I have no intention of starting an debate with Tim that neither of us can win,
but I do have a different view.
I have a Stihl with the replaceable attachments, including a trimmer with the
easy loading end. I have been very happy with the
arrangement. Given that I can not use all the tools at the same time, and SHMBO
is not a "hey, that looks like fun, can I try it"
kind of tool person, the need for more than one motor at any given point in
time is not an issue.
I like having to maintain only one motor. And maintenance is "run it dry before
winter, a little fogging oil down the intake, add
fuel and start next spring". At the end of the year I pour any fuel left in the
can into the truck and in the spring refill the can
and mix with Universal Oil. The fuel is shared with the chainsaws. I may have
an extra sparkplug for it somewhere in the garage but
I've never needed it so I could be wrong.
All other maintenance - the lubrication of the shafts, the little gear box at
the end of the shaft, etc., is identical to the
individual tools scenario.
I prefer the easy loading version because, at least on the model that I have,
the string is much bigger than what was available for
the autofeed version. Given the way I use it - i.e. often too lazy to go back
to the garage and get the "looks like a saw blade"
brush cutter attachment - the more robust string was a good choice. Admittedly
a little more work to change the string than the
bump-n-run version I had before this one, but it makes up for it by cutting
more stuff down by the stream than the other one did.
I bought a big spool of the string when I bought the trimmer and spend an hour
cutting it into a bazillion pieces of the correct
length. Note that this activity can be performed while watching TV - small
quantities of beer optional. Put all the pieces into a
big Ziploc bag and I was good-to-go. Based on my low annual consumption of cut
pieces, a bazillion means there will have plenty left
to trim around my grave when the time comes.
Arvid
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