Lawn Mower Manufacturing: From Budding to ABB

Lawn mower manufacturing is mostly metalwork. A typical walk-behind or riding mower starts as sheet and tube steel that is punched, pressed, welded and painted before the engine or motor, wheels and controls are bolted on. This post covers how mowers are built, so lawn care itself stays out of it. It runs from Edwin Budding's reel mower of 1830, through the first mass-produced petrol mowers and Australia's Victa rotary, to today's plants in Wisconsin and the robot mowers now caught up in US trade rules. Along the way it looks at where ABB welding, painting and palletizing robots fit on those lines.

A 2020 Toro Recycler walk-behind mower with a pressed steel deck, 2023. Photo: Garylittlewood / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

How lawn mowers were first built by hand and in small batches

Before 1830, lawns were cut with scythes or kept short by grazing animals. Edwin Beard Budding of Stroud, Gloucestershire, built a reel mower and received a British patent for it on 31 August 1830. An agreement signed that May had already brought in a partner, John Ferrabee, who paid to develop the machine and took the manufacturing and licensing rights. Ferrabee's works built more than 5,000 machines before production stopped in 1863. Ransomes of Ipswich made licensed copies of Budding's design from 1832, and one of those early mowers is now in the Science Museum in London.

An early lawn mower of Edwin Budding's design, made by J R and A Ransome of Ipswich in 1832, at the Science Museum in London. Photo: Daderot / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

Through the rest of the 19th century, mower makers worked on the drive and the power source. Thomas Green and Son of Leeds brought out the chain-driven Silens Messor in the 1850s, lighter and quieter than the geared machines before it. James Sumner of Lancashire patented a steam-powered mower in 1893. In the United States, the Ideal Power Mower Company in Lansing, Michigan, made the first gasoline mowers in 1914. In Britain the Atco Standard of 1921 is described as the first truly mass-produced engine-powered mower. Atco made 900 of them that year and sold them for £75 each.

A gardener riding an Atco motor mower, around 1932. Photo: Ted Hood, State Library of New South Wales via Wikimedia Commons (no known restrictions)

The rotary mower made the machine cheaper to build. In Mortlake, Sydney, Mervyn Victor Richardson put his first Victa together from scrap in his garage, and the mowers went on sale on 20 September 1952. A rotary mower has no reel or bottom blade. It spins a single blade under a steel deck, and that deck became the main part a factory has to press, weld and paint. Flymo added the hover mower in 1964. Robot mowers appeared earlier than most people expect: S. Lawrence Bellinger patented the MowBot in 1969, and in 1995 Husqvarna began selling a solar-powered robotic mower patented by André Collens.

A Victa petrol rotary mower, the Australian design first sold in 1952, on a lawn in 2007. Photo: Tim Gillin / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Inside today's mower plants and where ABB robots fit

Scag Power Equipment, a division of Metalcraft of Mayville, describes its own process plainly. Every machine starts as sheet or tube steel, and the company punches, presses, bends, cuts, welds, paints, assembles, packages and ships its mowers in five Wisconsin factories, with plastic fuel tanks moulded in Horicon. For robot mowers, the factory's location now decides where they can be sold. In August 2026 the US Federal Communications Commission put new foreign-made robotic devices on its Covered List. On 9 September it gave Husqvarna conditional approval for four Automower platforms, which the company expects to launch in the US in 2027.

The Ariens lawn mower factory in Brillion, Wisconsin, 2012. Photo: Royalbroil / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

In a mower plant, welding is usually the first job handed to robots. Decks, frames and handles carry many short welds on parts that repeat thousands of times a season. ABB arc welding robots such as the IRB 1520ID and IRB 2600ID route the welding hose through the arm, and a positioner turns the part so each seam can be welded flat. The closest ABB example we found comes from farm mowers. Kverneland Group fitted an ABB IRB 2400 robot to weld tines onto the conditioner rotors of its Taarup disc mowers in Kerteminde, Denmark, and the company said each rotor took about half the previous welding time.

An ABB arc welding robot with a positioner that turns heavy parts. Photo: Ana 2016 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

After welding comes paint. ABB's IRB 5500 paint robot is built to work in the explosive air of a paint booth and can coat welded decks and frames as they pass on a conveyor. Lighter jobs, such as fitting covers, wheels and handles, could go to a GoFa CRB 15000 cobot working beside assembly staff. At the end of the line, palletizers such as the IRB 460 or IRB 660 can stack boxed walk-behind mowers. We found no published ABB project at a lawn mower maker, so treat these as possible fits. Cells like these are usually laid out first in RobotStudio.

An ABB IRB 5500 paint robot, a design built to work in explosive paint booth air. Photo: ABB

Where mower factories are heading next

The biggest change on the line is the move from engines to batteries and electronics. Robot mowers and battery walk-behind mowers need motor housings, circuit boards, sensors, cameras and battery packs fitted and tested, which is closer to appliance assembly than to deck welding. That small-part work suits robots such as the single-arm YuMi IRB 14050 or GoFa, with SafeMove cutting speed when people come close. For robot mowers sold in the US, the FCC decision now ties where a model is built to whether it can be sold at all. Our post on garden and lawn robots follows the mowers once they leave the factory.

A Husqvarna Automower 430X robotic mower on a lawn, 2021. Photo: Syced / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

Smaller makers have other worries. Scag alone lists more than 60 mower models, and mower demand peaks in spring, so a robot cell has to switch between parts quickly and cope with a quiet off season. Cobot welding packages are one answer. ABB's GoFa Cobot Arc Welding Package lets a welder guide the torch by hand to teach a seam, which shortens the time from a new part to a running program. Our page on no-code robot programming shows how that kind of teaching works without writing code line by line.

ABB's GoFa Cobot Arc Welding Package on a welding table, taught by guiding the torch by hand. Photo: ABB

A welding or paint cell is a large investment for a seasonal product, and a maker has to decide whether a few months of peak output justify it. Skilled welders are still needed to set up and check robot welds, and technicians have to keep the cells running. Battery mowers bring their own safety rules for handling and testing packs. For robot mowers, trade rules can also change which factory may build a product, and that makes it harder to plan a robot cell years ahead.

A Greenworks 40V battery self-propelled mower in Ewing Township, New Jersey, 2022. Photo: Famartin / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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