Hi All

My trusty mountfield has expired after 15 years service so looking for
a replacement before the weekend. Needs to be 18 inch cut, steel
deck, hand propelled, with a big grass collector. Money's a bit tight
at the moment so also needs to be cheap. I see screwfix are selling
'Victus' mowers at a good price:

http://www.screwfix.com/prods/47737/...Mower-46cm-4Hp


Anyone got one of these? Is it OK? Any other recommendations for a
cheapy petrol mower.

TIA

Mark

On 19 May, 10:34, Bovvered? wrote:
Hi All

My trusty mountfield has expired after 15 years service so looking for
a replacement before the weekend. *Needs to be 18 inch cut, steel
deck, hand propelled, with a big grass collector. Money's a bit tight
at the moment so also needs to be cheap. I see screwfix are selling
'Victus' mowers at a good price:

http://www.screwfix.com/prods/47737/...ping-Power-Too...

Anyone got one of these? Is it OK? Any other recommendations for a
cheapy petrol mower.

TIA

Mark

Sheep.
Big grass collector!

Bovvered? wrote:
Hi All

My trusty mountfield has expired after 15 years service so looking for
a replacement before the weekend. Needs to be 18 inch cut, steel
deck, hand propelled, with a big grass collector. Money's a bit tight
at the moment so also needs to be cheap. I see screwfix are selling
'Victus' mowers at a good price:

http://www.screwfix.com/prods/47737/...Mower-46cm-4Hp


Anyone got one of these? Is it OK? Any other recommendations for a
cheapy petrol mower.

TIA

Mark

I would be seriously tempted to fix the Mountfield.

Modern mowers are relative crap.

Bovvered? wrote:
Hi All

My trusty mountfield has expired after 15 years service so looking for
a replacement before the weekend. Needs to be 18 inch cut, steel
deck, hand propelled, with a big grass collector. Money's a bit tight
at the moment so also needs to be cheap. I see screwfix are selling
'Victus' mowers at a good price:

http://www.screwfix.com/prods/47737/...Mower-46cm-4Hp


Anyone got one of these? Is it OK? Any other recommendations for a
cheapy petrol mower.

TIA

Mark

Why a steel deck? My McCulloch has worked well as a mower but the deck
is rusting away, I'd been thinking of looking for one with a plastic ar
aluminium deck to avoid the rust problem.

NoSpam wrote in


Bovvered? wrote:
Hi All

My trusty mountfield has expired after 15 years service so looking
for a replacement before the weekend. Needs to be 18 inch cut, steel
deck, hand propelled, with a big grass collector. Money's a bit tight
at the moment so also needs to be cheap. I see screwfix are selling
'Victus' mowers at a good price:


http://www.screwfix.com/prods/47737/...Mower-46cm-4Hp


Anyone got one of these? Is it OK? Any other recommendations for a
cheapy petrol mower.


Why a steel deck? My McCulloch has worked well as a mower but the deck
is rusting away, I'd been thinking of looking for one with a plastic
ar aluminium deck to avoid the rust problem.

Can't make any recommendation as regards its quality but I noticed that
Makro have a JCB petrol self-propelled 46cm mower for £99.99 +VAT

Could only find the following to illustrate:

http://tinyurl.com/4sqjxr

--
PeterMcC
If you feel that any of the above is incorrect,
inappropriate or offensive in any way,
please ignore it and accept my apologies.

PeterMcC wrote in

snip

Can't make any recommendation as regards its quality but I noticed
that Makro have a JCB petrol self-propelled 46cm mower for £99.99 +VAT

Could only find the following to illustrate:

Sorry - the link didn't work in the previous post

Try:

http://tinyurl.com/5lvvgx

--
PeterMcC
If you feel that any of the above is incorrect,
inappropriate or offensive in any way,
please ignore it and accept my apologies.

