I just bought a new battery powered weed whacker that has the idiotic and wasteful auto-feed feature. After an hour or two of thinking about how to disable / bypass it - a lightbulb came on and I did a youtube search - - first hit ! :
Same here. You tap it until it lets out enough new line that you can hear it making a fuss. The fuss is the end of the line hitting the metal edge that trims it off at the correct length. The one I have now is a Troybilt multi-function one. The ends can be changed to either a string trimmer or a blade type lawn edger. It works great, except for the usual BS with the carb fouling and not being able to adjust the carb because the hippies locked the screws up.
I went rechargeable this year, bought an Ego. So far I'm happy with it. it is bump feed and works well.
It has an interesting feature for loading, which I haven't tried because I'm still on the first spool. But anyway, you cut a piece several feet long and thread it through both holes until you're in the middle of the string. Then you press a button and it spins slowly, sucking the line in.
I gave up on string trimmers several years ago- could never get the string to feed reliably and needed to strip and rewind it onto the spool several times per spool load. Tried varied diameters, shapes, brands, tightnesses. All bad.
I have a half-acre .. or as my Dad would say Hells Half Acre .. My previous weed whacker was a cheapo B&D that I got at an auction for ~ $ 15. bucks. - - 2 batteries and a charger - .. it served me well - it doesn't owe me anything.
For heavy duty / commercial / farm use - no way - .. for most residential use - light rural use - battery powered is the way to go. So many troubles with the occasional use people and those tiny gas engines ... John T.
That's because most people buy made in china walmart junk for $69.95 . I spent a little (well , a lot) more and got a Stihl and I'm happy with it . To reload the spool I chuck it in my lathe and wind the line . I currently have 3 sizes of line for various tasks - I don't use the .105 extra tough to edge the lawn but it works great for clearing briars .
So how do you trim? Scissors? ;-)
I went through several of the under $ 100 trimmers before I bought one that seems to be much better, but cost more. It would have been less expensive if I had bought the last one first.
I feel cheated on the lawn mower. Did not know that JOhn Deere made junk mowers and bought one. Good mower for a few years,but the transaxel is the weak point and around 300 hours it gave out just like many others on the internet groups said. Hopefully the one I bought a few months ago will last as I could buy about 5 to 10 of the Wallmart specials for the same price.
John T.
My JD 317 yard tractor was made in 1982 ... the hydro unit is obviously quite worn , but it all still functions as it should . I had to rebuild the mower deck because it had been left upside down full of dirt for years - I bought another well worn beck and cut and welded the good parts into one good deck . But the front blade works just swell !
The difference being that Walmart is OK with selling junk while the Stihl operation has much tighter standards and QC .
Roundup. Saves a lot of time.
The whole brand has went down the drain but at one time I think the Black & Decker QA fallout wound up in Walmart and KMart.
That might work for you, but the areas where I use a trimmer are meant to be, well, *trimmed* not killed.
"Dead" doesn't fit in with the rest of my landscape design. ;-)
I sometimes wish I could , but glyphosate is a sub-lethal toxin to my bees .
We have weeds that laugh at Roundup. Garlon kicks ass tho, particularly with diesel as the surfactant.
At one time the Black and Decker was good tools. They went down hill. Didn't they come out with the DeWalt brand that is a much higher quality as the B&D name was ruined ?
Seems that some companies that had good quality were bought just for the name and reputation. Then they went out of the counrty and the quality went with them. A few have came back to the states with better quality.
B&D also had a couple of different product lines. Their homeowner line was not as good as the commercial line that was about as good as it gets. I still have a 60 year old B&D 3/8" drill, all metal, that my grandkids won't wear out. The homeowner drills had plastic handles.
Yeah, Black & Decker bought DeWalt in the '60s. B&W recently merged with Stanley. Sooner or later BlackRock will own everything.
Actually, I've switched to Spectracide, which is diquat. Supposedly that's not as nasty as glyphosphate.
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