Romantic Version
There is some controversy surrounding the invention of what we know today as the “brushcutter” or “Line trimmer”. The classic, romantic tale runs along these lines:
One day in 1972 Houston businessman, George Ballas, is irritated by having to hand-cut grass in inaccessible places around his garden (such as near tree roots). He drives home from work through an automatic car wash and observes the spinning nylon bristles clean his car without damaging it.
Eureka!
 Caption: However the Brushcutter was developed (whether a flash of inspiration, or years of building on existing technology), the product is now one of the mainstays of the Outdoor Power Equipment Industry.
A lightbulb flashes as two synapses connect inside his brain in a classic example of “innovation”. That is the application of technology from one discipline to a completely different one (what Edward de Bono famously calls lateral thinking).
He wonders if he could use the same principle to trim the grass around his trees' trunks without damaging the bark?
He rushes home and digs through his rubbish bin and finds a popcorn can. He punches holes in it and inserts short lengths of knotted nylon fishing line to simulate the car wash bristles. He attaches the can to the rotary on his lawn edger and within seconds the spinning nylon lines neatly slice through the grass adjacent to a nearby tree.
Ballas knows he has a winner. Lodges his patents and the “Weed Eater” is born.
He sells the booming business to Emerson Electric, which merges it with Beaird/Poulan to form Beaird-Poulan/Weed Eater. Poulan/Weed Eater is later bought by Electrolux and operates as a division of White Consolidated Industries Outdoor Products, Inc. until becoming part of Frigidaire Home Products.
Prosaic Version
Another more prosaic version has the earliest "string trimmers" being developed for agricultural use after the turn of the last century leading up to Garst's "Harvester" patent (filed 1939; US 2,250,948). This implement was pulled behind a tractor and knocked off the upper growth of tuberous crops like beets prior to harvest. The first yard maintenance implement patent was filed in 1947 for a vertical edger (US 2,538,230) and then adapted for vertical and horizontal use in 1954 by Newton (US 2,708,335). This appears to be the basic design for the current string trimmer, although it used a short section of chain as nylon line was unavailable.
 Caption: Brushcutters & Line trimmers are often used by contractors to edge pathways
George Ballas and his son George Junior are living in Des Peres, Missouri. George Junior and another schoolboy garage inventor Gary Deutschmann are tinkering around with two grass-cutting devices. The first is a hand held electric unit (no tin cans involved). The shaft is a piece of electrical conduit, the initial housing is an electrical 4x4 deep pull box made of brown bakelite, and the handle grip is from an old deep-water fishing rod.
At the same time, they are working on an attachment that trims 180 degrees around a tree trunk. It connects to a ride-on or walk-behind mower and is driven by a belt from the motor.
It appears that the only patentable parts of their hand-held unit are the use of monofilament (nylon) line, its feeding system and possibly its use of much faster rpm than earlier units. Those, plus the fact that it does not cut the operator’s toes of while in use. It later appears that any patent claim would have read something like, “with a cutting line carrier that introduces new line as needed by the device of the proper length for trimming”. This would be a fairly broad claim and cover any type of line-feeding device invented thereafter for the next 17 years and thus unlikely to be successful.
Even the feed system has some problems, as it is totally automatic.
Uh? How can that be a problem?
Well it wasn’t all the time you are cutting along a wall, fence or around larger trees. However, if you happen to be cutting close to you dear wife’s prize gardenia when the head decides to release some additional line…Whack! and good-bye gardenia.
George Junior and Gary begin working on solutions and come up with half-a-dozen or so. By the time that the Ballas family moves to Texas the boys are down to two: One is a trigger on the handle that lifts the star out of the reel for the distance of one point each pull and the other is to tap the unit on the ground (activating the same mechanism as the trigger cable).
