On 03/07/2020 18:36, wrote:
On 03/07/2020 14:13, John Rumm wrote:
On 03/07/2020 11:41, Chris Green wrote:
John Rumm wrote:
On 03/07/2020 09:01, wrote:

I'm tempted to spend some of the kid's inheritance on 18V tools
(they'll
probably be less-than impressed to inherit used tools instead of
cash -
kids today! ;-) ) and would like some advice from those who use Mak,
Ryobi, DeWalt, etcetera.

I've only just started looking and had expected that Ryobi would be
significantly cheaper, but the price difference is not so great. I've
had a Ryobi scroll saw and a chop saw for many years and both are best
described as "adequate", but the chop saw has recently died and the
Bosch replacement is hugely better (and hugely more expensive).

I have had a couple of combination line trimmer machines from Ryobi -
admittedly not battery, but the general experience has put me off the
rest of their stuff (short life due to poor design, and bad choice of
materials)

They vary.Â* I have a collection of Ryobi 'Expand-it' tools and two
electric and two petrol power heads.Â* The tool ends (brush cutter,
strimmer, hedge trimmer, rotavator) have all been pretty robust and
reliable.Â* The strimmer and rotavator get quite heavy use (we have a 9
acre smallholding).
Yup to be fair I still have some of the Ryobi attachments, and they
work ok on my Stihl power head.

The power heads are more 'variable' shall we say.Â* The 2-stroke petrol
power unit is awful, difficult to start when cold, impossible to start
when hot and it was like this from new.

I found my two stroke was ok ish for the short time it worked. However
at some point something fell off inside it, and it then ingested it.
The results were not pretty:

http://internode.co.uk/ryobi/

Â*The 4-stroke petrol unit is
much better, easy to start hot or cold, runs relatively quietly etc.

I had not intended to get another, but was tempted by a very good deal
for a new 4 stroke (about £60 IIRC).

It's not perfect, it's needed a bit of maintenance, in particular the
mixture adjustement tends to drift but it's easy to change with the
right tool so that's not a big issue.

I found that since many of its internal components were plastic it was
a bit wafty from the start. First the mixture drifted - getting the
right adjustment tool helped a bit, but in the end the timing drifted
in a non adjustable way as well and it became impossible to keep
running reliably.

In the end I paid out for a Stihl power head, which starts and runs
reliably, has far more power, better fuel economy, and works at any
angle.

The electric power heads are, again, not perfect but they're OK given
the amount of quite heavy work they get here.Â* Looking back I see that
I bought my first bits of Expand-It back in 2008 so they're 12 years
old now, not too bad for fairly inexpensive hardware.

I think mine lasted about 7 years all in (the 2 stroke died at about
18 months IIRC). The pruning saw attachment is still working well, the
auto feed line trimmer went on for a far bit until one day it flew
apart in use - one bit went flying through the open patio doors, and
just missed hitting my son on the head! So I decided it was time to
retire that. The hedge trimmer is ok, but then that was a Husqvarna
attachment anyway.



I wish I'd known that Ryobi attachments work with a Stihl head.

They do, but with some caveats...

The ryobi attachments don't have the self centring gizmo that makes them
easy to get the inner shaft to mate with the end of the Stihl. On some,
I found that drilling out the little rivet at the end of the ryobi
shaft, and in another case actually trimming 5mm off the outer shaft
making the inner protrude a little made them much easier to mate *and*
couple drive to the business end.

Husqvarna attachments also fit (I bought their pole hedge trimmer in
preference to the ryobi since it allowed the end angle to adjust). One
day will re-engineer the knob that tightens the pivot to stop it
flapping about in the breeze half the time!

I have
the Stihl Combi system (brush cutter, hedge trimmer, pole saw, blower
and a 1m extension) - an excellent device but the cost made me wince. I
look forward to the day when I can justify replacing the Dakota chainsaw
with a Stihl and end the "start ya *******" sessions before giving-up
and getting the electric saw out.

Yup that is one thing to be said for the lekky or cordless versions :-)

I got the 18V hedge trimmer ostensibly so SWMBO could use it (there is
no way she would go to the effort of getting, setting up, fuelling, and
starting the petrol one!) Now having used it, unless I need the reach of
the long one, I don't bother with the loud heavy smelly version (which
to be fair is a fairly cheap heavy lump I got at a cash and carry)


--
Cheers,

John.

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