On Mon, 19 May 2008 12:06:47 +0100, "PeterMcC"
wrote:

PeterMcC wrote in

snip

Can't make any recommendation as regards its quality but I noticed
that Makro have a JCB petrol self-propelled 46cm mower for £99.99 +VAT

Could only find the following to illustrate:

Sorry - the link didn't work in the previous post

Try:

http://tinyurl.com/5lvvgx


Thanks for that

On Mon, 19 May 2008 11:19:30 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Bovvered? wrote:
Hi All

My trusty mountfield has expired after 15 years service so looking for
a replacement before the weekend. Needs to be 18 inch cut, steel
deck, hand propelled, with a big grass collector. Money's a bit tight
at the moment so also needs to be cheap. I see screwfix are selling
'Victus' mowers at a good price:

http://www.screwfix.com/prods/47737/...Mower-46cm-4Hp


Anyone got one of these? Is it OK? Any other recommendations for a
cheapy petrol mower.

TIA

Mark

I would be seriously tempted to fix the Mountfield.

Modern mowers are relative crap.

Engine is clapped plus too many other projects to put this on the
list. So need to buy something...

"PeterMcC" wrote in message
...
PeterMcC wrote in

snip

Can't make any recommendation as regards its quality but I noticed
that Makro have a JCB petrol self-propelled 46cm mower for £99.99 +VAT

Could only find the following to illustrate:

Sorry - the link didn't work in the previous post

Try:

http://tinyurl.com/5lvvgx

--
Says £199 when I looked - has it gone up? )


--
Bob Mannix
(anti-spam is as easy as 1-2-3 - not)

"NoSpam" wrote in message
...

Why a steel deck? My McCulloch has worked well as a mower but the deck is
rusting away, I'd been thinking of looking for one with a plastic ar
aluminium deck to avoid the rust problem.

On hondas the steel deck is for the cheap models - the plastic one is
actually pretty good. 10 years after getting our secondhand honda, I'm still
impressed with it. Mostly because it starts easily - I used to hate B+S
engines for that reason.

If you're near Glasgow, there's a pair on ebay I'd take a punt on.

cheers,
clive

Bob Mannix wrote in


"PeterMcC" wrote in message
...
PeterMcC wrote in

snip

Can't make any recommendation as regards its quality but I noticed
that Makro have a JCB petrol self-propelled 46cm mower for £99.99
+VAT

Could only find the following to illustrate:

Sorry - the link didn't work in the previous post

Try:

http://tinyurl.com/5lvvgx

--
Says £199 when I looked - has it gone up? )

No, sorry if it wasn't clear - the £99 offer is at Makro - they don't have
individual products on their site so I posted the link to the Great
Universal site as an illustration. That's what I meant when I said "Could
only find the following to illustrate". 'pologies for any confusion.

--
PeterMcC
If you feel that any of the above is incorrect,
inappropriate or offensive in any way,
please ignore it and accept my apologies.

Bovvered? wrote:

Anyone got one of these? Is it OK? Any other recommendations for a
cheapy petrol mower.

I hate spending money on mowers. Even the expensive ones don't last long
and aren't particularly well built. OTOH if you do want to splash out
and buy the very best available then I can recommend a "Tortella" flail
mower which is 1.8 metres wide, needs at leat a 55bhp tractor to power
it and costs a fairly reasonable £800+VAT.

It won'd wear out any time soon, can give a bowling green finish if you
desire, and will also mince things like logs up to 2 inches in diameter.

At the other end of the scale I just go for cheap crap, usually paying
about £70 for a mower. I've recently retired a "Sovereign" 18in mower
which was still in reasonable working order but I was getting tired of
having to repaint the deck each year. I finally decided to ditch it
because the "primer button" rotted and a replacement was only available
by buying a new carburettor which would cost more than the mower was
worth. It lasted for ten years and apart from a broken pull cord handle
I had no problems with it.

The current model is a £90 "Power Devil" which is self-propelled and has
a larger grass box than the Sovereign. It worked well for the last year
and has come out of storage and started first time and tackled the
overgrown lawn without a hickup.

