weed wacker question

[big bubba]

it's the time of year when grass, esp fescue, get thick with stems & seedpod in it's initial spring growth. i weed eat around 3 acres of trees & 3 pond dams. use a heavy duty bicycle harness weed eater & seems i'm forever having to lay it down to remove stems wrapped around cutter head (no mater what angle of approach).

no point in burning out clutch. anyone come up with a do it yourself or aftermarket shroud or other to reduce my workload?
later on in the season, the returning blade growth is no prob... thx in advance

 

[JasperFrank]

What I do is extremely dangerous, so I would not suggest anyone do this. I wear a motorcycle helmet, steel toe boots and two layers of jeans, a thick coat, leather gloves, and no one can be around. Not even the dog. I use a head that is meant for the plastic replacement blades. But I put in 3 and 1/2 inch eye bolts instead. All work is done away from windows. This just atomizes everything. Even the thick black berries. I do always start top to bottom to avoid the wrap. The ends do break, but I've never had an entire eye bolt fail.

 

[big bubba]

you may be onto something. Stihl comes out with a try blade attachment that may be the answer for me for initial spring stem growth, have one, forgot about it. it may be for heaver growth.
i have a circular saw blade attachment as well, but dulls quick with rock. my best bet would be preventing stems from binding the cutter head since the wacker easily does the job, thx
btw taking multiple cuts in heavy growth is anonther alternative, but rather do it in 1st cut

 

[jyoutz]

Not an answer to your situation, but I only use hand held weed wackers for light duty work. I use a wheeled string trimmer that takes .190 size line. This is more than double the thickness of most hand held trimmers.

 

[big bubba]

self propelled, works good on slopes? frequency of string replacement?

 

[JasperFrank]

Technique, or how one a approaches the cut, for me makes a huge difference. Anything over 12 inches I'll make a first sweep with the lines or bolts at 90 degrees to the ground. This blows stuff up and out of the way. I do this again till 6 to 8 inches is left in stems. Then I go horizontal for the last sweep. Nothing there is long enough to wrap. And I feel your pain, cause nothing is fun about cutting and unwrapping grass off of a weed eater when you have to get stuff done.
I've found most all the saw blades, to be entirely useless for my area, and application.

 

[big bubba]

"I've found most all the saw blades, to be entirely useless for my area, and application" JasperFrank
my experience too. will adjust my technique, probably less trouble than detaching harness & dealing with the bind. regards

​

 

[jyoutz]

self propelled, works good on slopes? frequency of string replacement?

My wheeled string trimmer isn’t self propelled, but it’s very well balanced and has big wheels, making it easy to push. Slopes: it has a four stroke motor, so there is some slope limitations, but I do use it on some slopes, taking care not to tilt the motor at extreme angles. For real steep slopes or hard to get to places, I do use the handheld trimmer. Both my wheeled and handheld string trimmers are Echo brand and I’m real happy with them. Frequency of string replacement: it depends on your technique. If you start by cutting with the string tips, it lasts a long time. If you push the trimmer and cut farther back on the string, they can break. They are easy to change, just threading through a couple of holes. I made a spare string holder out of pvc pipe and caps and zip tie it to the handle bar.

Walk Behind Trimmers | ECHO

Delivering 5x the power of handheld trimmers, an ECHO walk behind trimmer is a tough tool for tough jobs.

www.echo-usa.com

 

[big bubba]

good info. going around trees, can you push your trimmer around w/o damaging trunks?

 

[jyoutz]

good info. going around trees, can you push your trimmer around w/o damaging trunks?

If you use the side of the trimmer that has the string guard.

 

[big bubba]

ok thanks, that makes sense. & the guard is adjustable, so i'll adjust it to angle of cut. that may be the answer i'm looking for, regards

 

[jyoutz]

ok thanks, that makes sense. & the guard is adjustable, so i'll adjust it to angle of cut. that may be the answer i'm looking for, regards

I still use the handheld where it’s more convenient, but the power of the wheeled trimmer motor and size of the cutting string is a weed eating machine. I recommend the Echo over the other brands because the string head is solid heavy steel. All the others I looked at had plastic heads. Considering that the machine rides on the cutting head, this is a significant improvement.

 

[Wagtail]

Stihl comes out with a try blade attachment that may be the answer for me for initial spring stem growth, have one, forgot about it. it may be for heaver growth.

I use a Stihl Tri-blade for my Stihl 'bicycle handled' weed-whacker... mine is utilised for dealing with bracken, which 'eats' a string due to its woody stem.

If you've got one, I'd use that. It works great.

 

[ultrarunner]

I’ve wondered why no one had come out with a no wrap hub that prevents wrapping or chops grasses by the hub?

Most of the time I use the multi cut approach so nothing too long in one pass.

I have noticed when the grasses are wet or high moisture content the tendency to wrap is less.

Waist high this season is typical.

The Stihl 3 blade cuts fine until encountering something hard.

 

[big bubba]

I use a Stihl Tri-blade for my Stihl 'bicycle handled' weed-whacker... mine is utilised for dealing with bracken, which 'eats' a string due to its woody stem.

If you've got one, I'd use that. It works great.

thx, the tri blade is great & easily sharpened for heavier stuff. i'll adjust brush guard on my machine per suggestions above on the trimmer.
other than that, it's great to have machines that can do the job. if i bought box store, i'd be waist high in weeds

 

[JasperFrank]

When I do the weed eating, or concrete work, these pants are gone. No way I'm putting them in a wash cycle. They are five bucks at the local second hand.

 

[dj1701]

I use a Stihl cordless weed wacker which is all I need. The problem I have is that dam chain link fence around the back of the house. Eats up string pretty quick. It doesn't matter how I approach it. I've tried straight on, at an angle, going forward, backing up. I have not tried the over the shoulder holding a mirror approach yet. Might be on to something.

Dave

 

[chim]

There's no one fits-all here. With the exception of along the creek, I do like chemical mowing..

 

[ArlyA]

Some head designs are more prone to weed wrapping.

We gave up on handle bar weed whackers and will not return to using them.

Nor sure if larger string will help your wrapping grief but stihl was expected to come out with a .170 head. Bad thing about large string is they girdle any brush or trees you might like. We run 155 but hope to move up to 170 when we can. Large strings really do cut more, lots more. But ther require large cc power heads to spin them. We do have a thread here called "trail clearing tools and techniques".

 

[Runner]

First, I never have the guard on my weed eater except when using the saw blade. Second, I use the following technique for tall grass:

I start at the edge of the area I'm working, i.e., I'm standing in the tall grass and reaching OVER the grass so the back side of the trimmer head is doing the cutting. Then, I start working it backwards, towards me, and I sweep side to side as I walk backwards. If there's any short stuff left after the first pass, it is then easy to clean that up without anything wrapping around the head.

This throws the grass out the front of the trimmer head, away from the trimmer, so it doesn't wrap around the head and gets rid of most of the tall stuff. I work in sections like this, whatever I can reach from one spot, may be 6 feet square. Then, mover over and start the next section.

Once you are used to it, you can start from outside the tall grass, again, reaching over from the top and lowering the head down slowly to create a "hole" where you can start using this technique.

Removing the guard also makes it much easier to trim around things like trees and fence posts because you can reach around the post and trim with the back side of the head. You can also reach OVER things easier, like when trimming the opposite side of a ditch.