How to Turbo Charge your Line Trimmer
This page is about how you can sometimes buy a product that's the worst in its class, and make a simple modification that turns it into the best in its class. Specifically, it's about how you can turn a cheap electric line trimmer into a weed whacking monster.
First, a cultural note for lovers of the language. It makes me smile that a simple tool whose only goal in life is to help you clean up your property has fun names in different parts of the world. When I lived on a farm in Australia, it was a brush cutter. In the States, it's a weed whacker. And if you're using the kind that works with a nylon line rather than a blade, it's a string trimmer in North America and a line trimmer in the southern hemisphere.
In Australia, on the 40-acre property where I was helping out, I used the grunty kind that works with a blade and gives off the two-stroke smell that reminds one of mopeds, old tin boats or chainsaws. Weed whackers need to be grunty in the northernmost reaches of New South Wales, as weeds grow madly in its sub-tropical sun. Grunty can mean deadly. I remember the sad day when one of our brushcutters accidentally sent off a friendly old python to the other world. (I'm glad to report that I wasn't at the commands that day). We cooked it up to honor its sacrifice. It meat was awfully chewy.
In New Zealand, we live on a small section—not even a quarter of an acre. There are no snakes on those remote islands a few hours North from Antarctica. Our section is small but narrow and therefore long, so that it can feel that we have quite a jungle at the back. Because of the slope, mowing is not an option. Because of the size and the neighbors, whose eardrums I like to spare, for our garden tools, electrical motors appeal to me more than petrol motors. They are also far cheaper to buy and don't require the constant trips to the repair shop that seem to be the major character trait of two-stroke engines. To make a long story short, I went out and bought myself an electrical line trimmer.
How to Choose an Electric Line Trimmer
How did I go about picking the perfect weed whacker? As often, I started with reviews on an American review site. They seemed impressed with a Stihl model. The problem is that in New Zealand tools cost two to four times what they do in the States. For this reason I often have tools shipped from the States—a 3000-Watt transformer lets me run 110-Volt US appliances on the 240-Volt current we have here. But the shipping cost on a line trimmer would have been prohibitive.My next step when researching a product is to check consumer.org.nz, a New Zealand fee-based review site, then to match their advice to consumer reviews on an Australian website, as models in the two countries are often the same and as Australia has a large-enough population to support a meaningful review site. This research yielded an unusual solution.
There was a model whose electric motor everyone loved: the Ryobi ELT1100A. At 1100 Watts, the motor was twice as powerful as that of the Stihl model that cost twice as much, and some people who seemed competent with engineering found it beautifully made. A top-notch motor? That was a great start. However, all the reviewers hated the Ryobi's cutting head (the circular black part at the bottom left of the picture above). Apparently, it was just useless.
But one guy said that by fitting a replacement head by an Australian company called Alex Brushcutter Heads, his string trimmer had been turned into a monster. The head was expensive, he said, but well worth it. Then in the footnotes of the Consumer.org.nz review, I read that some people had recommended replacing their line trimmer heads with ones made by a company called Littl' Juey. I compared the prices: 70 Australian dollars plus shipping for the Alex head from Australia, 40 New Zealand dollars for the Littl' Juey at the local store in New Zealand.
So the plan was simple: buy a Ryobi ELT1100A (affordable at NZ$110), a Littl' Juey head (NZ$40), and dump the original head right away. For NZ$150 (US$120), I'd have a superior brushcutter to the far dearer Stihl.
At Bunnings (a local equivalent of Home Depot), I was faced with a choice. There was one beaten up box of the model I wanted, the ELT1100-A. And there were four shiny boxes of a newer model, the ELT100-QFA. Was the newer "QFA" better than old plain "A"? Both appeared to have the same motor. But the QFA's shaft came in two pieces, allowing you to mount other Ryobi attachments, such as a pruning chainsaw. It was twenty dollars higher. Well, selling additional attachments might be great for Ryobi, but which do you think is more solid: a one-piece shaft, or a two-piece shaft? Even in the store, the two-piece shaft had a nasty wiggle. I took my chances and chose the beaten up box.
Further down the aisle, there was a stack of Littl' Juey heads. There were two models, but no indication of how they differed, which somewhat put me off. The package said that the head fit 99 percent of models. I flipped a virtual coin and took one of the two kinds of Littl' Juey heads home.
Littl' Juey: Not for Me, Thanks
With excitement, I sat down on the porch and set out to take off my new line trimmer's head, without even giving it a spin. Then I proceeded to install the Littl' Juey head. Ah. Two problems. First, you would clearly need some kind of spacer for the head to fit the Ryobi. No sign of that in the package, nor even a mention. Second problem: the thread of the provided bolts did not fit my shaft. (The Ryobi must have a right-hand thread, which is not a great design on tools that rotate clockwise.) Well, when a product breaks its first promise ("fits 99 percent of models"), for me that means it's time to break-up. There were far fewer than a hundred line trimmers at Bunnings… Was it amazingly unlucky that this head happened not to fit the one trimmer I'd chosen, or was it just the sign I needed to exit the situation before things turned from bad to worse? I took the Juey head off and put it on the side to return to Bunnings.Ian's Turbo 3 Line Trimmer Head
At that stage, I knew I'd have to order the expensive head from Australia. To delay the pain, I mounted the original head on and took it for a whirl in the garden. The reviewers had not exaggerated. It was awful. If, a long time ago, my eyes had not overdosed on the primitive web designs we used to have around 1995, I would take the word "awful", render it in red ink, put it in all caps and give it a blinking effect. How awful exactly?- The complex assembly made it amazingly easy for grass to wind itself into tight spots from which it would be impossible to remove without a dissassembly.
