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Narrowing Lawn Mower

 Adjustable width stripes on your lawn.
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Like many others, I was cutting the grass yesterday afternoon. Now Silly Towers has a lawn where the two sides taper in as you proceed away from the mansion. This makes the standard foot wide parallel stripes not work very well as you reach one side of the lawn. But I like stripes on my lawn (sad, I know), and narrowing stripes would increase the perspective effect, making the eyes think the lawn is longer than it is.

My intention is to create a lawn mower where the cutting and, more importantly for stripes, rolling parts can have their width dynamically changed. By using that nylon string in strimmers/weed whackers for the cutting part and a simple telescopic arrangement for the rolling part, this could be easily accomplished. A bi-directional width guide on the handle should directly control the width of the roller and the length of the nylon cutter.

For added geek value, you could have an automated adjustment mechanism where the mower senses where in the length of the lawn it is and controls the width as appropriate for that location.

—PeterSilly, Jul 07 2003

..altogether now.. one man went to mow... http://www.bbc.co.u...emanwenttomow.shtml
[po, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]

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       [shift] - That would give quite a pixellated finish. I'm looking for a more gradual decline in the width as I trundle up the lawn.
—PeterSilly, Jul 07 2003
   

       Could a mower reel be turned at an angle to the direction of travel?
—lurch, Jul 07 2003
   

       neat in more ways than one.   

       you've started me singing "One man went to Mow" now, dammit.
—po, Jul 07 2003
   

       If you speeded up the reeling in and out of the nylon string and the mower was open on one side, the distance the string whips out at that side on each revolution could be actively adjusted to the width of the grass.
—FarmerJohn, Jul 07 2003
   

       I think [shift]'s version, though pixellated, could be very nice (especially w/ [FJ]'s addition). Combine with a local GPS and computer, have the heads move up and down as well, and you could have a complete 3-D creation on your lawn. You could have the Mona Lisa on your lawn one week and the Sistine Chapel the next.   

       (goes off and reads the Lawn Art idea) Oh. Kind of like that.
—Worldgineer, Jul 07 2003
   

       I agree that a pixellated effect would be nice - the analogue approach I espouse would not circumscribe such an effect being created. However, the digital nature of [shift]'s enhancement means that my desired gradation of the stripe becomes pixellated, which I do not desire.   

       [dag] - most married men I know enjoy doing the lawn because it's loud and it gets them out of the house doing something seen as constructive. Narrow stripes are sometimes very good indeed.   

       [po] - woof.
—PeterSilly, Jul 08 2003
   


 

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