12 June 2020

Item in question and under the spotlight:



I placed my order for this item:

Date: 30 May 2020

 

Time of writing this post…
6.45pm’ish.

 

Reason?  “Simples.”  I’m annoyed.

 

Why.

 

Still not arrived, still not out the box, fuelled up and ripping into encroachment from hedge-lines; like it was supposed to be.  Stihl still not here?

No it bloody well is ssssStihl not.  =/

Not like I’ve been waiting for a long time to be able to purchase one.  Now having to wait while it’s in the ether of warehouses, picking, packing, tracking or coming from who knows which country and using what method of transport.  I should be so lucky to spend such an amount of money for a tool, right?  How dare I expect it to arrive like any other normal tool I have ordered recently; silly as can be I am.

It’s like buying a Unicorn.  Rare, expensive and you have no idea if you will ever get your hands on one!

 

All I know is I paid for it nearly 2 weeks ago and no one can tell me where it is; not even the people I bought it from.  Nor the people they bought it from.  & they bought it from the Manufacturer…

All sounds legit, right?

Only one missing out on anything here; me.  Huh?  =/


 

So what irks me so much about this silly strimmer (As any non strimming/grass cutter type might perhaps ask…) not arriving?

What vexes thee so much over this missing Unicorn?

I’ve got bloody Brush cutting to get done!

 

Little in my professional work life makes me get out of bed  faster with a spring in my step and with a sense of purpose than a good chunk of hedge-line encroachment clearing and fence-line restoration or cleaning up for hedging to go tend.  A good hard day on the bigger machinery and clearing out scrub and weeds.  Oh yes!

Arrive at work, fuel up the machines, grab the essentials, load up the trolley, grab the gloves and ear defenders/visor and the dog.  Then out for a few hours causing utter carnage and splattering unwanted greenery to improve the scenery.    Hours spent carving out a new view rarely fails to appeal.  I enjoy being the sculptor and eater of weeds.  😉

So moving from a non commercial but hardcore heavy duty machine to a commercial grade unit is a big thing.  Especially for me.

I use the machines a lot because I have large distances and spaces to clear or cover with them.  They get used hard and for long periods of time.  So the right one is not always easy to find.  You might think your few hours a week trimming up the garden with your electric string line trimmer allows you to think a strimmer costing over a grand is ridiculous.  For someone wearing it and handling it most of the working day; they think differently because they have to operate differently.  Someone being paid to do a job and do it well; they need the right tools.

Comfort.

I’ve worked hard in my life, carried more weight from A to B on foot under my own power than most average people.  Then more since I became my own boss and ventured into professional gardening…  I prefer back mounted or load bearing operation.  It is what I am used to doing and to do a job all day and be effective as well as efficient; you need to be able to operate for long periods of time if you can get into a smooth working operation.

The correct tools or machines enable this.

The right harness and support system is the foundation that facilitate the outcome results.  Being equal to the effort in putting them into practice and paying someone to do the job to a high standard; with the right equipment and structure in place to support its prolonged use.  The results will show and be comparable.  Right tool, right operator, right landscape.  End result.

You might strim for 20 minutes at a time with a light cord on the machine (Under 2.4mm), try doing it for 45 minutes at a time and using larger cord over hundreds of meters of property border, fence-line, tennis courts, car parks and more roadside than I care to remember.  Without a good harness it becomes a serious strain on the upper and forearms.  As well as your back supporting the weight out front.  Larger longer running and seriously more powerful machines weigh in excess of 10kg.  They take serious effort to wield and control at full speed.  Over a 40 minute or so run to clear a line; it takes serious grunt power and concentration to keep running and being effective.  Tank empties in around 40 minutes when culling heavy undergrowth and encroaching weeds.  10 Minutes refuel time and machine time is always welcome when the tank runs dry as it means 15 minutes of no vibration; which you need when running at pro level and over longer use times with bigger gardens or machines.  For a few hours it is a serious workout and will make you sweat on a hot day for sure.  As it does on a cold and frosty one!

