Tools for Everyone!

More than 2.6 million years ago, a Stone Age guy found a rock that was easy to hold and pretty effective at breaking open a nut. His buddies saw his rock and coveted it. So they went looking for rocks of their own, and what they found was different rocks that were good at different things. Then one guy struck upon the notion of putting his rock on the end of a stick. He found that by doing this he could use his rock with greater power.

Ever since then, we've been making tools. That's how smart we are and why we've ended up on the top of the food chain. And every time we use a tool, there are a lot of people out there who look at that tool and decide they can make it better. Unfortunately, not many of us have access to a machine shop to fabricate something, but that doesn't mean we can't use what we have on hand to customize our tools.

One such man was George Ballas. In the early 1970s Ballas had a problem.

George Ballas and a popcorn can

He wanted to trim the grass around the trees in his Houston yard and thought he had a better way to do it than the standard hand-powered clippers. He had a power edger that had a rotating head and struck on an idea. Using a popcorn can, he punched holes all around it and tied short lengths of heavy-duty fishing line to the can. He then attached the edger to his edger using some nuts and bolts in his garage and, viola! The first Weed Eater.

No one wanted to market his idea, so Ballas started his own company, which by 1976 was bringing in $41 million a year.

I admire Ballas' work and initiative, but I wonder if he ever thought he could have done better. String trimmers are pretty much the standard for a tool that trims grass a weed and it is probably one of the most frustrating tools to use. According to the user instructions, the automatic line feed will easily extend shortened lines. This is hardly true. I've had expensive trimmers and cheap ones and dealing with the line is maddening. I spend more time futzing around with the line than I do trimming weeds.

And the weeds around my house are a bit more hearty than the grass at a Houston home. The plastic line on a trimmer doesn't last long around here. Most of the time, the weeds on our property are brown. But then monsoon season hits the desert and weeds grow quickly.

Weeds everywhere!

I had a string trimmer with a little two-stroke engine that worked fine when I rigged an after-market head with plastic cutting blades that could take off a limb. The head wasn't compatible with the trimmer, but using a bolt and a nut and cutting here and there, I made it work. I'm not trying to brag that I'm some sort of engineering genius; I'm not different than anyone else who uses tools. In a prior life, I worked as an indentured servant to my father, a plumber and electrician. After my time with him was up, I spent a decade or so working in heating and air conditioning. In our shop was just about every sort of tradesman you can think up, and each one of them had customized tools to do their jobs. And if any one of them lost or broke a tool, there was anger. Because I worked on equipment with motors and pulleys and such, I had a special wheel puller I'd had a welder friend make for me. I don't have it anymore, giving it to a fellow I worked with. I never wanted to use it again; I was going to school to become a writer.

When you own a home, though, you've either got to know how to fix things, or pay someone to fix it for you. I prefer to fix things myself, which means that when it comes to landscaping needs, I'm the man.

I'd rigged my gas-power trimmer so that it would do the job I needed it to do. A couple years ago, the shaft broke and I fixed it. I could use it until my hands shook and the engine got so hot that it would burn my arm. (Which, come to think of it, doesn't happen when the fishing line breaks all the time.) Of course, when the blades broke or wore out, it took a half hour to change them.

Things break

I never really liked that trimmer, but I was stuck with it. The engine was loud and the vibration hurt my hands. I determined the next time I got a trimmer, it would be an electric one – less vibration and sound. Then a couple weeks ago, I was doing a little weed cutting and the head fell off. I could have fixed it somehow, but I took the opportunity to get a weed trimmer that I liked.

No such luck. No one makes what I wanted.

So I've got a brand new customized trimmer that still has a few bugs to be worked out. For some reason, the good folks at Black and Decker made a trimmer that is not conducive for do-it-yourself modifications. I did it anyway.

I worked fine for about 20 square feet until the plastic cutting blades struck a concrete stepping stone broke the head. So now it's back to the hardware store for more parts.

Too bad I can't just use a rock to cut the weeds.