This may not be applicable or fundamentally correct but ill tell you what i do. I talk to a a guy once about gas hedgers and he said he did away with them because of injuries. If you use them, its easy to get a little bit carried away and before you know it you got hole through those new 501s you bought and a nice flow of blood coming from your leg. What he did is bought a generator and just uses cheap electic hedgecutter models from whereever. <br>Its amazing but they work great. your just put the genertor in your truck or trailer and run extension cords to where you need them. They are much cheaper than any gas model, work well for most jobs, and much safer to use. If they break, you just throw it out and buy a new one. A great idea.<p>Another trick is to use electric hedgers and or chain saws for tall trimming. If you only do it once in a while this works. Just duck tape the trimmer to a piece of 1 inch metal conduit, and bam, instant height. The trimmers are light so it doesnt feel to awkward. <p>Now the trimmer on a rod idea is a little dangerous, i admit. But using the generator and cheap electics work great. You can buy three of them for under 200, and then send 3 guys out off of the same generator to aattack those hedges. When comparing to the price of the gas hedger, you can get much more efficiancy this way. A great idea i thought.<br>