Lawns - Looking for a weed eater

i am looking for a weed eater to cleanup around edges of my yard. i will also be taking it to the lake to take care of a lawn that gets trimmed once a year. i will also probably take it out the farm and weed eat around my Valley pivots.

i went to wal mart and found two basic kinds of gas trimmers. one with spool of sting that you tap and it spits out more and one with a short "whip" of string that you replace 12" manually at a time. also they had Weed Eater brand and Poulan.

so, does any one have some suggestions on what i should be looking for?

I like my cordless 18 volt model. You get around 30-40 minutes of runtime on one so long as you only run it when you are actually cutting weeds. You dont smell like 2-cycle fuel when you are done. No storing fuel, mixing fuel... you see where I am going.

Anyway, so long as you are doing normal maintenance and not cutting down reallly tall weeds a cordless model will work for you. Otherwise, go with a gas-powered model which will give you more power for those really tall weeds or areas that you do not cut down often enough.

i plan on doing some moderate duty work. not just light around the yard in town stuff, butg not working all day on the of the road with the DOT. i am not interested in a battery powered one (unless i can get one that uses my dewalt batteries).

i need to buy one ASAP and so walmart is my only choice. i am mostly interestred in weed easter vs poulon and tap n' go vs the short replacable whip type.

thanks.

gotcha. Sorry, I do not know those brands well enough to tell you. But since it sounds like you will be transporting them a lot, I would look at how good they hold in their fuel so they dont leak when you stick them in your car when it travels.

Poulan and Weed Eater used to be the same company and I believe they still are with the Poulan name on heavy equipment.

The difference would be in the thickness of the line.The spools have more line but it's thinner.You have two choices for replacement,either prewound sppols which cost more or rewinding your spool with line which is much cheaper but you have to wind it right or it won't feed and everyone has a different ability to learn doing this right ranging from never being able to do it right to eventually to getting it fast.I work in a hardware store and I've seen the whole range so you have to figure out for yourself if you can do it,want to do it etc.

The sectioned line is thicker and usually pretty easy to change out and I couldn't tell you how it stacks up cost wise.

If you're just cutting light material,grasses and broadleaf weeds and such the Weed Eater should be fine but if you're looking to cut moderately heavy materials go for the thicker line.

If you have a choice in models with Weed Eater go as heavy a line as they carry though most will be 065.

the ones with the sectioned lines seem to have the heavy cord. i wonder if they don't have the torque to get a spool of heavy line to speed.

why does the heavy line cut better? is it a matter of mass and inertia?

You mentioned using the machine at the farm. I would suggest a unit capable of handling a variety of cutting heads such as the swinging blade head and saw blade. These are sometimes necessary for clearing fence rows.

You mentioned using the machine at the farm. I would suggest a unit capable of handling a variety of cutting heads such as the swinging blade head and saw blade. These are sometimes necessary for clearing fence rows.

ok, that sounds great, but...which one would this be?

Heavier line cuts heavier stuff.A machine will be more or less built to properly use what line is recommended for it and that design will be built to handle a certain level of chores.

And since your only choice is Walmart you will have to go there and read the boxes as to whether they accept cutting blades etc.Poulan would be more likely.

If you do have any sort of hardware store near you then you get into what they carry etc.Most businesses like that will have a variety and it comes down to specifics.If you can go where they have decent salehelp that will go a long way to give you info.

my town doesn't have sales help and the boxes don't say much. that's why i am here!!

Just about anything Walmart has to offer will be low to mid-grade homeowner quality. Just by the little info you gave us it sounds to me like you need a high end homeowner or entry level commercial type. For sure you need to go with the straight shaft. The curved shaft types will not last very long as the curve puts the inner drive shaft in a high wear position. They are ment for occasional/intermitten use by homeowners with very little to trim. Do you have any other option than Walmart like a feed store or a Tractor Supply? What about a John Deere or New Holland dealer? Good commercial brands are Stihl, Red Max, Maruyama, Husquvarna,etc.

i went with a stihl. i got the home owner model it is a FS 55. it starts easy (although it does not have the "easy 2 start" feature). it runs good. i though it had pleny of power. the easy wind up head is pretty cool and an easy to refill the cord. i am very satsfied with my stihl.

Smart choice. Follow the instruction manual, especially for off season storage, and it should give good service for many years.

I have found that old string gets brittle. It probably loses some of the plasticisers in the string. If your string starts to snap off too often, consider buying some new, of the same size.