Hello and thanks for joining us today we're going to be talking
about our Allett Kensington Range. My name's Austin Jarrett.
The Kensington Range is really an 'expert' product for people that are very very keen on their lawns
and really want great results and where the accuracy of the product is that much more critical
because of the results they want to create. So we've got accuracy and we've got more comfort
based around these machines as well but don't forget if you're here looking at these products
now you probably already understand that it's about the scissor cut that we're getting from our
cylinder mower which just gives us those better results- the perfect cut, the perfect finish,
better health for the plant and overall this machine just creates the best stripes.
This machine also has the ability to be able to fit interchangeable cartridges and we have a
series of six other cartridges apart from the six bladed reel that this machine comes as standard.
The range comes in 14, 17 and 20 inches wide and we're recommending as a guide that you would
use these machines on a lawn of around 150 square metres, 280 square metres, and 350 square metres.
You don't have to stick exactly to those rules you might have a small lawn but like to have a
really broad stripe you might like to buy the lower cost machine or the machine that will
fit in through a doorway and mow for an hour and mow a much larger area the choice is yours but we
just give you that as a guide. The machines are self-propelled they will climb slopes as well
and and the weights of these products really assist us in creating the great stripes as well
and the weights of these products are 47.5 kilos, 53.5 kilos and 56 kilos
so these are starting to become quite weighty machines certainly the 20-inch machine is not
something you're going to pick up easily and carry up steps and you need to bear that in mind too but
for a 20-inch machine to great stripes we believe that 56 kilos is where you need to be minimum.
If we start at the front of these machines we have the grass boxes. The grass boxes are really
sturdy impact resistant they're molded out of polypropylene which means that there's no
steel and there's no paint so there's going to be no rusting and it keeps them nice and quiet.
They are obviously and clearly here three different sizes and we've got 52 litres,
62 litres and 70 litres so ample capacity here of course. You don't want to fill these grass
boxes absolutely full to the top because the weight on the front roller will make the front
roller sink in deeper to this in the soil and it will actually change the height of cut so
be sensible about how full you fill these larger grass boxes.
So, nice and sturdy the grass box itself fits on this folding hoop
which is removable too and that just very simply sits on there so it doesn't bounce off.
Looking behind the grass box we have the front roller. the front roller on this machine is steel,
it's galvanized and it sits in bearings to make sure this is accurate and lasts a long time.
One of the features on the Kensington product that I really like is the rake. This rake sits
just behind the front roller and I can adjust that rake to be really aggressive or I can lift
it up out of work but if you can imagine what's happening is as that goes forward it's lining the
grass plants up and that really assists in giving a cleaner cut by presenting the blade of the grass
to the bottom blade and the cylinder in a upright way but the other thing
is it it's starting to train the grass as well which will give me a stronger stripe.
What I'm able to do is I have wheel kit as well that comes as standard with this machine and this
wheel kit fits in place of the front roller. Now particularly when I first start using a cylinder
mode for the first time you have to get used to the fact that the cylinder mower cuts short grass
shorter that's what cylinder mowers are about and if you're training yourself to mow the grass more
regularly you might get caught out a few times and the front roller can lay the long grass down
before the cylinder gets chance to mow it. So by actually removing the roller and this just takes
a few minutes and mounting the wheel kit it leaves the front of the machine open to allow long grass
to go straight into the cylinder for cutting and that will improve the appearance but ultimately
for the best stripes we need to fit this roller which is why it comes fitted out of the box.
The cylinder as standard on these machines is a six bladed cylinder so this is giving us
a finer cut it's giving us 79 clips per metre and that's fine enough certainly for
everything down to as low as 20 millimetres- 20 millimetres gives a really nice stripe.
As this rotates very close to the bottom blade of course it's cleanly cutting the grass
and that's always so well illustrated with the paper test so that by taking this paper
I can put it into the cylinder and then that is cleanly cut as I rotate this cylinder.
The paper test is is always good to illustrate that clean cut as opposed to the machete cut
that you expect from a normal rotary mower which isn't good for the plant's health at
all. The really big feature about the Kensington product is this interchangeable cartridge system.