The Power Devil looks identical to the Victus but it has the
self-propelled thing and has a Briggs and Stratton engine instead of a
no-name brand.

http://preview.tinyurl.com/664zjj

I got mine for £70+VAT from Makro.

"PeterMcC" wrote in message
...
Bob Mannix wrote in


"PeterMcC" wrote in message
...
PeterMcC wrote in

snip

Can't make any recommendation as regards its quality but I noticed
that Makro have a JCB petrol self-propelled 46cm mower for £99.99
+VAT

Could only find the following to illustrate:

Sorry - the link didn't work in the previous post

Try:

http://tinyurl.com/5lvvgx

--
Says £199 when I looked - has it gone up? )

No, sorry if it wasn't clear - the £99 offer is at Makro - they don't have
individual products on their site so I posted the link to the Great
Universal site as an illustration. That's what I meant when I said "Could
only find the following to illustrate". 'pologies for any confusion.

Ah. My bad (as the merkin's say).

Bob Mannix

On Mon, 19 May 2008 13:22:05 +0100, (Steve Firth)
wrote:

Bovvered? wrote:

Anyone got one of these? Is it OK? Any other recommendations for a
cheapy petrol mower.

I hate spending money on mowers. Even the expensive ones don't last long
and aren't particularly well built. OTOH if you do want to splash out
and buy the very best available then I can recommend a "Tortella" flail
mower which is 1.8 metres wide, needs at leat a 55bhp tractor to power
it and costs a fairly reasonable £800+VAT.

It won'd wear out any time soon, can give a bowling green finish if you
desire, and will also mince things like logs up to 2 inches in diameter.

At the other end of the scale I just go for cheap crap, usually paying
about £70 for a mower. I've recently retired a "Sovereign" 18in mower
which was still in reasonable working order but I was getting tired of
having to repaint the deck each year. I finally decided to ditch it
because the "primer button" rotted and a replacement was only available
by buying a new carburettor which would cost more than the mower was
worth. It lasted for ten years and apart from a broken pull cord handle
I had no problems with it.

The current model is a £90 "Power Devil" which is self-propelled and has
a larger grass box than the Sovereign. It worked well for the last year
and has come out of storage and started first time and tackled the
overgrown lawn without a hickup.

The Power Devil looks identical to the Victus but it has the
self-propelled thing and has a Briggs and Stratton engine instead of a
no-name brand.

http://preview.tinyurl.com/664zjj

I got mine for £70+VAT from Makro.



Excellent! Any advance on £70. I wonder if Costco do mowers?

Bovvered? wrote:

Excellent! Any advance on £70. I wonder if Costco do mowers?

I believe they do, though I've found Costco getting a bit of the "Makro"
syndrome where things look cheap on the face of it, but once you add VAT you
can usually find stuff on-line at the same price or cheaper.

Beauty of Costco is they have a brilliant returns policy so if it's crap you
can take it back and say it's just not suitable or of good enough for the job
in hand.

(took back a digital camera after 6 months because the pictures were genuinely
****e)

on a side note, I often wonder how many of the retired mowers you see at the
tip are actually truly dead rather than just needing a bit of petrol down the
air inlet at the start of the season.

Cheers
Pete
--
http://gymratz.co.uk - Fitness & Gym Equipment/nutrition specialists.
http://www.trade-price-supplements.co.uk - Bulk buy for up to 33% off.
http://www.BBE-Boxing-Equipment.co.uk - New Boxing Equipment site.
http://www.commercial-gym-equipment.co.uk - Commercial Gym Equipment.

On Mon, 19 May 2008 10:34:23 +0100, Bovvered? wrote:

Hi All

My trusty mountfield has expired after 15 years service so looking for
a replacement before the weekend. Needs to be 18 inch cut, steel
deck, hand propelled, with a big grass collector. Money's a bit tight
at the moment so also needs to be cheap. I see screwfix are selling
'Victus' mowers at a good price:

Anyone got one of these? Is it OK? Any other recommendations for a
cheapy petrol mower.

