Doing battle with a weedwhacker

It sounded like a simple task. My wife asked to go get a line installed for our weedwhacker. Instead of getting down on my hands and knees and clipping the loose grass strains, I would simply install the line into something we already had (but rarely used) and let nature take its course.

Our friend Steph reported great success using it when she stayed at our house a while back.

What could be simpler?

Getting right kind of wire for the Black and Decker Grass Hog Type 3 (its formal name) was no problem. The thing uses something that is slightly stronger and a little thicker than fishing line. Price was okay ($4.99) and the nice man at the hardware store showed how to unscrew the lid and install the wire.

Alas, I didn't get around to actually doing it until some 21 hours later. By then, I had forgotten a few things.

First, the good news. I did manage to get the lid off.

Then, it was a matter of placing the wire through a tiny slot and then wrapping it around the small wheel. I remembered the guy at the hardware store said not to use too much wire - just enough for 3 or 4 rotations. Only problem was that was a little hard to gauge. I ended up with enough wire for five or six rotations. But since I didn't want to waste any wire, I used it all.

When you have big fingers, threading a wire through a narrow hole isn't easy to do. After about a dozen false tries, however, success was achieved. The next problem was wrapping the wire around the spool. Easier said than done. Seems the wire is pretty stiff and simply wouldn't stay in place.

No problem, I thought. I would simply bend it under the first trip around the dial. Well, that worked wonderfully until ... I discovered I had wrapped the wire so tight that I could not place it through the tiny eyesocket so it actually could whack grass.

One broken fingernail later, I had undone what my first effort. I repeated the procedure but left enough wire to easily get through the eyesocket.

I went to work clipping grass at a glorious, brisk pace ... for about 15 seconds. That is all it took for the line to evaporate into thin air.

You see, the line was simply supposed to basically let itself out when needed -- much like what happens with a fishing reel.. But it can't do that when the guy who put it together wrapped the line tightly under another strand. When I unscrewed the cap to check this problem out, the whole thing - line, wheel and the mechanism holding it all together -- popped out. This surprised me so much I also dropped the whacker. Pete, the Happy Dog, was watching closely.

Damn near too closely.

Whacker missed him by about a foot. (Granted, the thing is made out of plastic. Still, that would have hurt.) Pete wisely bolted for the back of the yard and stayed there for 10 minutes or so.

Fortunately, plastic doesn't break easily. I was able to put everything back together. Cut some more line, gave it enough slack around the wheel and confidently place a new line in the eyesocket. Started things up and went back to work.

We have a series of rocks that line our backyard. Getting between them to extinguish strands of grass the mower missed requires deft, patience and agility. On this day, I was only lacking three of those qualities. The line kept bouncing off the rocks and missing its target. In an attempt to get closer and hit just the right angle, I stepped on the long cord that had been plugged in to get my whacker its needed juice. (it's an electric thing)

Cord went one way. I went another and the whacker headed in a third direction. Fortunately, Pete had retreated to a different corner to watch the proceedings.

We gathered everything up and tried to restart. Only I had stepped on the cord so hard that I bent the plug. Couldn't bend it back with my hands so I tried a pliers. That helped but it still couldn't fit the hole. So I went in the garage and got a hammer. One good whack later, the plug was as straight as ever and we proceeded back to work.

This time, things fared better. The line worked like a charm. I stayed away from stepping on the cord. Shortly thereafter, mission accomplished.

All in all, I spent about 75 minutes on this project. Roughly 10 of those minutes were used to do the actual cutting of the loose grass.

Can't wait until I try to use the snow blower.