Considering the various limitations of electrically powered and internal combusting engine powered reel cutter, such as noise and oil population, and cost of maintenance, manually operated reel cutter which has the potential of eliminating these limitations was developed. The manually operated reel cutter was designed based on design theories on the revolution per minute of the wheel, revolution per minute of the smaller gear, the minimum radius of the blade, the power required to drive the machine, power on the cutter cylinder, axial stress on the handle and minimum diameter of the shaft. The designed mechanical reel cutter was constructed with parts such as the roller, the handle, the side members, shaft, brush bar, blade, and blade reel, afterwards, the parts were assembled to form the mechanical reel cutter. Performance evaluation of the constructed reel cutter showed that the average height of the grasses before mowing was 17.573 cm and the average height of the grasses after mowing was 7.325 cm, denoting a grass height ratio of 2.399. The result of the performance evaluation also gave the cutting efficiency of the developed reel cutter as 88% and the cutting rate of the developed reel cutter as 58.33 m²/hr.