How To Put A Disk On A Video Trimmer

With the advent of summer, many owners of household plots are concerned about the issue of how to put a knife on a trimmer. No less relevant are the questions of why and when it is advisable to replace the fishing line on the lawn mow with a more durable cutting element. In our article we will try to make out all this and give useful recommendations to summer residents.

  • Why you need to put a knife on a trimmer
  • What knives to put on the electric and lawn mowers
  • How to put the knife on the trimmer

Why you need to put a knife on a trimmer

The trimmer with a knife mounted on it is most convenient to use for more comfortable mowing of tall and coarsened grass in the country. The line on the lawn mowing in such cases can not cope. Thin breaks very quickly. Using a thick 2.3 mm cord or homemade rods with cables causes the vegetation to wind up on the spool. This increases the load on the engine. As a result, the piston group and other moving parts of the unit wear out very quickly.

How To Put A Disk On A Trimmer

If the mowing of the weeds is carried out with an electric trimmer without a knife, only fishing line, even if it is thick with a curly section, the problem cannot be solved. There is always a risk of overheating the motor and damage the flexible shaft. And it’s all about the big torque of the electric motor. The grass wound on the spindle creates strong resistance to the shaft, resembling a speedometer cable, which does not withstand and twists.

In order to protect the equipment from premature wear, manufacturers have provided the ability to install special knives on trimmers. The design and shape of existing cutting elements makes it easy to cope not only with coarsened and overgrown grass, but also successfully deal with young shrubbery.

What knives to put on the electric and lawn mowers

Before buying and putting a knife on a lawn mow, we will find out what they are and in which cases they are used. Today, manufacturers offer consumers a large number of types of these consumables. In general, all cutting tools designed for mowing grass can be classified:

  • By the type of material from which it is made;
  • In the shape of its cutting blades.

The main material for making trimmer knives can be plastic or metal. The use of such consumables is largely dependent on two parameters:

  • Type of lawn mowers;
  • Square mowing.

For safety reasons, manufacturers do not recommend placing steel knives on electric trimmers. Almost all lawn mowers powered by mains and battery are equipped with plastic blades. Depending on the manufacturer, they can be of a single disc-shaped design with several blades or in the form of a special mowing head for the installation of removable plastic blades.

Straight bar at gas trimmer and curved at electric

To put a metal knife on an electric trimmer does not allow its design features.

  1. The curved rod of the unit reduces the distance from its working part to the legs of the mower. If the blades collide with a stone or other solid object, the braid is thrown to the feet.
  2. The high torque that we mentioned above, in the event of a collision of a metal knife with a solid object, transfers a large load to the flexible shaft of the trimmer and its motor. What causes their premature failure.
  3. The handle of an electric braid most often does not have a restrictive bar acting as a stop. Which does not exclude injury to the legs.

It is these features that allow the use of exclusively plastic knives on trimmers with electric motors. In a collision with an obstacle, the blades are destroyed, thereby protecting the legs of the mower from possible injuries.

The use of metal knives only on gas trimmers is also due to design features.

  1. The direct design of the bar increases the distance to the legs, which ensures complete safety.
  2. Convenient U-shaped and J-shaped handles allow to hold the tool firmly. D-shaped lawn mowing arms are equipped with a limiter resting on the leg of the pigtail, which does not allow the head to be allowed to close when the cutting disc meets a solid obstacle.
  3. The clutch of the gasoline engine allows you to smoothly gain speed to the optimum level. And when the blade collides with a hard surface, it can absorb part of the impact.

Thus, gas trimmers with an installed metal knife are best used in large areas. They will successfully cope not only with tall coarse grass, weeds, burdocks and nettles, but also shrubs, as well as young trees.

The shape of the blade blades placed on the trimmer does not affect the quality of the work performed. Speed ​​does not depend on them either. Triangular, trapezoidal, rectangular shapes are all the marketing ploy of manufacturers.

