I have an old 28cc McCulloch Strimmer (without brushcutter attachment) and I'm getting really tired of having to replace the line, and the 'bump feed' has never worked since day one so I'm forever having to stop to feed out more line from the spool.
So, what's to stop me (other than for safety reasons) from replacing the plastic line with say, stout steel wire?
Pros & Cons?
I am also interested in the answer to this.
Looks like a case for a bit of DIY experimentation to find out the life expectancy of the steel wire. I would guess that the failure mode would most likely be from fatigue fractures bought about by the bending of the wire while it is doing effective work. The kind of wire selected would make a huge difference to the results. One example could be steel locking wire which copes well with bending stress but would abrade fairly quickly. Another would be to try stainless steel to which the opposite may apply.
However I will stick with the standard nylon line as the thought of steel wire fragments leaving the cutter at high speed fills me with horror. One could on the other hand make use of a brush cutter attachment :-))
Richard.
>Nothing AFAICS, when I worked for.... when I was employed by the council, all our strimmers were adapted/fitted with steel cable, line trimmer part removed of course.
I expect that, as responsible employers, the council insisted that all the operatives wore the appropriate protective gear and of course they have adequate levels of third party and public liability insurance. As a thread in a DIY NG I would have thought what a public body does or does not do is not really appropriate.
Richard.
Huh, I have a McCulloch leaf sucker - and boy does it suck. Its broken, so I take it to the repair man who informs me its a cheap DIY thing and consequently the spares needed to fix it just aren't available. His advice - bin it and buy a decent one.
Steve...
I actually tried this but the steel wire kept breaking and the machine damn near shook itself to bits from vibration. Getting the wire to be EXACTLY the same length each way is more difficult than you would suppose. I even tried flexible steel wire to try and prevent the breakages but the imbalance was even worse. One more thing, the clutch has now died. Whether through old age or the strain of my experiments I don't know but finding a new part is proving difficult to say the least
Jb
I expect that thin steel cable will last much, much longer than wire.
Frank P wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.teranews.com:
I use Oregon Starline (2.4 mm) which has a star x-section with sharp edges and is very tough.
It worked so well I fitted it to my Flymo electric strimmer, (took a bit of butchery) and it completely transformed that
mike
Try these people,
HTH Anthony
>
Any ideas why the bump-feed doesn't work? I replaced the line in mine a few days about and found that if the line isn't in correctly, it can foul the mechanism and stop the bump-feed working. There's very little to actually go wrong otherwise.
Useful ideas about replacement line from other people though. I have a *lot* of weeds and long grass to strim at the moment and whilst the normal line isn't really up to the job, the brush-cutter isn't quite the right tool either.
James
It may pay to experoment with different line thicknesses. When I bought my Stihl strimmer it was fitted with the thickest available line (brown) and the line broke very quickly. As I already had a bulk reel of the next thickness down (yellow) I started to use that and found it lasted much longer. It may of course have been that the brown line was old and had become brittle though.
So far as the bump start is concerned, it pays not to put too much line on the reel, otherwise it's difficult to wind it smoothly. I reckon on about six feet.
I gave up on bump start mechanisms as they all appeared to weld the line on the reel
Current Stihl has a simple pull and twist on the head which releases a fixed amount of line. So far I have had no problems with the line sticking together.
Recommended length of line is 2.5m x 2
Paul Mc Cann
I have a McCulloch Cabrio and that also utilises a spring-loaded pull and twist mechanism, no problems with that except that sometimes the line breaks just inside the head so it's a quick couple of minutes to lift the top off the mechanism and rethread the line.
Yup, the McCulloch book says two 8ft lengths of twine. I've stuck with
2.4mm thickness, which is the recommended size, and it seems to work fine.HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.