Yard machine

[Snuffy Smith]

Has anyone ever used one of those yard machines? They look like a lawn mower, but have a weed eating head at the front. I have a real estate property to clean up that has 5 ft tall weeds all around it. I'm looking for the right tool for the job. Any ideas??? Thanks.

[Jan Doling]

I found one at Sears, but the salesman said I would get more use out of the handlebarred Bush-whacker that had four point and 8 point blades to interchange with the fish-line. It only cost about 50% of the wheeled thingy and I'll be able to use it better around the ponds and fences. I have to wear a shoulder harness, but had a Bushwacker years ago and know I can do it (it even cut down sapling trees and thick vines). This version has more plastic parts than the old one and is much lighter.

[Snuffy Smith]

Well, I have a heavy duty bush-wacker from Sears, and I don't think that it's up to this particular job.

[deberosa]

Are you talking about the walk behind string trimmer? I have had two - ran a Sear's one into the ground after clearing about 7 acres of nasty blackberries, etc. It was a good machine - I just overused it.

The one I have now is a DR. They work great for tall weeds if you get the right style of string - some have sharp edges, some are plain and smooth. All depends on the kind of weeds. They work good in weeds and smaller blackberries - mulch everything into bits as it goes. But for woody stems they are not as good. Also for medium height grass and tends to bend over - it will ride over the top and not cut it off. I ruined a bit of welded wire fence getting too close with the DR - it's powerful enough to mess up the bottom of the fence, unlike the Sears model.

So it has it's place. Also check out how the string changes and if the setup could tangle easily. This was an issue with my Sears one - easy to change, but long weeds could get wound around the shaft and clog things up. The DR has a better mechanism for that, but it's a tiny bit harder to change the strings (you will do alot of that in heavy weeds!). I am getting the hang of it though.

I considered the walk behind brush hog things - but decided I could rent one of those as needed and then use the string trimmer to keep the brush down.