- The line supplied broke repeatedly after a few minutes of use.
- The mechanism to feed more line out of the spool simply didn't work.
- Manually pulling line out of its compartment was far trickier than it sounds, and lead to a loss of three minutes every time you worked three minutes.
So I was now ready to suck it up and order my luxury brush cutter head from Australia. A luxury it was: for his Turbo 3 head (the model for bent shaft trimmers), Ian Alex's company charges seventy Australian dollars ($US73 or $NZ91 as of November 2011). What do you get for that price? A carefully engineered piece made of marine-grade aluminium, custom-fitted for your particular trimmer (remember the right-hand thread on my Ryobi). The website promised that the line was very easy to load; claimed that the company's "supercut line" allowed one hour of continuous cutting; and assured that hundreds of bodies such as town councils, road authorities, national parks and professional contractors had adopted the company's brushcutter heads.
That head sounded awesome. If these heads were good enough for council workers working nonstop in a country where grass grows as tough as the land is harsh, surely they were good enough for occasional use in my backyard in temperate New Zealand. I got on Skype and gave the company a ring. Soon, I was on the phone with Ian Alex. He asked what model of line trimmer I had. He would make the thread to fit my shaft and mail the Turbo 3 in the afternoon. I added a pack of the company's gorgeous orange-glo 2.7mm supercut line (which is square) to my order. Since it was an international order, Ian removed the GST (local sales tax) from the price quoted on the website, but I still had to take a deep breath: the total was a hundred Australian dollars—130 New Zealand dollars, more than I'd paid for the brushcutter itself! Two days later, via the magic of international postal routing, the package was in my mailbox.
How the Turbo 3 Performs
In the hand, the Turbo 3 feels like a really well-made part. The system to feed the line is beautifully simple. You unscrew the bottom part by a couple of turns, feed line, tighten again, and you're done. With the spacer Ian had included, the head fit perfectly on the Ryobi. On the picture to the left, you can see the Turbo 3, two strands of line, the spacer, and two pins that lodge perfectly into cavities to help you unscrew the head, should it be too tight to the hand. On the picture to the right, you can see the mounted head, with the pins sticking out of it just to show how they fit.
Now it was the moment of truth. I rushed to the jungle at the back, and…
It was (and still is) a dream. The head cuts. Nonstop. The line doesn't break. That's all there is to it, but that's all the difference between a piece of junk and a powerful electrical brushcutter that's a pleasure to use. And that justifies the price, doesn't it? All it means is that the price for a beautiful, high-performance electrical brushcutter is not about a hundred bucks, as you might believe by browsing at Bunnings, but about twice that amount. That's reality, and that's just how it is. I feel lucky that the option even exists. Oh, and that price is still less than that for a Stihl that's half the power.
Which Line for your Brushcutter?
I love the orange square line I bought from Alex Brushcutters. It's made of a nylon and polypropylene composite that is proving extremely tough. Ian says that on my line trimmer, even though the Turbo 3 takes two lines, one line would work just as well. I can see how using one line instead of two could reduce the load on the motor (half the cutting), but so far I have only driven my Ryobi with two lines.I love the "supercut", but I'm on a small budget, and on my first order the price gave me pause.
The line comes precut in lengths of 35mm. The small pack contains 40 strands. At AU$19 a pack, that's AU$1.35 (NZ$1.75) a meter. The large pack contains 150 strands. At AU$55 a pack, that's AU$1.05 (NZ$1.35) a meter.
The good news is that each strand goes a long way, as the line seems to last forever.
I source a lot of things from Amazon, so I had a look at string trimmer line over there. The Oregon 22-405 Gatorline has really high reviews. It is also square, and its .105" gauge translates into 2.7mm, just like the supercut. It is also a polymer, and it advertises some features that promise a long life: a strong inner core so it doesn't break, and an outer layer of aramid fibers so it doesn't weld. At $15.25 a 179-foot coil, it's 28 US cents a meter (36 NZ cents), about a quarter the price of the supercut in the large pack. If you go with the bigger spool, you get down to 20 NZ cents. But then you'd have enough line to last you two lifetimes. Of course you'd have to add shipping from the States (US$19), and I'm not sure how that compares to shipping from Australia. If you add to your Amazon order, you can spread the shipping over multiple items.
I haven't tried that Oregon line, so I can't say how it compares to the supercut. And for now I have enough supercut to last me a long time. But I thought I'd mention it as it's always nice to know your options.
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Wishing you lots of fun whacking weeds,
Smiles,
Andy
Comments are Closed
WOOOOOOOOOOOOW… Turbo charged.
a Turbo 3 from Alex Bushcutters. My only comment is WOW! This trimmer is now a monster. Easy installation, brilliant service from Ian, and a whole new experience in trimming. Can't praise it enough, and although not cheap, very worthwhile
Now I just need to somehow get the old head off...
Thanks for your message. By now you've probably removed the old trimmer head already. But just for the record in case anyone else is on the same track, removing the head was not a big deal. As I recall, there were a couple Philips screws. Don't remember if a spanner was needed. I'd just bear in mind the reverse thread when removing the big black part from the shaft, so as to not force it in the wrong direction.
Received the trimming line from Amazon, looks great, haven't tried it yet so can't compare to Ian's line.
Wishing you a beautiful afternoon,
Andy