I "love" 😖 the instructions that come with some equipment. I have an battery self-propelled Ryobi mower (which I actually do love). Nice quiet walk-behind and the batteries last pretty long. Well, some of the lawn was covered deeply in leaves. I usually just use the riding mower to shred them into the lawn, but I am redoing my compost bin and wanted to add the leaves to it.
Between the 2 mowers, it looked like the electric one was easiest to attach a collection bag to, so last night I got the parts out of the shed and opened the manual. There is a metal rod frame and a mesh cover. The cover has some plastic attachments like slit plastic tubing to hold the bag to the frame. The instctions were fairly simple.
Basically, just turn the cover upside down, slide in the frame upside down, and slip the plastic attachments over the frame. Yeah right! If the manual was alive, it would have cackled evilly as I read that.
It took 45 minutes of frustrating effort to do that one simple thing. I finally had to use a screwdriver as a wedge to pry the attachment open, a plier to squeeze the tubing partly onto the frame, and that was just the first inch! I needed a clamp to hold that in place while I did the next inch. There were about 24" in 5 pieces.
When I finally got one section done, I had to use a rubber mallet to really complete the attachment tubing firmly. I used some BAD WORDS...
I did get better at it on the other sections. As with most one-time jobs, I was pretty good at it by the time I was done. If the mesh cover was 1/8th" larger, it would have been so much easier. I suppose Ryobi saves $1 per cover not adding that 1/8"... And of course my time and effort is not an expense to them.
I'm sorry I didn't take pictures, but it wouldn't really have shown much of the trouble it was to attach. Nor would it have been possible most of the time, since I needed both hands to hold everything in place while doing the work.
On the other hand, it was a fine tight attachment when completed, and I won't have to do it again. I hope the cover lasts as long as the mower. All that was needed was to attach the collection bag. But it was dark by then so I decided to tackle that this morning (dreading some complicated troublesome attachment procedure).
So, this morning I took the collection bag and manual to the shed to see how bad that might be. It went right on as simple as you please! Lift the back cover of the mower, set the bottom front of the bag on a little ledge on the mower, lift the back slightly, and two 1" rods on the bag frame slip into 2 metal slots on the mower.
That part was very nicely-designed! And I will compliment the design for another reason. There is a carrying hand on the bag frame. It is placed perfectly. When I lifted the filled bag off the mower, the bag tilted back slightly as to not spill any of the contents. Someone had to have done some testing on that!
Tomorrow: Using the mower on the leaves and getting them to the compost bin...
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