As a recent home buyer, I bought my first weed eater for $10 from a friend. It’s a cheap electric model, so I’ll grant up front that I’m not expecting tremendous performance from the thing. But, surely it’s not supposed to be this hard to use?
The problem is that it seems very reluctant to actually feed the line. As I use it and bits of nylon whip themselves off, the spool should automatically spin and provide more, right? This only happens intermittently. More often, I have to stop using it, flip it over, and tug more line out before I can continue.
Most annoying is when the line gets cut off at the base and I have to actually remove the spool and re-feed the thing before continuing. This happens at LEAST every five minutes while weed-whacking, usually more often than that.
So is my technique wrong? Is there some sort of mechanism in the weed eater that’s not doing its job? I’m a weed eater newbie here.
While I wait for a response, I’m gonna mow. That I know how to do.
Yep, that’s the most likely thing. When it’s not running, see if it’s got a large “button” on the bottom of the spool. When you “bump” this on the ground, it’ll release the lock on the line, allowing the centrifugal force to “fling” out a bit more line.
Ah yes, I think that might have been it. I’d noticed the button before and pushed it to release more line, but I never tried doing that while it was running full-speed.
You do this while it’s running? Maybe that’s why I’ve had trouble with mine (I’ve only used it a couple of times). I assumed it had to be off to feed the line out…
Well, bumping it when not running may release the catch, so that line will feed when you fire it up again, but my old weed eater required a couple of bumps to get the right amount of line fed, so this would get sort of tedious…
You need to bump the button on the feed spool on the ground (better yet, the sidewalk) while the line trimmer is running at full speed. There is a cutting blade on the guard that will trim the line to the correct full length. You will notice a decreased cutting radius and an increase in motor speed when the line is too short.
If you find that several bumps are required, then you are likely waiting too long to feed new line.
All other posters have made good points, but I wanted to add that there are different thicknesses of weed eater string depending on the coarseness of what you are cutting.
If you use too light of a string for your grass, then it breaks at the end frequently. If you use one that is too thick, it “knocks down” the grass instead of cutting…
I made the exact same mistake when I bought my house, despite knowing that it’s almost never worth it to buy a cheap tool I bought the cheapest string trimmer they had. Knowing how to use it doesn’t matter if it’s a piece of junk, as that one was. I ditched it and bought a nice one (under $70) which has given me zero problems aside from needing to replace the line as it wears out.
Welcome to the wacky world of weed wackers… I’ve owned 3-4 over the years from cheap to moderately expensive and none of them have worked correctly for more than about one year.
One other thing to watch out for. When trimming around concrete curbs, slabs, etc., and other solid objects, only get as close as necessary to cut the grass. If you get the head too close you will break off or wear down the trimming string unnecessarily. Optimally, you want the outer edge of your cutting circle to just barely touch what you are trimming around.
A 10 electric weed trimmer isn't something to expect much from. Having purchased, cursed at, and eventually throwing away one such item, it was a lesson in "you get what you pay for". After ponying up the for a healthy gas-powered unit, it does the job without any trouble.
I have an electric weed-eater and I got so sick and tired of the line I bought some blades that you can easily attach to the weed-eater instead of the line. You should be able to find them in the same aisle as the weed-eaters at Home Depot/Lowes. It wears out eventually but it is so nice not having to deal with the line.
Buy a nicer one. Really! My folks own a lawn care center that I used to work in on the weekends through college. Those dinky little electrics simply will not save you any time or effort when it comes to weed whacking. A lot of times, they can’t get up the rotary power to even accomplish the “bump feed.”
Not to mention that on heavy or dew-wet grass you might as well be hitting the grass with a stick.
Even when I went and got an Echo, the one that professional landscapers all use, I still had line feed issues. No matter how carefully I wound it, I would end up messing around with the head time and time again.
I finally resolved the problem by buying one of those heads (made by Echo) that don’t hold any spool, but have friction grippers in both sides: you just slip in a pre-cut length in each side and the grippers hold it in.
I then got the heavy duty star-shaped line and I use a pair of dykes to clip a whole lot of the pre-measured lengths. Much less fuss than dealing with the stupid auto-feeder.
