History and Operations of the String Trimmers

Now, many of you may be wondering: how exactly did a person come up with the design and layout of this staple tool used for gardening? Well, this idea came up in the early 1970’s when a man named George Ballas got the idea from an automatic car wash that would wash the car in revolving motions with cleaning brushes. The first string trimmer that came out was called the “weed eater” because of the way it would essentially eat away at the weed around a tree. These days, all string trimmers use the same design, a long shaft with an engine at the top and a string as a cutter on the bottom; most trimmers will have a protective cover to cover the string so that debris and grass will not hit the user.

Another question that many of you might be wondering is how does a string trimmer cut the grass exactly; the string on the trimmer doesn’t seem strong enough to cut away at grass as it can easily be bent with just a little force with your fingers. The answer is this is simple, string trimmers use basic physics, more specifically centripetal force, to help do the task at hand. The basis is that the string will keep rotating quickly, as the string rotates more rapidly, the stiffer the string gets. So the higher the RPM is, the strong the string gets and so the more it can cut. However, if the string isn’t strong, there will obviously be damages to the string trimmer and will be forced to do some rewiring. Some companies have designed stronger monofilament lines, or designed extruded shapes like a star to help with the maintenance of the string and also to help maximize the full potential the user can get out of the trimmer.

Now, string trimmers are divided into electric string trimmers and gas string trimmers. The difference between the two is that the electric string trimmer’s power comes from an electric motor and the gas string trimmer’s power comes from a gas motor. This may seem like a very small difference to some people, however it is vastly different as electric string trimmers are easier to handle with, more lightweight and for light-duty tasks like for cutting grass in an urban neighborhood’s house. While the gas string trimmer is heavier and more for heavy-duty tasks like for farms or fields that have many different types of thick shrubs and bushes. You can have a look at the differences between gas string trimmers and electric string trimmers to see if an electric string trimmer is what you need for the task at hand.