Stringtrimmer Q

[Cord]

I have a Echo straight shaft 21cc string trimmer. I'm trimming along the riverbank and have come into a clump of Purple Lustriffe. The stuff is decorative flower which is quite agressive. The plant gets to be around 5' tall and has a stem that's around 3/8" at the base. The stem isn't woody, but it's very tough. So tough that the .095 string won't cut through it. If I let the string chew at the stem it will topple the plant but the string breaks very frequently. I'm thinking that I need some type of brush blade. I bough a three tined flingy blade from my local big box. The blade has a scalloped metal (not plastic) edge with a plastic shank. According to the owners manual I can get metal blades for my trimmer. I went on ebay and found several different types of metal blades. Most of them seemed to be based around the sawblade concept with varying tooth counts. I could see the metal blade working very well on the Purple Lustriffe, but what tooth count? Should I go for more teeth or fewer? Will the existing flingy cutter that I have work?

 

[hobbyfarm]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Should I go for more teeth or fewer? )</font>

The blade with more teeth is to fell saplings ie wood. They make around an 8 tooth blade that's more for heavy weeds and grass.

 

[jeffinsgf]

Not familiar with your plant, but I have had great luck with the metal blades that have chainsaw style teeth in them. I tried the table saw looking blades, and had little if any luck. Shindawa makes a blade with either 6 or 12 chain saw teeth and they will wack through anything in a hurry. And, if you are half way decent at filing a chain saw chain, you can sharpen these blades yourself. Several on the forum use something similar called a "Beaver" blade, I believe. It has many more teeth than the Shindawa. I haven't tried them side by side, but I can guess that they would last longer between sharpenings, but also, more teeth can sometimes increase cutting resistance. I found the Shindawa blades at my John Deere dealer. Anyone who carries Shindawa trimmers should have them.