1.5 mm (S)trimmer line for electric B & D garden strimmers

Anyone know how crucial the diameter is? Wilkinson's do 15m x 2mm for =A32.18 (or 15m x 2.4mm for =A32.78).

Chris

My local garden store, Euro 2 for 50metres. Postage could be a bit of a bind though.

I doubt that you'll get a strimmer designed for 1.5mm to use 2 or 2.4mm, those lines are for petrol powered brushcutters.

Try these links:

Why can't strimmers use steel wire that will last a lot longer?

H & S

Have just had the same problem, and given that my own B&D strimmer is now obsolete I can't find the original stuff to replace it with.

I found plenty of different sizes very cheaply on ebay and have bought a pack: haven't quite run out of the original yet so can't report whether it's successful or not. I'm guessing the line diameter/stiffness thing will be reasonably important for the autofeed to work properly though... :(

David

Safety. They are intended to be used by gardeners without the need for safety wear or training.

You can buy a brushwood trimmer if you want something that cuts better using steel blades.

Because it doesn't.

For brushcutters there are scary looking devices that are made of chainsaw blades. They scare the crap out of me and I won't use them, the thought of a link breaking at several thousand rpm is what scares me. Getting hit by a bit of cable or a flicked-up pebble is bad. Getting hit by a sharpened object attached to a heavy bit of metal really doesn't appeal.

If you want to risk your eyes and legs, and run the risk of getting a bit of chain through your skull you can buy such devices here:

And here's why you should not use them:

It doesn't because it fatigues and breaks very rapidly.

I bought my first brushcutter in 1974, before nylon cord was used and the only blades were sawblades, often with the same profile as a circular saw but also with a profile more like a chainsaw tooth, for easy sharpening with a round file. Later blades with 4, 3 then 2 tips became available for cutting softer material. I used these on piecework weeding in forestry plantations. To increase the swept area I tried affixing a strand from a winch cable and swinging blades from a mower to a sharpened out blade. The winch cable lasted seconds before it broke away at the fixing point and the swinging blades, though balanced set up such bad resonance in the drive train they took out a bearing in the drive tube. Since then any of the flail type heads have been banned (within the last two years I think). Even the excellent mulching heads (a rotary mower type blade with the last 40mm turned down through 90 degrees are now restricted to the bigger brushcutters (Stihl 480 size and above IIRC).

About the same time in the early 70s the program "out of Town" reported on the nylon strimmer and things developed from there. I'm not entirely happy with the worn off micro pieces of nylon pervading the environment.

AJH

Alan

Don't overlook fishing line too, thats how I got my last nylon line (smaller size) (very good deal)

NT

andrew wrote: [snip]

Do you also worry about all the non biodegradable silicon dioxide in the environment?

Why not just use steel wire?

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