A good strimming harness will help; but a full back mounted strimmer engine and lighter unit head is much better.  As the weight is still being made mobile by operator carriage, back mounting the engine still ensures I get a good workout but am more mobile.


Ergonomics and supportive.

This is one of the major reasons, I; as a professional gardener who works in more larger properties than small.  Insisted that as soon as possible I wanted to go for a Backpack Brush and Line trimming unit.  ASAP.  I worked a fair few shifts in rubbish weather.  Ate a Winter clearing out a hedge of a few hundred meters or more to be able to “treat” myself to a top end machine if I could; or a mid range one at least to enable work this Summer a lot easier than last year.  Which was spent using an amazing Hyundai Anti Vibration Brushcutter that was mobile death dispensing machinery if you were a target for it of a Tall grass, weed, thorn, rose, ivy or other hedge or border line menace.  Unwanted and gone by just over 50 cc of metal blade spinning mayhem that was an Oregon Forestry blade used as a mini landscaper tool after the brambles and nettles etc had been decimated by other metal heads or multiple lines of thick pro grade trimming lines used on spool heads holding up to 8 lines and spun @ 10k revs per minute.  Only snag; it was heavy and the weighty engine made some areas impossible to get into being hoisted on the back end of the operating end.

I won’t lie, a small weight on my hips spread over my shoulders also.  Huge bonus for me.  Practical and physical.  Its a lot less work, but still hard work.  (I like my job because it gives me a physical workout; daily.)  The engine on the end of the pole the work head is on means the counterbalance of 13kg or more (Depending on blade used or line head etc) with a lot of momentum and force behind it.  Can mean a rigorous workout, especially over 4 or 5 hours of continued use in hard undergrowth that has had its own run and freedom for a few years.

So a machine able to do all that and weighs less and is carried properly at the rear.  Sign me up, right?

 

So I did.

Then the wheels on the bus; fell off.

Getting the idea I might have thought about this for a long time?  I did, at work, grafting through weed, bramble, thorn and other weeds or ground hugging but clogging lifeforms; under the new botanical name I gave them through the tough Winter season spent dealing with the ensure this summer I had a really good tool for this job.

I named them en-mass “Bastard weeds”.

They soon got re-specified to mulched and pulped weeds not long after mind you. 😉

 


On to the woes then shall we, preamble done…

The company I ordered the unit from sent no delivery dispatch details, even after waiting a few days given the order was placed at weekend.  Order page on their site checked daily for a few days, emails checked to see if notification has been sent of impending brush eating goodness.  Nada, nowt, not a thing.

OK, current climate and situation; few days more is OK to compensate for those to get stuff out of the door and to mine.  It was order-able and I paid for it so they should have 1 in stock to ship right?  Or I’d be asked if I want to pre-order the next one that comes in, right?

Oh no…

Not according to the Online Retailer I handed over the money to; for the chance to sit in line with machinery delivery lottery games.  A game you play at home and not while out working on tools you paid for and expect in good time.  Or are relying upon to do work on a given date in the future the retailer says it should make even with delays.

Not factoring in of course they don’t have the item, so are ordering it in and now have to play wait in line for a delivery date.

Thanks for that.

The not telling me part before you accepted I would just agree.

For not letting me know when I gave you the money from the business account for worked booked requiring the purchase of a new machine within a time frame.  I wouldn’t see the machine or even know what was happening; if I had not had to chase it up to find out there was even a delay and where it was or who was to be contacted about it.

Most of all for misinforming me at all stages of this farce.

Denying me the chance and choice to go elsewhere or if required direct to Stihl.  Which I have now been forced to do; to start the process of information gathering.  To locate my own bloody backpack brush cutter???


Ah well, Sherlock Holmes time it is then.

When things are hiding in the undergrowth, shake the undergrowth to rustle out the things lurking within…


 

More to follow; the Game is afoot!