Strimmers - plastic wire vanishing

Could try some fresh line. Mine seems to go brittle over winter. Probably should protect from frost.

using the pathetic line that came with a pathetic strimmer

Quality ones have 2.5-3mm line, and carefully round edges where the line exits the hub.

Cheap ones use 2mm line and square edged holes. Its a no cost detail that completely renders them useless.

It's amazing how much force this stuff has to put up with. I once tried replacing the plastic wire with a length of stainless coathanger wire, but it always managed to come undone very quickly no matter how securely I could contrive to fix it in the middle.

The trick is to pull a few more mm out before the line breaks.

regards

How do you mean? At regular intervals of use?

Yes.

You must have a rough idea of how much work the line will do before breaking. Pull out 10mm or so to move the weakened section away from the eyelet and continue working.

As the NP says these things are not really fit for purpose. I have a gifted cheapo B+D single line with just your problem but I can usually do all our lawn edges without a strip down.

regards

I've only had el cheapo ones & there seem to be 2 methods of extending the line. One seems to work every time the hub stops & then re starts - there is a cutter that trims the cord to the right length.

The other sort have a button on the base that you 'bump' on the ground which releases the line & the cutter trims it.

The trick is never to let the line get too short, in other words don't wait till it stops working, extend it before it gets too short.

Exactly.

absolutely - you can get to "feel" how short the line is by watching the size of the cutting arc on the ground as you go.

With petrol (electric too?) the revs increase as the line gets shorter and when you extend the line (by bumping the trimmer head in my case) the revs drop as the new length of line creates more work for the engine and the "swish" noise gets louder...

Cheers JimK

You need to make sure the line has been meticulously wound onto the spooler. If it's wound in a haphazard manner, the free end of the line invariably ends up getting wedged amongst the remaining line on the spool, and no more can be fed out.

Pull it out? Normally bouncing the hub on the ground let a little of the line out.

This certainly is an annoyance. What I am not clear about is what would the effect be of using a thicker line than that for which the strimmer was designed?

My Bosch ART Combitrin 23 has two fittings, the usual continuous line feed, and a separate fitting, intended for tougher work, which takes short lengths of thick line anchored with a metal clip, and giving two cutting flails. I don't know where I can replace these at a sensible price.

Chris