Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Johnny does yard work...

... or how I ignored the Internet and saved $500.00.

So... new house, out in the country, 50 acres of pine, no grass, no weeds, no maintenance. Very nice. "Don't plant grass", everyone said, "you'll just have to cut it".

Sounded reasonable to me.

12 months later, the tired old phrase "nature abhors a vacuum" suddenly makes blinding sense. Faced with an empty void, nature fills it with spider webs and big ugly weeds. BIG ugly weeds, 5-6 feet typical and some well over my head.

I had done some chainsaw research on the Internet, and it nicely matched what my friends were telling me. Picked out a midrange Husqvarna saw and (assuming I don't cut my leg off) I should be happy with that for many years. So far so good.

The chainsaw seemed a bit drastic for most of the weeds (although I did feel a lot safer walking past the big Trifid-looking weeds with an idling chainsaw in hand) so I obviously needed something else, apparently a trimmer / brushcutter / clearing saw, whatever they were. To the Internet !!

While the chainsaw crowd seemed to be pretty reasonable and level headed the trimmer crowd turned out to be a pretty wild bunch. If the chainsaw forums were the Axiom boards, the trimmer/brushcutter forums were more like AVSForum on an SVS vs. EP600 day.

Once I sifted through all the noise, the message seemed pretty clear. Cheap units will fall apart if you use them on heavy stuff, cubic inches rule, driveshafts good cable drive bad, pay me now or pay me later. I *really* didn't want to pay another bunch of money for a trimmer but it seemed like cheaping out would be a big mistake

I looked at a bunch of trimmers and brushcutters -- a brushcutter is like an SUV, you get more money by giving it a different name -- and there seemed to be three categories. Good cable-drive trimmers ran for $150-200 but would probably self-destruct on my property, high quality high end trimmers ran in the $250-$350 range and would probably be OK but "weren't really intended for my kind of cutting", and "real" brushcutters in the $500+ range (all CDN) which needed fancy harnesses and couldn't be used within 50 feet of another living creature. That sucks.

The last place I visited was the local Stihl dealer. I had been thinking about something like the FS250, a 40cc high end brushcutter, but the sales guy was pushing me towards some newer, smaller units with 4-stroke ("4-mix") engines. "Trust me, torque is what matters in a brushcutter and you can't beat a 4-stroke for torque". It made sense, but I was still up over $500 so I went for a drive.

Cue the spinning stars and the tacky 70's TV dream sequence, all while driving in 107 degree weather (Dennis, if you are looking for your heat wave I found it). "Torque...", I was thinking... "Electric motors have torque..."

Went back to the old house and dug the old WeedEater electric weed-whacker out of the back of the garage. Out to the store and picked up a roll of high end "Diamond Titanium Supreme" trimmer line in the right size. Don't think it had any diamonds or titanium in it, but the edges (hex shaped line) were pretty sharp and I REALLY had to work hard to cut the line with a freshly sharpened Benchmade knive. The first few cuts didn't even SCRATCH the line, whereas the crappy discount line I used before pretty much gave up before the knife touched it.

Up to the new house. Two hundred feet of extension cord. Plug it in and give it some weeds...

Well, torque really does rule with brushcutters, even electric ones. I imagine the trimmer will die a spectacular and smoky death if I don't keep the duty cycle down, but it REALLY chewed through those weeds quickly.

Now my yard looks kinda normal again, and I don't have to worry about those Trifid-looking weeds eating my dogs (cue "Return of the Giant Hogweeds" off Nursery Cryme).

And I saved $500.00.

John, consider using a silver plated extension cord. The cutting won't go any faster but the sound of the motor will be much better.

And the Ricks think I’m nuts….you crack me up…

If you get the itch to buy a brush cutter again, let me know. I have a crew of brush cutters and they do have their ‘favorite’ cutters. Gas driven units with blades. These guys are friggin animals, so if they like them, they gotta be good. I’m thinking they are Still’s, at about $1000 a pop. Four years ago I’d end up buying half a dozen each season, but with these new ones, I haven’t bought one for two years. I can get the model number if you wish.

Way ahead of you. I also ordered those little speaker wire supports to keep the extension cord out of the mud.

I anticipate glorious, nay, sumptuous sound.

>>Four years ago I’d end up buying half a dozen each season, but with these new ones, I haven’t bought one for two years. I can get the model number if you wish.

If it's not a big hassle it would be useful, thanks !

Don't forget to plug it into a line conditioner, you'll get much cleaner cuts.