TIA

Have you checked your local tip?
It's lawnmower season, and my local tip often has a fine selection of
mowers in various states of disrepair.
I bought a 20" Honda powered job ( broken handle ) and an 18"
somethingorother with a 375 B&G motor on ( broken handle, again ).

Five quid each.

The B&G needed a bit of 3/4 steel tube to fix, the Honda needed the
same plus the float chamber cleaning out.

Both had relatively fresh grass clippings stuck to the underside -
which is nearly always a good bet for a bargain mower that's recently
been working but is simply too much hassle for the average punter to
fix.

Regards,



--
Stephen Howard - Woodwind repairs & period restorations
www.shwoodwind.co.uk
Emails to: showard{whoisat}shwoodwind{dot}co{dot}uk

Stephen Howard wrote:

Have you checked your local tip?
It's lawnmower season, and my local tip often has a fine selection of
mowers in various states of disrepair.
I bought a 20" Honda powered job ( broken handle ) and an 18"
somethingorother with a 375 B&G motor on ( broken handle, again ).

Five quid each.


You are *very* lucky your local tip has the foresight to resell these
items. The council for where I live has strict rules prohibiting anyone
other than tip staff from removing dumped items for keeps. The crap
inside your car virtually becomes their property the moment you drive in
through the compound gates. :-(

I could get a job there I suppose and 'feast' on the spoils but the
smells there are something else... and it's located right next door to a
major frozen Pizza factory that supplied Waitrose etc... Oh yum :-|

--
Adrian C

Adrian C wrote:


You are *very* lucky your local tip has the foresight to resell these
items. The council for where I live has strict rules prohibiting anyone
other than tip staff from removing dumped items for keeps. The crap
inside your car virtually becomes their property the moment you drive in
through the compound gates. :-(

All the tips local to me are run by private companies and have the duty
to recycle as much as possible. That recycling includes gleaning stuff
from the rubbish and selling it on. It's the first place to check for
doors and other DIY stuff as well as metals and PC spares.

I only wish I could persuade them to put the PCs under cover. They treat
books, CDs and LPs like gold dust but simply stack PCs on a rack in the
open air.

On 2008-05-21 23:30:43 +0100, Adrian C said:

Stephen Howard wrote:

Have you checked your local tip?
It's lawnmower season, and my local tip often has a fine selection of
mowers in various states of disrepair.
I bought a 20" Honda powered job ( broken handle ) and an 18"
somethingorother with a 375 B&G motor on ( broken handle, again ).

Five quid each.


You are *very* lucky your local tip has the foresight to resell these
items. The council for where I live has strict rules prohibiting anyone
other than tip staff from removing dumped items for keeps. The crap
inside your car virtually becomes their property the moment you drive
in through the compound gates. :-(

I could get a job there I suppose and 'feast' on the spoils but the
smells there are something else... and it's located right next door to
a major frozen Pizza factory that supplied Waitrose etc... Oh yum :-|

They should sling them over the fence and cut out the middle man.

On Wed, 21 May 2008 23:30:43 +0100, Adrian C
wrote:

Stephen Howard wrote:

Have you checked your local tip?
It's lawnmower season, and my local tip often has a fine selection of
mowers in various states of disrepair.
I bought a 20" Honda powered job ( broken handle ) and an 18"
somethingorother with a 375 B&G motor on ( broken handle, again ).

Five quid each.


You are *very* lucky your local tip has the foresight to resell these
items. The council for where I live has strict rules prohibiting anyone
other than tip staff from removing dumped items for keeps. The crap
inside your car virtually becomes their property the moment you drive in
through the compound gates. :-(

I could get a job there I suppose and 'feast' on the spoils but the
smells there are something else... and it's located right next door to a
major frozen Pizza factory that supplied Waitrose etc... Oh yum :-|

Write to the council and query their 'recycling' policy.
Real recycling is about re-use rather than disposal.

You might find that their 'recycling centres' are run by
sub-contractors - and it's them that set the local policy. If that's
the case there's not much you can do...it'll be about who pays them
the most money for their (s)crap.

