Gas lawn edger

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A gas lawn edger, or edger, is lawn equipment used for trimming the edges of lawns in between the sidewalk and the edge of the lawn around garden borders. A basic gas lawn edger consists of an engine, belt tensioner, pulleys, and a blade. It should not be confused with a stick edger or a push edger.

Most lawn edgers incorporate a belt and two pulleys (one on the engine and the other on the blade head) and a belt tensioner used for going deeper into the grass and gaining more RPM. Some gas edgers also have a device called a "robot head," used for adjusting the pitch of an edger head between the horizontal and the vertical. Some edger brands, such as King O' Lawn, have a blade clutch to avoid the user pulling up on the belt tensioner to stop the blade. The drive system on a common edger is a belt drive from the two pulleys. Husqvarna uses a worm gear shaft drive system. One disadvantage to the shaft drive system is lower engine power. Chain drive would be ineffective and cause damage to the blade, sprocket, and engine, if a solid object were hit. One advantage to the belt drive system is that the belt will skip when hitting objects. The blade on an edger is usually made from cast steel.

[edit] History

The gas lawn edger was invented by Louis Faas sir. Of King o' Lawn inc in the 1940's. The first edgers used a Briggs & Stratton 1.5 horsepower (1.1 kW) engine. Using just basic components, the first edgers were very basic with a very small engine. Brands such as McClane and Cooper Klipper would follow several years later.

[edit] Engines

Most edgers use a four-stroke engine with 2 or 3.5 horsepower (1.5 or 3 kW), although some early edgers used a 1.75 horsepower (1.3 kW) engine. Some modern edgers use engines ranging from 3.5 to 4 horsepower (2.5 to 3 kW), and some economy edgers use a two-stroke 39 cc engine. Great power is not needed on an edger because only small amounts of grass are trimmed.

[edit] Brands of gas lawn edgers