With the increasing popularity of hobby farms, a relatively new class of sickle mowers has emerged for use with so-called two-wheeled tractors. The two-wheeled tractor is an engine mounted on two wheels with handlebars that allow the machine to be controlled by a person walking behind it. Various attachments, including a sickle mower, mount on the front of the device, allowing it to perform many of the same functions as a farm tractor, but on a smaller scale and for less money.

Garden Tractor Sickle Mowers

• Sickle mowers designed for use with lawn or garden tractors are another attempt to scale down the sickle-bar for use in smaller lawn areas. Rather than mounting to a power takeoff, or PTO, the garden tractor sickle mower attaches to the shaft that normally powers the standard mower deck. Several manufacturers, including Haban and Simplicity, used to make such mowers, but they are no longer available due to safety concerns surrounding the sharp, unshielded blades.

Tractor-mounted Sickle Mowers

• The one type of sickle mower that is still commonly used and readily available is the full-sized, tractor-mounted variety used to mow hay. These PTO-driven mowers are a reasonable choice for properties with very large lawns since they mow a larger swath with each pass than does a tractor-mounted belly mower -- often 6 feet or more. They are particularly suitable in rural areas where all or part of the lawn is allowed to grow for part of the year and harvested as hay.