Out of the box, the Black and Decker LawnHog come pre-assembled. Put away your tools because you won’t be needing them. All I had to do was

1. Straighten the handle and hand tighten the nuts and bolts;
2. Assemble the rear bag, which entails slipping a mesh bag over a metal frame;
3. Replace the mulching attachment with the rear bag.

That’s it. Oh, also, I had to adjust the clipping height which was remarkably easy. However, to get started, you need an extension cord. So, measure out the distance from the further corner of your lawn to the electrical outlet and add about 10 feet. You need some slack to turn the lawn mower around. You also need an extension cord with the correct gauge; i.e., not all extension cords are the same!

This mower just pushed my rake into retirement. With the manual push reel lawn mower, I had to spend way too much time raking up all the grass clippings after I was done mowing. The LawnHog sucked up all the grass and leaves, so I didn’t have to clean-up afterwards. The lawn was pretty clean except for some pine chips that my cedar tree has been shedding since Fall. Not too sure what to do about that since these slip through the rake too.