Beammeup, our resident Scott Bonnar guru, Deejay, always says the best way to find a good reel and bedknife technician is to contact the greenskeeper and your local bowls club. The bowls clubs naturally use reel mowers, and set an even higher standard than golf putting greens, so they know whereof they speak when it comes to getting the right maintenance. Remember, the reel and bedknife need to be sharpened as a set, not individually, and you should try hard to get the technician to teach you to adjust the bedknife so you can get a top-notch result. The reel must never touch the bedknife, but a sheet of newspaper fed in between knife and reel must be cut perfectly like a good pair of scissors.
I suggest you use the mower a bit, making very sure you have no foreign objects on your lawn (the tiniest stone will ruin a sharpening job), and that you know how to adjust the knife, before you have it sharpened. You simply waste your money if you get it sharpened before you have some skill in adjusting and using it, because you'll ruin the sharpening job in short order. You only get a certain number of resharpens before you've used up your reel, and a new one will cost around $400. Why not start by trying the newspaper trick, to see what your mower can do in its present state?
Because your mower is old and seems never to have been sharpened, it is possible that there has been some deterioration of the reel's bearings. If they have to be replaced it should be done as part of the sharpening job.
