The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

Danger zone

using a circular saw blade in a weed trimmer eater

Our neighbor mentioned that he uses a miter saw blade on his weed trimmer.

The arbor hole is the same diameter as the Ninja brush blade. Make sure the teeth point to the left to take advantage of the cutting teeth.

I only tried it on some rag weed and it was like a hot knife cutting through butter. Our neighbor reported when he tried it the blade would bind up on even medium sized trees. I think we don't need the little bit of extra cutting power for such a huge leap in danger.



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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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Stihl does actually make saw blades for their brush saws. The brush saw is basically an upgraded weed wacker. They do require "handle bars" on the trimmer before you can put the saw blade on it.

That said the limit is something like a 6" tree for it to cut and even then I think you were supposed to do 3" from either side. My trimmer came with the brush blade but I have not used it yet. Instead I mostly use the hardy grass blade. This is a metal 3 toothed blade that cuts through hardy weeds really well. And once one side dulls down you flip it over and use the other side. If you are looking for something to chew through all the nettles, reeds, tiny saplings, or thick grass I would suggest getting one of these blades. That said if you are mostly doing grass I would just stick with the string.

Comment by BW Fri Aug 29 22:06:06 2014

This year I am using a carbide tipped 230mm blade on my brush cutter. I couldn't live without it. Well, I guess I could live without it, but it sure makes brush cutting a LOT faster. It isn't as wonderful as my old blade a friend accidentally destroyed, but still pretty good.

Of course, nylon string is great for short lawn grass and edging. Everything has its place. I do the pasture with the carbide tipped "chipsaw" blade, around the rocks, house, and trees with nylon. Swapping out blades only takes a few minutes.

My advice though- don't use it for any woody stems larger than 2cm diameter. The shock from biting in is too hard on the head of the cutter. And once that goes, it is almost the same price as buying a new one (speaking of- don't forget to pack grease in your cutter head after every 15 hours of cutting!).

But as you said- a hot knife though butter. I feel like a Jedi wielding a lightsaber!

Comment by Eric in Japan Sat Aug 30 08:31:02 2014
I'm so glad other folks think up this stuff; around here we're always trying to beat back the brush that keeps creeping in around 3 sides of us. Most of the time it feels like a losing battle and we're just tired of dealing with it. I wish I could borrow one of those tractors with the huge cutting tool like the highway department uses. Keep those ideas coming!
Comment by Teresa Lee Sat Aug 30 11:59:50 2014





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