And just to rub it in ...
Yesterday's haul was a Dell 700Mhz laptop for a tenner, and a Cluson
Smartlite ( with charger ) worth £65 for a fiver.

Regards,



--
Stephen Howard - Woodwind repairs & period restorations
http://www.shwoodwind.co.uk
Emails to: showard{who is at}shwoodwind{dot}co{dot}uk

On 22 May, 06:36, Stephen Howard wrote:
On Wed, 21 May 2008 23:30:43 +0100, Adrian C
wrote:



Stephen Howard wrote:

Have you checked your local tip?
It's lawnmower season, and my local tip often has a fine selection of
mowers in various states of disrepair.
I bought a 20" Honda powered job ( broken handle ) and an 18"
somethingorother with a 375 B&G motor on ( broken handle, again ).

Five quid each.

You are *very* lucky your local tip has the foresight to resell these
items. The council for where I live has strict rules prohibiting anyone
other than tip staff from removing dumped items for keeps. The crap
inside your car virtually becomes their property the moment you drive in
through the compound gates. :-(

I could get a job there I suppose and 'feast' on the spoils but the
smells there are something else... and it's located right next door to a
major frozen Pizza factory that supplied Waitrose etc... Oh yum :-|

Write to the council and query their 'recycling' policy.
Real recycling is about re-use rather than disposal.

You might find that their 'recycling centres' are run by
sub-contractors - and it's them that set the local policy. If that's
the case there's not much you can do...it'll be about who pays them
the most money for their (s)crap.

And just to rub it in ...
Yesterday's haul was a Dell 700Mhz laptop for a tenner, and a Cluson
Smartlite ( with charger ) worth £65 for a fiver.

Regards,

--
Stephen Howard - Woodwind repairs & period restorationshttp://www.shwoodwind.co.uk
Emails to: showard{who is at}shwoodwind{dot}co{dot}uk

Having wondered where you were, Stephen, I notice a comment on your
Contacts page which says you don't publish your phone number .." to
avoid time away from the workbench.." - more time for visiting the re-
cycling centre obviously !!

Rob

On Thu, 22 May 2008 01:35:17 -0700 (PDT), robgraham
wrote:

On 22 May, 06:36, Stephen Howard wrote:
On Wed, 21 May 2008 23:30:43 +0100, Adrian C
wrote:



Stephen Howard wrote:

snip
Write to the council and query their 'recycling' policy.
Real recycling is about re-use rather than disposal.

You might find that their 'recycling centres' are run by
sub-contractors - and it's them that set the local policy. If that's
the case there's not much you can do...it'll be about who pays them
the most money for their (s)crap.

And just to rub it in ...
Yesterday's haul was a Dell 700Mhz laptop for a tenner, and a Cluson
Smartlite ( with charger ) worth £65 for a fiver.



Having wondered where you were, Stephen, I notice a comment on your
Contacts page which says you don't publish your phone number .." to
avoid time away from the workbench.." - more time for visiting the re-
cycling centre obviously !!

I'm based near Petersfield, in the Meon Valley.

I completely and utterly refute any allegations that I don't publish a
phone number in order to allow me extra time for 'totting' at the
local tip. Oh yes, indeed.

Must dash, have a Deskjet 1220C A3 printer with what looks like two
full ink cartridges ( five quid, guv ) to play with...

Regards,



--
Stephen Howard - Woodwind repairs & period restorations
www.shwoodwind.co.uk
Emails to: showard{whoisat}shwoodwind{dot}co{dot}uk

Stephen Howard wrote:

[snip]

I'm based near Petersfield, in the Meon Valley.

I completely and utterly refute any allegations that I don't publish a
phone number in order to allow me extra time for 'totting' at the
local tip. Oh yes, indeed.

I find that tip to be terrible, although they do a nice line in doors.

Must dash, have a Deskjet 1220C A3 printer with what looks like two
full ink cartridges ( five quid, guv ) to play with...

I live in hope of finding a DesignJet, but I suspect I'll be trampled in
the rush.