OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Welcome to Outdoorking Forum HELP Area Introductions Greetings from a small acreage outside of Coffs Harbour, NSW

Good morning folks,

I've been lurking around here for a little while and well the 'lawn mower' gods have finally gotten me to stump up the $$$ to become a registered member.


We've got an acre here - I had some mental health issues (haha prolly still do) so it's 1950's role reversal where my wife works and I do all the cooking, cleaning and well basically everything else - seems to work as it's been ongoing for 6yrs or so.


I grew up on a semi-rural, country area but we weren't 'country folk' as such so still very clueless - my wife is completely a city-slicker - so was a big learning curve moving here - as I'm sure is the case with many 'tree-change' folks. We got off pretty easy but just in the past 2 months we've gone from being in an actual 'emergency evactuation' area with bushfires just a few km from our home and me pulling an all-nighter to cut barriers and fill gutters and bins on our verandah to massive rains causing flooding and land slides. Welcome to the lucky country eh? ;-)


But the property was a tad rundown when we got it - lots of weeds and problem trees - have cleared most of that up all myself (who needs a gym membership!) but still an everyday work in progress adding new native trees and improving the soil quality.


One of our (my!) big issues is that its a tough block to mow. A full acre, all very dense Kikuyu, we're super high rainfall, hot climate so in Summer it races like crazy. As I am also battling all manner of pastural weeds (alas our two neighbours are ratbags and don't give a %#*@! about the copious weeds on their grounds) so I always try and cut the Kikuyu pretty high to keep it happy and thus able to outcompete the weeds, which has worked well (vastly superior to selective herbicide use or spot spraying glypho). It's also got a few sloping sections (nothing crazy maybe 15-20deg) and areas with a lot of raised tree roots (from the large Jacarandas in our front yard) and also many citrus and other trees that have mulch etc around them.


As a kid (13-15) I mowed lawns a little for extra cash but this is no easy mow at all here.

All neighbours here have rideons (often several of them)....so contrarian me of course says I'm youngish (~45) so in the 'use it or lose it' vein I'll go with a few push mowers. Anyway we came to the property ~4yrs ago and all I had was a 2nd hand(you'll notice a pattern of ALWAYS buying used gear which is perhaps part of my undoing!) Honda HRU19R, which I still have and use when I want to catch. Never had an issue with it, great lil mower.


The previous owners left a 20" Rover SP here....but though they were really smart folks they'd really treated it like crap (which they'd done with most of the property, absolutely neglecting BASIC things!) and it was on deaths door blowing white smoke everywhere and generally being a health hazard to use. So that was junked, RIP.


I then bought a used Toro 30" Timemaster (had the underpowered 190cc B&S on it) - that was actually surprisingly good but it freaked me out that the Personal Pace SP system on it would crap itself on the slopes here - so I sold it off. I might have been premature in selling that as I then heard the SP systems on them, though only 'consumer grade' are cheap and not too hard to replace.


Then I bought a pretty new Victa Mastercut 460 2 stroke, one of the last 2 strokes they made. I use that for the very slopey sections and also down in our very large chicken yard, where I have to pick the mower up to carry it in there.


I wanted another utility mower but a bigger one, so I drove to Wee Waa for a used but near new Honda HUT216 - thats been my mainstay mower but she's recently had some chassis issues and can be tough to push through the Kikuyu when the temp is high.

I then spotted a used Masport 21" SP mower with a GXV160 donk on it in Port Macquarie (which seems like just next door compared to WeeWaa!) so grabbed that. The guy had SP issues with it but claimed it just needed a new belt. I have it running but there's issues I'll pop in a thread about it.


Haha and just a few days ago I treked down to Newcastle to buy a couple of old Victa 550 Pro's that a guy was selling off. He seemed a very nice guy and he gave me the 'best' 2 he had plus another non-working 1.5 of them for $300. But alas I've found a few minor issues with them as well....again I'll pop in a standalone thread.


On the line trimmer front thats been relatively simple - before we came here I had a couple of 2nd hand Echo SRM-2015's, one working the other apparently not (never checked as it's missing a few parts and seller said to use it for parts). They're a bit gutless and so don't use these.


My mainstay is a used but near new Shindaiwa T230X I bought from the same guy I got the Toro Timemaster from. Thats been a great lil trimmer, though it really only likes line used - not enough grunt for a metal/blade for cutting.


I've done all my own maintenance on the gear, I'm pretty fastidious about it - keeping a log book for each of them and ensuring I order spare consumable parts well in advance. All the basic stuff (plugs, filters, oil changes etc) I've no issue with. The most complicated stuff I've done is valve clearances on the HRU19R and also rebuilding the carb for it with all it's terrible linkages. So I am not a pull an engines to pieces kinda guy on the skill front.


Anyway sorry for the long winded blab - but thats my intro, I will get upfront my sincere thanks for assistance in my threads to come - I know folks provide this with little return for their efforts and priceless info so I very much appreciate any guidance given.


Cheers and thanks,


Nick

Welcome aboard, good first post

Cheers Ted, rest assured its all down hill for me from here ;-)

hello Nick 👍👍👍👍

Also I'm probably going to purchase new the Shindaiwa t230x so good to hear your positive feedback.

If you only want to use line in it, its a cracker - just use quality line not the cheap nasty rounded crap. And do the contractors tip and keep your line submerged in a container of water.

I was a huge sceptic, thinking how can being in water help plastic be more durable - but it does make it much more supple and less easy to break if you cut your sections (the speedfeed head is great) from this rather than storing dry on the shelf.

Interesting, yes I'd read about the water but was also sceptical. Do you know if there is a hedge trimming attachment for this unit?

Hello Nick and members
Many thanks from me for a detailed and honest introduction.

I hope these forums will prove of some assistance.

Cheers
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Jack