 Caption: VIP founder Bill Vis attributes part of his success to the brushcutter. He began offering his clients a brushcutter edging service for an extra $2.00. (A 20% increase in income for a couple of minute's work)
Ballas continues to work on self-feeding heads in Houston and lodges several patents to that effect. By 1976 Ballas Senior thinks the idea is a winner and designs the complete “Weed Eater”. It is arguable whether his patent (US 4,052,789) contains much original material but the idea takes off like a wild fire anyway and soon George Ballas Senior sells the booming business to Emerson Electric, which merges it with Beaird/Poulan to form Beaird-Poulan/Weed Eater. Poulan/Weed Eater is later bought by Electrolux and operates as a division of White Consolidated Industries Outdoor Products, Inc. until becoming part of Frigidaire Home Products.
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But, such is the questionable originality of the design, in next to no time, similar products spring up from many other manufactures of electric- and two-cycle petrol-powered equipment n America and around the world.
The line-trimmer/brushcutter phenomenon has begun.
Australia
It was not long before these products began appearing in Australia. The late Reg Fairchild began importing “Weed Eater” and “Poulan” power equipment soon afterwards through his business “Altai Trading”. However, the rapid proliferation of manufacturers quickly resulted in many different suppliers here distributing similar products. Line-trimmers began arriving here shortly after the local walk-behind mower market peaked in the mid 1970s. As domestic mower sales plateaued and then began a long, slow decline an industry that had begun to get hooked on volume was eagerly seeking something to fill the gap. However, not everybody was convinced that line-trimmers were then answer.
Ex-Sunbeam/Victa MD Bill Haward, by then running MSAA, wrote this to PEA in the late 1970s:
“Dear Sir,
Let’s encourage inventors. New products are the lifeblood of this, and every industry. When you are next presented with a new product, do not dismiss it out of hand thinking it will never sell.
Be positive.
Don’t laugh, but I feel that the new brushcutter product could well end up selling in the same volumes as the traditional lawnmower.”
Bill Haward
Marketing Consultant
MSAA”
Bill was wrong.
Brushcutters and Line trimmers out-sell mowers – and by some considerable margin.
Contractors
One problem was perceived to be the line trimmer’s shape: an engine-on-a-stick. While this bothered people inside the industry (you try taking an interesting photograph of one!) it often intrigued consumers.
“At first, I would normally have to demonstrate the concept to potential buyers. However, as passers-by saw what I was doing they would approach me and ask what the thing was that I was using. Soon they would want to buy one too. People would stop their cars as they drove past. Sometimes I was afraid that a demo would cause a serious accident!” one long-time OPE Industry figure recalls.
 Caption: Line Trimmers can reach places inaccessible to even a walk-behind mower.
One such person was Bill Vis. Bill had established Bill Vis Lawn Mowing in 1973. The business was going quite well in Adelaide but Bill was looking for something to differentiate the service he was offering. In the late 1970s Bill had just gone back into professional mowing when he saw his first line trimmer. Not that he knew what it was. Like many others, this strange looking engine-on-a-stick puzzled him. But once he saw what it could do he was sold! He immediately began offering his clients a brushcutter edging service for an extra $2.00. That was an immediate 20% increase in his income for an additional couple of minute’s work per job (and with no extra travelling time eating into it). Bill Vis Lawn Mowing quickly became VIP Home Services and a brushcutter became an immediate and essential part of every franchisee start-up kit.
“Without the brushcutter, I don’t know whether I would be where I am today,” he concedes.
As the volumes increased, so did the engine displacements. The result was the line trimmer became a brushcutter. Otherwise known as “clearing saws”, brushcutters’ more powerful engines can drive metal blades capable of forestry work as well as clearing undergrowth, tall vegetation and noxious weeds. Since the development of the clearing saw, nearly all first thinning, sapling and small diameter harvesting is done by brushcutter.
Selection
However, when buying new equipment it is often difficult to determine which machine is going to be the most appropriate for you. In a labour intensive industry like contracting, careful selection of equipment can significantly reduce the time to perform an operation. As labour charges approach $1/min, a one minute saving means your quotation can be $1 lower or your profit $1 higher.
The fact is, nearly all modern OPE performs its task extremely well.
In the next issue PEA will look at the key issues involved in brushcutter/Line trimmer selection and operation. These include: Vibration, Noise, Engine types, Shafts, handles, Line Heads, Blades, Maintenance and Safety
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