Hey everyone, I struggle to use a string trimmer well. I scalp the ground and scour the bases of my fence posts, of which I have many. I have large beds to edge. I have in-between areas to "mow" that a string trimmer struggles with. Last, I could use a trimmer to keep the woods from growing in. My wife and I particularly put off using the string trimmer just because it makes such a mess. I learned today about this reciprocating cutter, which might do all of these things pretty well. Tell me more! http://www.redmax.com/products/reciprocator/sgcz2460s/
Great for whacking weeds in shorts and flip flops. Seriously, they are great around beds and areas you don't want to throw a bunch of junk. Like thru my sister's sliding glass door They are a good tool in the right place, but pricey for homeowner use.
I like it. But I've mastered a string head on a typical trimmer so I've never pursued something like that. Stihl does a weird attachment that looks like a little hedge trimmer that they call a "power scythe". Wouldn't be as good near obstructions.
So, what does it do well? For me I'm mostly thinking about doing string trimming tasks without splattering dirt/rocks/poison ivy everywhere. It did occur to me today that string trimming only one side of the fence posts will keep stuff thrown away from me. But then I'd have to walk the same fenceline from the inside too.
Its good in tall grass. If you had a lot of something that you wanted to cut but not chop up, they work well there too. It would work trimming under fence lines too but I'd rather have the redmax type unit you showed before if I was trimming around obstructions.
That small head MM posted I see the land scape guys use to trim bushes that are harder to reach. Or to touch up. Use an tall bushes or very wide ones to cut the middle.
We have a bunch of the red max reciprocators at the resort. The gear boxes are constantly being rebuilt and the parts are crazy expensive. They usually break from hitting a sod staple when edging bunkers.
Oh, that's not good to hear. You'd think they'd have a shear pin or something to protect it from jams.
The summer kids (aka weed-eater operators) whine about the tap-heads and constantly re-winding, feed issues, thrown debris, etc. I told the super and the kids that the best option was to stock spare parts and spools for the heads, hell, I'd pre-wind a few spools for them each day. They insisted we try the fixed line heads (the kind you jam a 12" piece of line in each side) and/or poly blades. That experiment lasted a week and the tap-heads went back on. You guys with Echo trimmers and the oh-so-ubiquitous/mediocre Trimmy-Hit heads, you can convert a Stihl 25-2 string head to fit your Echo's with a cheap adapter. Just knock out the arbor for Stihl's and push in the adapter. Thread the head on and get whipper-snippin'. Even if you don't like Stihl trimmers, their string heads (especially the 25-2) are fantastic.
My landscapper friend uses the fixed line heads. Just gave me some bump heads. I hate the fixed ones. Seems like your always putting a piece in!!
