Hi guys. Anyone know how to wind up strimmer wire correctly. i have cut about 4m of strimmer wire and fed it through the 2 little holes so it comes out in equal lenghts. then i wound the whole this anticlockwise and let 2 short pieces come out at each end. then attached the thing together.
The problem is that the coil does not stay tight. It just unfolds. Is this normal? How long lenghts am i supposed to wrap round and can i just have an in, around 1 loop and out, ie just using about 1/2 metre of wire.
This is going to be difficult to describe and I have often been confused with them when they sit in my hands but anyway I will try and explain what I know about the two strimmers that I have experience with.
There is a spool with two holes and spaces that you wind two strings onto, direction is important, there should be an arrow. The strings are held in notches, at least temporarily, at the top of the spool. The spool is placed on the shaft of the strimmer. Under the spool on the shaft is a spring, this is very important and can eaily get lost. Then a cap with two holes is placed over the spool, the strings are fed through the holes before fully seating the cap which has notches to align and hold onto the strimmer head. It appears to work by holding the strings firm under the cap using the pressure of the spring. When you tap the head on the ground, with the throttle open, the cap is depressed and the strings flung out by the rotational force.
Referring back to the spring, my experience of them is, wtf are they not captive? I took the cap and spool of my strimmer to refill it and the spring literally vanished, much cursing and swearing was done as a search was undertaken but it wasn't found. So I looked on the B&Q web site, it was a Performance Power machine, to see if they did spares and low and behold for £8.99 they had replacement heads, Grrr £9 and a 25mile journey, oh well £9 seems quite cheap for a spare head I thought. Got to B&Q and no it's not a spare head but just a pre-wound spool. £9 for less than a sixth of what line there was on a £4 reel. Much Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Went home and after an hours searching found an odd spring in a junk box, not the same size or strength but it worked for over a year. Then one day getting into the car I glanced up and saw something glinting on the gutter edge, there was the bugger. Who the hell designs something intended to be taken apart by a user with a spring under tension and doesn't make it captive or at least warn the user in the manual? Stupid people, they could have at least ripped me off by offering a spare to buy.
snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com:
As H say, direction is imortant. It should be pretty obvious from the way the strimmer is built, but in any case the direction of rotation of the head should tend to tighten it.
The resr, in my case, is practice - try to wind evenly and tightly, don't load too much on so it goes all lumpy, avoid crossovers in the spools because these will cause the line to break when it wears down that far.
Use any and all means to hold the line while re-assembling, like jamming matchsticks in the holes, or grownig extra hands or fingers.
Or buy new loaded spools each time; but I like to load mine with heavy duty starline, it makes them cut like b****y.
If there's one thing I hate while doing the gardening it's when the strimmer cord breaks or runs out. I can never seem to figure out how to wind the spool back on correctly! Either it breaks at the slightest thing or six-inch lengths at a time unravel...
The person who revolutionises this area of the market (like Mr. Dyson did with the vacuum cleaner) will surely make a mint :o)
ok so what you are saying is that there should be no overlap of the strings, just a single layer complete when wrapping. is that correct?
Thinking back, i don't think i have a spring. Did buy it 2nd hand, which is probably why the previous guy sold it. I have a winding spool, onto which goes a covering spool with 2 holes. The covering spool just covers the parts edges to stop the strimmer wire falling out. This complete unit then attaches to the strimmer with a final piece holding everything together. No springs anywere i'm afraid.
snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@m79g2000cwm.googlegroups.com:
Not really; though it's one answer. It would soon run out. Ideally it should be wound on like a rope on a drum for a lift or crane, if they use rope any more.
Try not to allow a turn to get underneath an earlier turn as you're loading the spool, which is not as easy as it sounds with monofilament line, even less so when you're trying to keep two under control.
If this happens, when the drum tightens up the line cannot unreel, and will snap when it snags on something. As you've observed, once this happens it seems to keep happening.
No. I don't know why.
One method I use, which may work for you, is to cut a length of cord, feed the two ends into the spools, and coil on both spools without cutting the far end which I leave as a loop for as lonfg as possible, which seems to help me control what will the the two cuttng ends when I finally separate them
My Flymo hasn't got a spring, either, or at least not one I can lose, or I would have.
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