Strimmer advice needed

I've just bought a cheapish petrol line strimmer from B&Q. It's JCB brand.

I was expecting it to have a normal reel of line that automatically dispenses line as necessary, however this has a sort of holder, and a pack of short lengths of red line that one has to insert manually.

My initial reaction is that this is a backward step from my old strimmer, and that I'll be constantly having to turn the thing upside down to insert new bits of line. I plan to take it back to B&Q, but am I doing the right thing, or are these similar looking lengths of line far superior and longer lasting perhaps? Should I have gone for something else?

Any thoughts on this would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

 

Caveat emptor, Yes take it back.

 

Mine is a bump feed line, and it doesn't work all that well.

 

I have found that the reason for this is the way the nylon is wound on, you have to be careful when winding on new nylon not to overlap you literally have to go right to left or visa versa so that the nylon is free to move when you bump it.

 

My dad used to have an old pertol strimmer (cannot remember the make)

he got fed up with the nylon, so used some of my fishing trace wire (plastic coated steel wire) that was the same diameter

he never had to feed or replace the trace wire ....

not sure if it would work on the new strimmers, but it could be worth trying?

 

Perhaps there is someone who has used this type? It might be fine. Mine is a Stihl petrol strimmer. You have to thread in 2 6' lengths of line at opposite sides of the winding coil. Sounds a bit odd and I was wary of it at first, envisaging as you say lots of upending and fiddling, but it hasn't been any problem.

 

I'm a bit late in the day to this discussion, but I use the type of strimmer you describe although mine's electric - I bought it specifically to deal with thicker, more dense vegetation mainly because every 'bump feed' one I've ever had (or used) has been utter rubbish and just not up to the job. With mine - the shorter lengths of line are about 10 times (that's a pure 'guesstimate') the thickness of normal line and it's therefore ideal for clumps of thicker grass or nettles and deals with 'undergrowth' easily - which is why I bought it. If you were going to use mine on 'normal' grass and lightweight weeds, I doubt you'd have to change the line more than once, twice at the most, during a season.

 

Many years ago, I did some work with the Scottish Wildlife Trust, and when we were strimming meadows, the strimmer wire was just two short pieces of nylon opposite each other. Similar I suspect to yours.
The make was husqvarna, I think. I remember it having loads of different fittings, and that was probably why they used this design..?

 

Making a bump feed trimmer work is a difficult business, especially double line versions (stay away from those).

Best go for thicker single strand versions, twisted line versions are quieter but generally don't last as long.

 

When I lived in Cheshire and looked after a fishing lake I used a petrol strimmer two pieces of nylon coming out of the 'cartridge', it was a bump feed and I found it fine to work with to be honest; the only two things you had to make sure of was winding on the nylon cord correctly in the first place - admittedly not easy as the bottom of the cartridge had to go one way and top the opposite direction (I think ?:D). Also make sure the blade/cutter in the guard was sharp so that when you bumped it the cord would be cut to length if too much came out.

Get these two things right and it was a great strimmer, hacked through everything from grass to thick brambles, can't remember what make it was though??