How to put the knife on the trimmer

Putting a knife on the trimmer is not so difficult. The manufacturer supplies his tools with a special pin that allows you to lock the gearbox and a key with which you can unscrew the spool with fishing line. The most important thing to observe when changing the cutting elements is the safety precautions and the assembly sequence of disassembly.

The algorithm for installing the knife on the trimmer is as follows:

  1. Remove the protective cover;
  2. We block the drive. To do this, combine two holes. In the shaft hub and in the gear cup. After combining them, insert the pin into the holes;
  3. We turn off the spool with fishing line or the fastening nut holding the boot (clockwise, if the trimmer has not been used) clockwise from the hub;
  4. Next, install the cutting knife, so that the slots on the hub washer coincide with the recesses in the hole of the cutting disc;
  5. Install the boot;
  6. We twist the fastening nut (counterclockwise) while holding the locking pin;
  7. Tighten it using a pipe wrench;
  8. Return the protective cover to its place.

As you can see, there is nothing complicated. Now you can safely proceed to mow the weeds on the site.

The trimmer, whether it is gasoline or electric, is the only right solution for mowing grass in hard-to-reach places that cannot be handled by a wheeled lawnmower. As a cutting tool, trimmers use metal knives or a special fishing line, which is tucked into the trimmer coil. But, unfortunately, the trimmer heads during operation over time become unusable. Some malfunctions can be eliminated with your own hands, and some require a complete replacement of the mowing head.

Trimmer Coil Device

Mowing heads for trimmers come in many designs. Both simple and complex. The picture below shows semi-automatic trimmer head from the Husqvarna lawn mowers (Husqvarna) disassembled.

This type of head is present in the configuration of most lawnmowers and trimmers, such as Stihl (Stihl), Patriot (Patriot), Champion (Champion), Bosch (Bosch), Huter (Huter) and others. The mower head is quite simple. It consists of the following details:

  • Mowing head base;
  • Button for semi-automatic cord feeding;
  • A bobbin (reel) into which the fishing line is refueled;
  • Spring;
  • Eyes. Through them the fishing line comes out;
  • Trimmer head cover;
  • Fishing line (cord).

There are also simpler trimmer heads shown in the following photo.

All these attachments do not allow changing the length of the fishing line in semi-automatic mode (after pressing the button). In the event of a break in the cord, you have to stop the mower and change it manually.

Basic coil faults

Trimmer users and lawn mowers often encounter a problem with a semi-automatic mowing head. Coil malfunctions can be as follows:

  • The fishing line does not automatically extend;
  • The cord spontaneously exits the coil.

The fishing line does not automatically extend

If the line does not lengthen with a light touch of the trimmer coil button on the ground, the reasons for this may be as follows.

Option 1. A bite occurred, i.E. Clamping cord between turns. This problem usually occurs if the user wound the fishing line on the reel unevenly, with the intersection of turns, or wound it with insufficient tension. In the latter case, when the mowing head rotates at high speeds under the influence of centrifugal force, the cord begins to drag out, as a result of which it is possible to twist the fishing line. To fix the problem, you will have to disassemble the coil on the trimmer and rewind the cord correctly, that is, in even turns with good tension.

Option 2. Too short ends protrude from the head. The fishing line may not come out when it hits the ground, if its ends protruding from the head are of insufficient length (short). In this case, centrifugal force is not enough to stretch the line. Therefore, it is necessary to stop the unit (turn off the engine or disconnect the trimmer from the mains) and pull out the fishing line manually by first pressing the button.

Option 3. Fishing line soldered inside the mowing head. This causes the coil to stop and not spin when the button is pressed. Basically, this happens for several reasons: poor quality of the cord, overheating of the coil during continuous operation of the unit, impact of fishing line on solid objects.

