On Tue, 27 May 2003 16:06:59 GMT, (Simon
Avery) wrote:

(jane) wrote:
~
~Hello jane
~
~ j I very much appreciate this thread, chaps, having been
~ j losing my cordless battery strimmer for weeks to dying
~ j battery life and an inability to cut through nettles (and
~ j anything else by the end). After reading this I had no
~ j problem in going out and getting the cheap and cheerful
~ j McCulloch (which had better not break now as I recycled the
~ j rather large box this morning!).
~
~Welcome to the green coated smelly bunch of strimmer owners.

why thankyou I grassplated my black jogging bottoms quite
successfully the other day!

~ j ~Buy eye protection and wear it!
~ j Did. Thanks. Didn't take specs for granted as sufficient as
~ j I've been wont to do in the past. Will help in decorating
~ j too.
~
~I wear specs too, and enough ricochets off your forehead, nose etc to
~get in your eye. Mesh guards stop the faster and heavier stuff, but
~you still need to clean your glasses after a while.
~
~Perspec visors/goggles. Buggers in sunlight, can't see a thing after
~five minutes cutting
With luck my paths won't get too long and the spray won't get too bad!
It was when the line flirted a 2" flint sideways I realised it really
wasn't a good idea to have folk nearby or short clothing, even though
strimming in a fleece was hot work.

~ j jane tries to start engine
~ j Primes fuel feed. Pulls cord.
~ j rev. nada. rev. nada. rev. "Work you b*gger". nada. rev.
~ j "come on, you only get six tries".nada. REV!!!! nada. jane
~ j gets agitated rev... nada. turns down choke anyway and
~ j tries again rev. "Come on, dammit!" rev. "ARGH" rev.
~ j Splutter. rev. fires and dies. rev. fires at last. jane
~ j breathes sigh of relief and cheers
~
~Ahhh! Flooded it.
I did wonder. I was following the destructions to the letter. It says
to turn down choke when it sounds like it's trying to turn... humph.
Not a helpful description. All I got was a sort-of harrumph and had no
idea if that qualified, so I kept going at full choke.

I guess experience is useful in such situations!

~Prime (if needed).
~Close choke. Set half-throttle if available.
~Pull until you get a rev, or fire.
~Open choke, leave throttle at half.
~Pull until it runs.
~
~If you think you've flooded it, give it half a dozen pulls with the
~throttle full on and choke open. If that doesn't work, leave it for
~half an hour, or whip the plug out and dry. (Note "open choke" means
~it's in its normal running position.)
~
~Them's the "rules" - but 2-strokes are temperamental things, even
~nowadays, although they are much better than they used to be. So play
~around, find something that works for "your" machine and if it needs
~an extra pull with choke closed after it catches, so be it. People
~form definate relationships with their 2-stroke engines.

Thanks. Glad I got it - should have done so 2 years ago when I bought
the silly £40 battery one from Argos, which was a retrospective waste
of cash. And useless to boot. Having compared notes with another
allotmenteer who bought a different (more expensive, well-known
manufacturer) battery model, they all lose charge capacity very
quickly and after some months are a much use as the proverbial
chocolate teapot. And mine could never cut through nettles in any
case. It can't even trim the lawn edges now

So don't ever think of getting battery strimmers, folks! Save the cash
for one that really does work...

(For other ladies: battery ones are MUCH heavier than the petrol one I
just got, too!)


--
jane

Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone,
you may still exist but you have ceased to live.
Mark Twain

Please remove onmaps from replies, thanks!