To mow with a cylinder mower to give you really healthy grass and a lovely cut is so important
but you also need to do other cultivations to your grass to take it to the next level and by undoing
two screws here and four screws out of the side of the grass box I can pull this cartridge out
and this cartridge can then be serviced for example without having to take the whole lawn
mower to the service area, but the other thing is i have this whole range of cartridges which you
can see here; six additional cartridges which can be inserted in so that what I'm able to do is to
carry out these cultivations to really lift the level of the lawn that I'm able to produce.
So we'll talk about those individual cartridges in a minute but this QC cartridge range thing is
what this Kensington products are so well known for and with these mounted in your garage on the
stand that we have it's a really neat system i can change this cartridge over in two minutes three
minutes with the allen key that's provided when you buy this machine from new and it makes this
product so versatile and that you've got a whole lawn maintenance system within this one machine.
The height of cut on this machine is adjusted at the side
so I have a knob here which I can turn clockwise or anti-clockwise. I have a window at the side
which gives me some numbers and what I'm able to do is with the cutting cylinder in
I can adjust the height of cut from as low as six millimetres high (that's one quarter of an inch)
up to 32 millimetres high (an inch and a quarter). So that gives me a really good range of cut and
generally people are working in the in the 19 mil to the 25 millimetre is absolutely the sweet
spot. If you want to be mowing a much lower lawn you want to be going towards a bowling
green or a croquet lawn again you have to use a cylinder mower to get those types of results
down really low; you are able to take that height of cut down even lower if you want to.
When you're using the interchangeable cartridges in the cultivation it becomes particularly
important when I'm putting a steel blade into the turf surface I need to be able to have millimetre
adjustment on that and this whole stepless adjustment of the Kensington system
is what makes it just that that little bit more of an expert product.
The power for the machine is provided by this new Briggs and Stratton XR 550 engine that we're
using. It's 127 cc's and the fuel tank gives us an ample two litres. You're generally not going
to use that amount of fuel in one sitting. The rear rollers are a really critical part of the
effect that these cylinder mowers create- It's about the stripes. The roller lays down the grass
and as you can see on a dark green stripe like this one this is where the grass is laying towards
the camera and on a light green stripe that's when the grass is laying towards me. It's all about the
reflection of light and the shadows on the grass but this is what we're trying to achieve- this
really high level of striping and the contrast of the stripes and that's about the rear rollers
so this is the 14 inch, 17 inch and 20 inch. The 14 inch is quite a narrow roller as you can see
it's 14 inches and when I turn that really doesn't create any scuffing but we found that as we start
to go to 17 inches wide then and then on to 20 inches wide that that roller is just too wide and
when we turn the outside of the roller wants to be going faster than the inside radius of the roller
so by splitting the rear roller like that and allowing the rollers to go at two different speeds
at the left hand and the right hand side with a full differential system in there so the engine
is still driving both halves of the roller it's just allowing one to go faster than the other.
That gives us really great straight lining and the ability to be able to control the mower
well but also when we're turning at the end we don't get a high level of scuffing. We really
reduce that scuffing of the turf so we don't get where when we turn at the ends. The handlebars
where we stand while we're using the mower- a really important part we've got comfort grips
just to make that a little bit more comfortable especially first thing in the morning when the
handlebars are cold. We have the throttle control here, the starter lever the starter
cord is actually pulled from a standing position on this product too. The bale bars at the rear
allow us control of both the cylinder and also the rear roller. I can control the cylinder drive
by this half of the bail bar by lifting that up - the reel will engage, and by lifting the second
bale bar that will engage the drive to the rear roller. I can actually hold this with one hand
and everything will remain engaged. If i let this go and don't engage the red lever and just pull
it up it will just engage the rear roller so that gives me all the combinations I need. Rear roller
only for transport, cylinder only, and I can push that into areas that are fairly confined
or cylinder drive and roller drive for my normal mowing condition. The handlebars also fold so by
moving this lever here like so it creates me slack so that what I can do is fold the handlebars and
that makes it much more compact for storage and i also have three holes set in the sides of the
handlebars so that I've got some adjustment in the height depending on how high you are or the user
of the mower. We've talked about having a beautiful lawn and it's not just about cylinder
mowing the lawn it's about the other things that we do so let me just quickly talk through the six
additional cartridges that are available to go into your Kensington mower- they're available in
14 17 and 20 inch widths. Let me start with this one; this is the 10 bladed cartridge.
