garden tools Archives

Tod's new toy.
Image by todkat03 via Flickr

When it comes time to cut firewood for that Christmas fire or do a clean up after a major tropical storm came through nothing comes in more handy than a chainsaw. When it is time to go shopping for a chainsaw, you have two options electric corded, electric cordless or gas powered. Now before start thinking “an electric chainsaw come on now! I need something that breathes fire!” You might think again, unlike in the past when electric chainsaws were a bit underpowered those days are gone. Now days electric saws have more than enough power to handle the bulk of everyday pruning and cutting.

There are a lot of advantages to owning an electric saw. Some of them are lightness. Electric chainsaws are a great deal lighter than their fire breathing cousins the gas powered chainsaws. And if you have a lot of cutting to do, especially over head cutting you’ll really come to appreciated the difference in weight.

Maintenance is another issue. electric chainsaws are much easier to maintain. Just plug them in and you’re good to go. With gas saws they’re just more complex and so there are more parts on them. The more parts you have the more parts there are to break. And let’s not forget the issues with guessing the chainsaw’s temperature and adjusting the choke  on them.

Convenience is another major advantage. No mixing and storing gasoline. No gasoline means you don’t have to worry about spilling it all over your saw. Not to mention the hassles of storing gasoline and going out to buy it. And then there are the problems associated with mistakes mixing the gas and oil mixture. If you don’t get the gas oil ratio right, the saw might not start.

Remington makes fairly good smaller saws that are ideal for light duty jobs like pruning smaller limbs. Remington electric chainsaws aren’t terribly powerful but if all you need to do is some light cutting then they work pretty well and they’re quite affordable. Some are as cheap as .)

But if you need more power than I recommend stepping up to a Makita electric chainsaw. You’ll pay more for this saw – easily twice but they last much longer have more power and are more reliable. There is a pretty good reason why you see them on so many work trucks. The brand name of Makita is associated with rock solid reliabiltiy and high quality.

Buying an electric chainsaw is a great investment when you add up all the advantages that lighter cheaper saws offer.

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A heavy-duty rake for soil and rocks
Image via Wikipedia

Becoming knowledgeable about caring for and the appropriate use of your gardening tools will not only increase the life span of the tool, but it will also help to prevent you from injuring yourself and make taking care of your yard a lot more enjoyable.

Take your garden hoses for instance if they aren’t coiled up correctly it can cause a tripping accident. If your garden rake is left out, imagine stepping on it and having one of the times go through your foot, or on the other hand having it come up and smack you in the head. You mustn’t leave any of your tools with sharp edges or points in the grass or leaves, or other type of material which can hide that edge  and cause an accident.

Keep your fingers and hands away from lawn mower blades at all cost, as is striking your hand against one of them can cause a bad cut. If you have a tool with a wooden handle on it and it has a small crack on it, you can repair this with some black tape. It actually works pretty well. If you have any though, a glass filament tape seems to work the best for this job.

If any of the wooden handled tools that you own have splinters, then you can easily cure this problem by sanding them down smooth. Doing this doesn’t only protect your hands, but it will keep the splinters from spreading into full-blown splits which will end up in a broken handle.

A good way to preserve a wood handle is to apply a number of coats of quality lacquer or to paint it. Any parts on the tool that are made out of metal may be painted as well and it is a good idea to use a coat of primer and to exterior coats. However, any metal part which goes into the ground should not be painted.

Preservation of the tool isn’t the only reason you should paint it though as when you paint  them appropriate colors it makes them much easier to find. The color, therefore, should not be green or brown, but a bright contrast to the grass such as red. yellow, blue, or white.

The normal wear and tear on tools will happen when you use them and this often results in the edges of the tool becoming nicked or damaged. You can easily fix these nicks by simply using a metal file. By using an abrasive material like steel wool or something similar you can effectively get rid of any of the rough surfaces that sometimes occur on the metal parts of tools that are not correctly maintained. By using a simple mallet you can easily pound out any dents that your tools may have. A wheelbarrow break, in the wood or metal parts, should be repaired at once. If you want to protect your wheelbarrow for a little bit longer period of time, you can easily do so by painting it as this helps to preserve the wood. The moving parts need occasional oiling, to run smoothly. Make sure that you keep your tools and a dry spot throughout the winter so your tools aren’t harmed by moisture. Make sure that you clean your tools thoroughly before you put them in storage. If you want to prevent rust from forming on your tools, you can apply a mixture of petroleum jelly and light oil before storage.

Caring for your backyard tools will help them last year after year!

Another way to appropriately take care of your tools is to keep them organized. A garden tool organizer is a wonderful way to do this, and you can read more about my visiting http://gardentoolorganizer.org

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Everyone Can Use Ergonomic Garden Tools

ergonomic garden tools

As an activity gardening is one of the most popular and favored pastimes there is. People have been gardening for centuries and have been producing the most wonderful fresh vegetables, delicious fruits and beautiful flowers they could. They where using all types of garden tools and some are easy to use and others put more strain on the human body.

There are hundreds of garden tools to choose from and because these tools will last for many years it is wise to think about the kind of material you buy.  Ergonomic garden tools are usually recommend to people with small disabilities or chronic pain problems like with arthritis. But are they useless if you are perfectly healthy? The answer is of course no, they are not useless they are often the right choice for every gardener that would like to stay healthy and we should consider buying these ergonomic garden tools much more.

What Are Ergonomic Garden Tools

Ergonomic garden tools are are designed specifically to make gardening more comfortable and to make sure that your hands are not sore after you have used them. This is a great advantage to gardeners because it means that you will be able to spend lots more time out in your garden without getting sore or tired.

You can find most of the basic hand tools in ergonomic form, and some hard labor tools can be replaced by a ergonomic power tool. You can fit all your ergonomic garden tools in your regular garden tool belt or garden tool caddy which makes it even more ergonomic, and it also helps to ensure that you keep all your tools in one place.

The author of this article, Hank Gordon, writes at his website gardeners Info Point. com about a Garden Tool Caddy and for example the Mantis tiller.

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