Draper Expert 14160 26 cc Petrol Line Trimmer

The market is flooded with cheap petrol strimmers at some incredible prices, as low as mid £60 in some cases, however if you are looking for one that is designed to last and has a full range of replaceable parts you soon find that most of these cheap ones fall some way short of the mark.
First thing to look for, does the engine have a full crank. Simply put, most cheap ones (even well known makes) have a bearing on only one end of the crank which, you guessed it, means a shorter service life.
Secondly what about spare parts? What if the starter cord snaps or you need a new line spool assembly, both scenario's are easy to imagine.
Thirdly another consideration not important to everyone is the availability of attachments, turning it into a hedge trimmer or pruner for example.

Although this strimmer doesn't advertise the fact it has a full crank, if you look on the Draper website at the exploded parts diagram you can clearly see the bearings that support each end of the crank, note I said exploded parts diagram, yes every part is numbered and is available to order.
Looking at some of the cheaper models I found, parts were in some cases completely non-existent making that bargain purchase an expensive throw away mistake.

Assembly was pretty straight forward, just a matter of attaching the guard and handle then plugging in the trimmer end into the main shaft before being ready to fuel up. My only gripe here was there are no instructions on how to load the bump feed spool with line (which I needed to do shortly) since the manual is for the engine unit only but a few minutes of fiddling and I soon worked out how it is supposed to be put together.

Starting was easy, choke on, lock on throttle, prime and pull the cord, started on 3 pulls. A few seconds and it died but it simply did not need the choke anymore as it's fairly warm at the moment, re-starting without the choke was easy and it run easily. Starting from warm after doing some work was like wise easy too.

In use it works extremely well, the thick cord just slices through everything with ease, this is also at medium rev's since the manual warns for the first half a dozen tanks of fuel not to run it at full throttle whilst the engine 'beds in'.

The unit is fairly heavy but the shoulder strap takes the strain nicely making it easy to use, otherwise, more than half an hour or so without the strap would begin to make those muscles ache.
If I am picky I would say you have to hold the engine up quite high to get the right strimmer angle but this is a minor gripe since the unit is counter-balanced on the shoulder strap fastening anyway. Having said that, I am reasonably tall at 5' 11" so if you are much shorter than that you might have trouble.

All in all it's a great piece of kit, it feels and looks well built, starts easy and performs well, very pleased.

I can't add much to the comments of Kentish Lad. This strimmer is so much better than other sensibly priced split-shaft tools. I'm sure contractors will suggest that the likes of Husqvarna or Tanaka are far superior but remember they cost far more. Kentish Lad pointed out the lack of instuctions for the bump feed head, I can tell you these are available for download on the Draper website.