I have a long (high) conifer hedge that needs attacking (40m long) I can't cut it down as it is not mine but forma my land boundary ... I am allowed to trim it.
Thought about getting the Ryobi 30cc petrol power unit with pruner (small chain saw) and angled Hedge Trimmer.
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There are places selling these for ~£90 for power unit incl either item, and then I would add the other attachment for about £40
This would give a significant reach - and be far easier than standard 18" electric hedge trimmer I have
Anybody have any views on these items ?
I have little knowledge on RYOBI kit ........ probably all made in China anyway nowadays.
My mitre saw and bench drill are Ryobi - chosen after browsing lots of different vendors at mid/low-end, all of who seemed to use a similar amount of plastic, share the same motors etc. (i.e. the bits that were likely to cause problems if anything were) - so I concluded there wasn't much in it really and I was better off putting the money I saved toward other things. Both items have seen a huge amount of use since with no ill-effects so far.
For (corded) hand drills the Ryobi offering(s) *did* seem less well made than some of the competitors, so I thought it worth paying extra for a 'better' product there.
Petrol stuff might be a different matter - although doubtless there's a lot of commonality there, at least in engines/carbs. Our petrol edger and hedge trimmer both use almost identical Walbro carbs, for instance, despite being made by different folk.
Suggest you take a look at the physical items - quite often it's easy to spot things that will obviously annoy or are likely to break quite quickly.
I have a Ryobi 25cc and 30cc strimmer, the 25cc of which is an Expand- it, for which I also have the hedge trimmer.
Ryobi pricing is great and the build quality is acceptable for domestic use, certainly fine for the money you've paid - with caveats.
The start easily when cold (priming and decent petrol assumed) and when hot. They're utter pigs when half-warm. Their carb design has improved through several variants over the years, the 3-position choke being pretty much esssential and the current "roto choke" supposedly being much better again.
As strimmers, I prefer the 25cc. This is because of the small loop handle, rather than the wide handlebars on the 30cc. Even with a carefully adjusted carry-strap, I find this harder work to use. With a slack carry strap, it's horrible! Handlebar strimmers are OK on paddocks & verges, but I've got fruit trees up a steep bank and I'd hate to work around those with it. There's no discernable power difference. Incidentally, _square_ strimmer line is the mutt's nuts on damp grass.
Expand-it is brilliant. I particularly like the easy way I can rotate the hedge trimmer for top & sides, which saves a lot of faffing with tilted fuel tanks and cutting-out when only half empty.
I've used the chainsaw pruner, but didn't get on with it - a limitation of the things in general. It's hard to chainsaw a thin (i.e. bendy) branch from one side, as it just pushes out of the way. This makes it hard to cut and leaves a ragged end behind. Personally I use a long hook with a string-worked pruner. For thicker stuff I have a B&D corder Alligator scissor chainsaw. It's short-handled so I need access, but it cuts really nicely as it grabs branches _between_ two jaws, it doesn't push against.
The hedge trimmer works as you might want.
I've only one complaint against the Ryobi stuff, which is serious but fixable: it falls apart! Screws are insecure and work loose with vibration. The wire exhaust heatguard falls off, followed by the exhaust. More seriously, the cylinder works loose on the crankcase and loses compression, which is when they become awkward to start. You'll also see black oily crud blowing out everywhere. The fix is fairly simple, to strip stuff down and re-assemble with Loctite 243 on the threads, but it's annoying that they couldn't have done this in the factory. It's cleaner if you do it on a new machine, which also avoids losing the screws. Funny intermediate size Torx on some of them though, a #27 which isn't an easy size to find.
Wonder how the flywheel keys are over time on Ryobi stuff? I've found a lot of things using small IC engines have recoil start, and the recoil mechanism is attached to the flywheel - which is usually some form of soft alloy.
After a while either the flywheel key shears or it eats its way through the flywheel, which then shifts position relative to the shaft - and as the ignition timing's derived from the flywheel, the engine stops working...
I've become quite adept at making new flywheel keys and cutting deeper key slots in damaged flywheels ;-)
I've seen that on all sorts of other smaller engines too (from lawn tractor engines down) - just seems to be one of those things that affects many of them.
Andy ... can you go though a list of the nuts/screws that I should Loctite in ... I'll do it before I use it.
I found a place on line that sells Ryobi 30cc (D handle) plus any one attachment - strimmer, hedge trimmer or pruner for £90 and incl P&P so after the positive comments here - I'll go buy.
I think the wire heatguard (2 screws) comes loose in the box and has to be attached after purchase anyway.
There are a couple holding the exhaust manifold to the cylinder, which require stripping the plastic cover to gain access.
To get to the cylinder you have to remove the crankcase end cover (4 screws) and the petrol tank (don't lose the rubbery locating plates), but there's just room to leave the petrol hoses attached. You can now get to the 4 screws which hold the cylinder on from beneath, the ones that really need locking in place. These need a narrow, ideally angled screwdriver (I used a hex-bit in a bendy-drive) with the obscure Torx size. In the middle of a field, I've also used a flat-bladed penknife and swearing.
Every Ryobi I've fiddled with appears different, but it's not rocket science..
I have got the 25cc trimmer (straight shaft), with angled hedge cutter[1], and chainsaw pruner.
In general quality terms you get what you pay for; You probably would not buy Ryobi kit for heavy use, but for infrequent use like domestic hedges etc it seems good enough. One thing to bear in mind is that the thing is loud - not desperately so - but you will want ear protection for anything more than very short term use. On chainsawing its no worse than most chainsaws, but hedge cutting and strimming is noticeably louder than using a sthil or similar.
The hedge cutter works well, and is useable with an extra extension bar in there. However it is hard on the back if you need to reah out over the top of a side hedge. For walking along a tall hedge however its fine. Cutting capacity at full power is fairly decent - it will also tend to gnaw its way through slightly too thick stuff rather than biting and stalling.
The chain saw is very nice for lopping bits of trees etc. Again it can work with an extension bar. So you can keep a safe footing on the ground, and are also well out of the arc of rotation of the blade - so the chances of hitting yourself with a kickback are slim. Not ideal for cutting thin stuff as Andy says, but has a surprisingly decent capacity on bigger things (8" branches etc will cut with ease). Its not very ergnomic for close up work though - so logging what you have cut down it hard on the back again.
[1] My one was the Husqvarna attachment IIRC - which has a hinged articulation not present on the basic Ryobi.
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