A brushcutter (also called a brush saw or clearing saw) is a powered

garden A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the cultivation, display, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The single feature identifying even the wildest wild garden is ''control''. The garden can incorporate bot ...

or agricultural tool used to trim weeds, small trees, and other foliage not accessible by a

lawn mower A lawn mower (also known as a mower, grass cutter or lawnmower) is a device utilizing one or more revolving blades (or a reel) to cut a grass surface to an even height. The height of the cut grass may be fixed by the design of the mower, but g ...

rotary mower Rotary may refer to: General * Rotary motion Engineering and technology * Rotary dial, a rotating telephone dial * Rotary engine (disambiguation), multiple types of engines called "rotary" * Rotary latch * Rotary milking shed, a type of milkin ...

. Various blades or trimmer heads can be attached to the machine for specific applications. It consists of: * A power unit held close to the body. * A pole through which the power is transmitted. * A rotary cutting head at the opposite end of the pole to the power unit.

Power units

There are three main types of power unit: *

Gas engines A gas engine is an internal combustion engine that runs on a gaseous fuel, such as coal gas, producer gas, biogas, landfill gas or natural gas. In the United Kingdom, the term is unambiguous. In the United States, due to the widespread use of ...

, either two or four stroke, are used on the more powerful units. * Electric motors connected to

mains power Mains electricity or utility power, power grid, domestic power, and wall power, or in some parts of Canada as hydro, is a general-purpose alternating-current (AC) electric power supply. It is the form of electrical power that is delivered to h ...

by a power cord. * Cordless electric motors powered by rechargeable batteries.

Shaft

There are three types of shaft: * Basic consumer units use a curved shaft, similar to a basic line trimmer. * More professional units use a straight shaft with a gearbox at the cutting head end. * Top-of-the-line units use a straight "split" shaft with a disconnection point partway along the shaft, allowing the cutting head to be replaced by other accessories such as

pole pruner Pole may refer to: Astronomy *Celestial pole, the projection of the planet Earth's axis of rotation onto the celestial sphere; also applies to the axis of rotation of other planets * Pole star, a visible star that is approximately aligned with th ...

cultivator A cultivator is a piece of agricultural equipment used for secondary tillage. One sense of the name refers to frames with ''teeth'' (also called ''shanks'') that pierce the soil as they are dragged through it linearly. It also refers to ma ...

s, edgers and

hedge trimmer A hedge trimmer, shrub trimmer, or bush trimmerAs with the term ''scissors'', the plural terms "hedge trimmers" + c. are often used for individual trimming tools. is a gardening tool or machine used for trimming (cutting, pruning) hedges or so ...

Handles vary on brush cutters, depending on the weight and size of the unit. Larger, more powerful brushcutters employ handlebars — a handle on either side of the shaft, similar to bike handlebars — whilst smaller units use a D-shaped handle mounted on the shaft. Heavier saws usually require a harness for safety and reduced fatigue. The shaft on units requiring a harness will have multiple attachment points, so that the entire unit may be adjusted and balanced by users of differing height.

Cutting head

Cutting heads include circular saw blades (chisel tooth or scratcher tooth), brush knives, grass blades, etc. Most brushcutters also allow other heads to be fitted, including bump feed and fixed line heads such as those used on line trimmers or modified saw blades such as a beaver blade which resembles a

chainsaw A chainsaw (or chain saw) is a portable gasoline-, electric-, or battery-powered saw that cuts with a set of teeth attached to a rotating chain driven along a guide bar. It is used in activities such as tree felling, limbing, bucking, pru ...

. Deflectors are attached on the cutting side of the machine to prevent injury to the operator from debris thrown by the cutting head. Plastic or metal flails can be used for cutting stems too large for a line head but not requiring a blade. Following an incident in the UK in which when a metal chain link thrown from an aftermarket flail killed a bystander, all flail heads are now banned in the EU.

References

Cutting tools Gardening tools {{Horticulture-stub