The cartridge here spins the blade spins at exactly the same speed as a six blade one does
but what that means is it gives me more clips. We've produced another video on the difference
between clip rates and please look that up but the thing we're going to get with the 10 bladed
cylinder over a six bladed cylinder is just a finer cut and you will see that the finer cut that
this produces is absolutely amazing especially when you go down to 15 millimetres height of
cut and lower you must then use the ten bladed cylinder. If your intention is to stay at 20
millimetres and above then really you'll get no advantage from using this ten bladed cylinder.
Next is the most versatile cartridge that we have in the range and this is the scarifier.
The scarifier is made up of a lot of spring tines. These springtimes gently rake into the surface and
remove primarily loose material. It's fantastic for picking up leaves and acorns and pine needles
but really what it's designed for is the cultivation of the lawn and it really will
stand lateral growth up and any long strands of grass that laying laying down, weed leaves that
lay down it can bring back up ready for mowing as well and after you've applied iron to your
moss and it's all died then again this will rake it out. The beauty is with this system
is that this cartridge puts all the debris you pick up into the grass box so job done.
Verticut- if you've bought the scarifier cartridge this has to be next on your list. It does remove
organic material from the depth of the sward but the thing I particularly like about
this is the cuts that it makes you get new growth coming out of those cuts
and that really helps with increasing the density of the sward.
Next is a slightly more aggressive cartridge and you can see these hook shaped blades are spaced
further apart if they were any closer than this you'd be you'd be pulling out of whole
chunks of your lawn but this is just for that little bit more aggression and especially for
autumn time cultivations. Use it in a couple of different directions probably in a diamond pattern
is best and this will really help to alleviate compaction and be more aggressive in the way
that you remove the material. A combination of these three cartridges really does give
you a great treatment plan for your lawn. The brush cartridge, again this can be used for a
gentle removal of thatch or moss but I like to use this if I've got a high number of worm casts
in springtime than autumn and I need to just agitate those and spread them around. If i'm
top dressing and I want to to level out the top dressing I can actively do this with the brush.
And finally this is the aerator cartridge this cartridge doesn't have any drive on the side
and as this goes forward these little spikes just go into the ground.
It's not an amazing amount of depth and it's particularly useful if you've got a very delicate
sward sitting on a coconut thatch layer, coconut husk thatch layer and what this will do is just
start to poke holes in that to allow the water to get down into the sward. It's not a highly
aggressive aeration tool and you need to be aware of that. So with the combination of all
of these cartridges you can see how you've got a complete green keepers tool kit all in this one
mower the Allett Kensington. So in conclusion remember the Kensington range is for the
people who have got aspirations of being an expert on the lawn and they're going to pay a little bit
extra for the features that are in these machines three different sizes 14, 17 and 20 inches wide.
The machines are just that little bit more accurate with the front rake, the accuracy of
cutting because of that and the adjustability of that, the accuracy of the height of cut it gives
me so much more flexibility to have that screw thread adjustment between a minimum height of
cut of six millimetres (one quarter of an inch) up to 32 millimetres which is an inch and a quarter.
With the use of the six additional cartridges as well it gives me so much flexibility and with
these cartridges on the wall in my garden shed I have a complete armoury to be able to tackle
anything the weather throws at me or that my grass decides to do that I don't want it to do.
With the split roller detail as well it allows me to go up to 20 inches wide in this machine without
having to worry about when I turn the differential drive allows me to turn at the end even in wet
conditions without causing any scuffing. I hope you've enjoyed this video it's a really brief
overview make sure that you look at the other videos on our channels to find out greater details
of the cartridges working. Thanks ever so much for watching visit our website at www.allett.co.uk