  1. In the first case, the cord of third-party manufacturers can be made of low-quality and low-melting materials that do not withstand mechanical and thermal stress. Therefore, preference should be given to “branded” fishing lines.
  2. But, if you nevertheless acquired a fishing line of unknown quality, and it often gets soldered during operation, then you can follow the example of some users who, after refueling the cord into a coil, moisten it either silicone grease (from spray can), or mineral oil. This procedure greatly reduces the likelihood of soldering between each other turns of fishing line.
  3. Also, the fishing line can be soldered if during mowing it hits a solid object (stone, fence, dry branch, etc.). As a result of this, it stretches a little and is pulled back into the head at high speed. The cord heats up due to friction, and its coils stick together. The only thing that can be done to eliminate this malfunction is to open the trimmer coil and rewind the fishing line.

Cord spontaneously lengthens

There are situations when the trimmer user notices very fast consumption of fishing line. However, he never hit a button on the ground to lengthen the fishing line. The reason that the fishing line spontaneously lengthens, cutting off a special knife on the casing of the device, can serve lack of spring in the mowing head. Often, novice users of mowers, trying to charge the fishing line into a reel, forget to install the hold-down spring in the head, or even lose it when the lid is opened, and in the future, they are not even aware of its existence.

How to remove the reel and replace the fishing line

Owners of trimmers, mostly novices, are confused, bordering on panic when it becomes necessary to change the cutting tool or fishing line in the reel. Very often, when trying to unscrew the mowing head, users simply render it unusable, not suspecting that it is unscrewing in the opposite direction. To prevent this, if you need to replace the tool, it is recommended that you read the step-by-step instructions below.

  1. Before putting the fishing line into the reel, turn off the engine of the lawn mowers or de-energize the trimmer to avoid injuries that might occur if the cutting tool is accidentally started to rotate.
  2. Unscrew the nozzle attached to gear shaft. To do this, the shaft must be locked by aligning the holes on the washer and on the axis, and inserting a metal rod or screwdriver into them.
  3. Unscrew the nozzle. You should know that the thread on the shaft is left. Therefore, twist the trimmer coil to the right, that is, clockwise.
  4. Disassemble the mowing head. Most often, the head cover is attached on clips. To remove it, you will need to drown these clips into the body, squeezing the edges of the lid. If your trimmer has a semi-automatic mowing head with a button on the bottom, disassembling the nozzle should be done carefully, since you can lose the spring, which sometimes flies out when the cover is removed.
  5. Cut the required amount of fishing line. Usually its length is 5 meters. Use a cord of the diameter specified in the tool manual. It is not recommended to exceed the maximum diameter of the fishing line, as this will lead to increased engine load and higher gas mileage.
  6. Find the middle of the cord segment, folding it in half. You will get a loop.
  7. Cut through the coils special grooves (there may be holes). Insert a loop from the fishing line into this groove.
  8. Wind the line onto the reel by turning it counterclockwise. It is necessary to refuel the cord as evenly as possible, the turns should lie down without overlapping and with good tension. When the winding is finished, leave the free ends of the fishing line about 20 cm long and fix them in the grooves located on the sides of the reel.
  9. Assemble the mowing head. Before you finally assemble the nozzle, do not forget insert spring and washer (if available). Install the coil in the housing, and thread the ends of the cord through holes or eyes.
  10. Put on the cover and fix it with the latches.
  11. Screw the nozzle back onto the gearbox shaft, also locking it with a screwdriver. Spin the trimmer coil to the left (against the clockwise arrow).

Is it possible to make a coil on a trimmer with your own hands

  1. Take a piece of plywood or textolite and draw a circle on it with a diameter of about 14 cm.
  2. Cut the disc with a jigsaw or hacksaw for metal.
  3. Drill a hole in the center of the disk that matches the diameter of the gearbox shaft. Before installing the disk on the shaft, do not forget to put the washer on it.
  4. On the edges of the disk, you can screw small corners or make 1-2 holes on opposite sides. They will serve to refuel fishing lines in them.
  5. To fix the fishing line, several screws can be screwed into the plywood.

Such a homemade mowing nozzle is mounted on a shaft with a nut. Tighten or unscrew the nut without fixing the shaft will not work. To replace the cord, it will be enough to release the screws, insert a piece of fishing line of the required length and press it again.

Also, a mowing nozzle for attaching fishing line to it can be made from a metal sheet. How to do this, you can understand from the next.