Anyone who has ever had to some lawn trimming around their house will know what a weed eater or a weed whacker is; they’re great because they can do things and go places that your ordinary lawn mower just cannot. A weed eater is a great tool for professionals to have too because it saves them a lot of time and money as well as making sure that the customer is always happy with a job well done.
A weed eater uses plastic strings to cut the grass and small bushes that you are trimming. Unfortunately the string does wear away and break eventually with over use and long term contact with grass bushes, and other hard objects like the ground, rocks, trees, or pavement. The harder things will cause the string to break quicker. Fortunately though there is usually between 15 and 25 feet of string inside the spool so all you have to do is press the bumper button and take out some more string.
It keeps you going for a while but once again this does run out so eventually you are going to have to restring your weed eater. And what we mean by this is that you will have to wrap new plastic string around the spool wheel. This is because most weed eaters do not come with pre-wrapped spools and it has to be done manually. And that’s why we are here today, to give you the run down on how to change the string in your string trimmer and restring it with these simple step by step instructions.
How To Restring Your Weed Eater
- The first step to restringing your string weed eater is to remove the spool head. Removing the spool head will be done in several different ways depending on the model of weed eater you have. Either screw the spool in a counterclockwise direction, press the tabs inward and pull the spool out, or press the tabs and turn slightly in either direction. Using one of these methods remove the spool from the trimmer head.
- The next step is to cut the plastic string to the length that you require it; it depends on the size of your trimmer spool but this will generally be anywhere between 15 and 25 feet in length. It’s better to cut it a little longer than too short because once you restring it you can always cut away the excess.
- If your weed eater uses 2 spools or has a dual exit feature then cut 2 pieces of string at the same length and use them both.
- Find the little hole that is located at the center of the spool. This will be covered when the spool is loaded and it is used to hold the string in place while the spool is being loaded. Push about half an inch of string into this hole or if your weed eater uses 2 different lines then load both holes; generally these holes will be separated by a divider if there is more than 1.
- Start winding the string onto the spool and do it side to side before you begin making a second layer or else the string might get tangled during use. If you have 2 strings then repeat the step for the second string, making sure that you only load half of the spool with the first string.
- Once it is fully wound then put the end of the string into the notch on the edge of the spool; if you have a dual feed then the notches will be on opposite sides.
- Load the string through the holes in the trimmer head.
- Place the spool back in the trimmer head the same way you took it out and pull the string tight.