Guest Blogger today knows more about sitework than anyone I’ve ever worked with. He’s been a laborer, operator, foreman, estimator, PM and run the company. He’s also a nutjob…like most of my friends. Here’s his post.

In many marriages, the man takes care of everything outside of the home while the woman takes care of the things inside the home. You may interpret this as being a chauvinistic way of thinking, I consider it a “divide and conquer” philosophy that gets things done.

At my home, one of my weekly jobs is to mow the grass (which I love). I am that neighbor who takes his yard very seriously. So mowing the yard is not just a chore, but a way to express my artistic flair. I look forward to mowing my yard so much that I may mow three or four times a week, just so I can satisfy that need. Now many of you probably have this mental picture of a guy sitting on a lawn tractor with drink in cup holder sporting  around the yard. Let me change that picture, it’s a self-propelled walk behind mower that has a 21” cut.

When I mow, the patterns in the yard have to be symmetrical and straight. I will not allow my kids or wife to mow the yard because they cannot stay straight enough with the mow lines (plus I would never have any fun).

So a year ago I wondered, “How do they get those mow lines on a baseball field?” You know the ones that look to be two different shades of green? Well the answer is in the mower. They use a roller behind the mower that lays the grass over. When the direction of travel is changed, then so does the look. The visual part we see is how the light is reflecting from the grass.

Folks,this is a construction blog so this topic does relate to construction somehow, right? It does. Being so intrigued with this, I constructed my own lawn striper to stripe my yard. I am happy to say that I am on version number 3 with each version being just a bit better than the one before. The device is constructed from a piece of 4” SCH80 pipe, packed (and I mean packed) full of dirt. I made end caps out of 1” thick wood because conventional end caps glue over the pipe not inside it. This would force the roller to ride on the caps. I built a wood tow frame from some wood scraps and the device hooks to the rear of the mower. The device probably weighs about 20lbs. It worked but the lines were not defined quite enough for my liking so I took an old piece of carpet and screwed it to the roller. So now it is a drag as opposed to a roller.

Folks, this is a construction blog, so this topic does relate to construction somehow, right? It does. Being intrigued with the patterns in the grass, I constructed my own lawn striper to stripe my yard. I am on version number 3 with each version being just a bit better than the one before. I constructed the striper from a piece of 4” schedule 80 pipe, packed (and I mean packed) full of dirt. I made end caps out of 1” thick wood because conventional end caps glue over the pipe not inside it. This would force the roller to ride on the caps. I built a wood tow frame from some wood scraps and the device hooks to the rear of the mower. The device probably weighs about 20lbs. It worked but the lines were not defined quite enough for my liking so I took an old piece of carpet and screwed it to the roller. So now it is a drag as opposed to a roller.

I happily report that this recent version works great! A neighbor told me “It looks like a pro mows your yard”. Of course, this is exactly the reaction I hope for. I have to wonder what the neighbors are really saying or folks driving past as I mow. They have to think that I have totally lost my marbles! Recently I posted these pictures on Facebook and one of the responses was “Wacko!”.