Recommendation for trenching tools?

[Steve B]

Tim,

Have you rented the Line Ward? I've never seen one our rental places here. I'm curious how they do with rocky soil.

[David Gretzmier]

line a few other threads, this one has me thinking. take a stihl 250 r trimmer, with a 40 cc 2.3 horse engine ( about double the horsepower of my current edger) and it accepts an edger attatchment on bottom, convert edger to 10-12 inch, 2-3 stacked carbide sawblades...

[Classic Lighting]

Originally Posted by David Gretzmier

line a few other threads, this one has me thinking. take a stihl 250 r trimmer, with a 40 cc 2.3 horse engine ( about double the horsepower of my current edger) and it accepts an edger attatchment on bottom, convert edger to 10-12 inch, 2-3 stacked carbide sawblades...

Sounds like a safety nightmare having a large saw blade on the end of a stick edger.

Thanks for everyone's insight. Guess I will stick with the spade. Cast makes a trench tool that I will buy and give it a try. Looks heavy duty compared to spades.
http://www.cast-lighting.com/product...ion-tools/136/

[BeSeenGraphics]

I had a Brown Manufacturing Trenchmaster with a 1/2" clay rotor. The thing was a beast. I'd cut through anything with that bad boy. We hit wires a couple times in trailer parks....hehehe. I had my laborer get the tape out since he hit it.

[Pro-Scapes]

I have the trenchmaster from brown. It is a beast but like I said we can do it nearly as fast and alot cleaner by hand. Mine is set up with the 1.5x7 inch blade.

On the cast trench tool... I know some guys in use em but they are real havey... picking it up and slamming it down alot really wears me out. I have one here and a wider one I got from fold.

Still preffer a good flat spade... similar to this http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?actio...200&lpage=none but we get the nice fiberglass ones. Lowes also carries a shorty shovel thats great for tight work around transformers and huge tree roots.

[djt22]

I think someone on here had mentioned awhile back they had used this and liked it for running wire http://www.oregonchain.com/pdf/OEP/f...agnumEdger.pdf
I don't think it would go deep enough being only 8 inches long. Northstar has a real nice spade that has no flex to it while digging.

[Pro-Scapes]

an 8 inch stick edger blade brand new at full depth will cut around 3 inches deep not to mention it wont be wide enough. I wouldnt even consider it as an option.

[drewguy]

Bought one of these a few weeks ago. Works great for hand digging a trench.

http://www.leevalley.com/US/garden/p...=2,42578,40769

[David Gretzmier]

amazing this thread has been resurrected. after breaking,welding back and rebreaking a half dozen flat spades over the last 18 months, about 6 months ago I welded up a very good tool for cutting a slit in turf and beds. take a tool called the mutt, which looks like a cross between a log splitter blade and a chisel. it has a blade about 4" wide, aprox 1/4" thick, I welded a 1/4" thick, 1 1/2" wide angle iron about 18 inches long onto the top of the metal blade to act as foot pegs. jump on, and unless you hit solid rock, it will easily sink to 4-6" deep. wiggle back and forth, and you have your wire trench.

I still hate it, and 95% of the time have the guys do it. they no longer use the spade because the modified mutt tool is so much easier and faster.

we just completed a tree uplighting job involving about 18 trees that involved a ton of turf, and it would have been far easier and faster to use some machine.

I still believe if hand digging wire was the best way to do turf, then all the invisible dog fence guys would do it that way. they don't.

[The Lighting Geek]

YEAH, what Tim said!