You know, you could always invest in a couple of goats or sheep. What?! I'm just trying to help!

I was thinking real hard about the livestock, at least to the point of asking my neighbors where they bought goats and sheep around here, but I wasn't sure how to keep them off the road without building a bunch of fences.

General consensus around here is that sheep are too stupid for an "Invisible Fence" to work -- they just walk around getting shocked all the time and nobody is happy.

Goats remain a possibility, but if left outside they need even more protection from the winter cold than sheep, and I know from personal experience that they are hard to housebreak

I see a tractor in your future. We've got acerage in South Carolina. My wife raises horses and I raise antennas. I can't tell you how much fun a tractor is. Front-end loader for, er, compost. Bushhog for weeds/grass - unbelievable. Finding new uses for it all the time. Lots more than $1k but major major fun.

-Brian n8wrl

That is *so* true...

My brother- and sister-in-law moved into the same area about 18 months before I did. My sister-in-law talked to everyone about the new house, the floor plan, the construction, the decoration, the landscaping...

... all my brother-in-law talked about was that HE COULD FINALLY GET A TRACTOR. He got this big 50-year-old diesel tractor and has been accumulating more accessories than Paris Hilton, even a big-ass snowblower that mounts on the back and can clear his driveway in two passes.

Thanks for all the suggestions !

I love how you start by complaining about how $500 is a lot for a brush cutter--and people immediately start suggesting $2000 and up items! Including a tractor!

We just love our toys around here.

Wow. I bought a chipper/shredder the other day.

Does that count for anything?

Ever since Carol (my late wife) saw a TV show about a Michigan lady who used a wood chipper to dispose of her husband's frozen corpse, I would be periodically reminded how useful it would be if we had a wood chipper for the yard. I always found excuses to postpone that purchase

There was a physician in Connecticut accused of the same thing....well, the opposite: An unfrozen female (wife).

I don't think the one I ordered would work for chipping a human body. I'll have to go for something smaller, like kittens and bunnies.















Oh My God, People. I'm JOKING!

I think the trick is to cut the body up before leaving it to freeze. Anyways, good luck with the kittens and bunnies...

Someone is probably going to tell Amie about this post and then we'll all get banned from the board.

Bridgman... hmm... now I've met the man that needs a gas trimmer. I bought one shortly after we moved in... thought "what a pain in the ass to run extension cord to the front street to trim around 2 trees"... now I think "what a pain to start a 2-stroke trimmer to trim around 2 trees"... somehow I missed the point of my complaint. :P

Small cows... or goats... free milk and clear brush!

Bren R.

The tractor is not cheap initially. In fact, I chuckled at the "$2000+ items, including a tractor" comment. But consider this - you have a very strong engine you can apply to many tasks. Want a chipper? You can spend the same amount for a much better unit without an engine - just get a 3PH model. Ditto for tillers, shredders, snow-blowers, etc. etc.

Funny story. When I first got this thing, I was driving around in the front yard getting used to it and giving the kids a ride. My wife came running out of the house waving. "Hello, Honey!" I thought. But I had the bucket too low and plowed up a 30' strip of sod. Oops - that thing just does NOT stop. And mine is pretty small by most standards - a 30HP Kubota.

-Brian

Y'all do realize that my comment was from a guy who had budgeted $600 for a piano and ended up spending >$2000, right?

There once was a doc from Connecticut,
who was decidely lacking in etiquette....

Great ! Something that rhymes with Connecticut !

The limericking possibilities are endless.

... his chip work was shoddy
(A whole unfrozen body?!??!)
Freeze her, but first, don't forget to cut!

Well, at least he wasn't from Nantucket.

... 'cause his wife wouldn't fit in a bucket...

My mother threw my turtle into the garbage disposer when I was a kid. Ive never been the same.

I don't think I would be either.....

My only experience with an industrial grade wood chipper and animal carcasses is as follows.

When I was in British Columbia working for their equivalent of Fish and Wildlife we did an experiment to see if we could boost the nutrient levels in streams with depressed salmon runs (most of the nutrients to support aquatic life in west coast salmon streams come from the rotting carcasses of spawned salmon). We froze some chinook and chum salmon we got from streams with good runs and ran them through a chipper and into streams with poor runs. Turned out not to be a practical long-term solution, but it was a hoot to try.

I can't go too rough on dear old mom though. Those were the days when doctors prescribed amphetamines to housewives that just didn't have enough energy to chase after kids, do housework etc. She was pretty wired most of the time and reacted before she thought things through, really kept us kids on our toes. I guess things could have been worse.