Craigslist Deals 5
October 10th, 2009 by ComputerBob
I’ve gotten some pretty great deals on Craigslist in the past several weeks, but I think that yesterday’s deal is the best one yet.
For the past five years, I’ve edged my lawn with a Black & Decker electric (plug-in) edger that the previous owner left when my wife and I bought our house. The B&D had barely enough power to pretend to do the job. Even when I would install a brand new blade in it, I always had to struggle back-and-forth over each area many times, and then stoop down and manually pull out all of the many long, thick St. Augustine tubers that it failed to cut. To make the whole experience even more fun, every time I used it, I had to drag around a 100-foot electrical extension cord to power it.
I’ve seen my neighbors edge their front sidewalks in less than five minutes, using their gas-powered edgers, but it has always taken me 1.5-2.5 hours to edge mine with that Black & Decker lawn toy.
For several weeks, I tried to use my Ryobi weed-eater, with its head turned onto its side, but it can’t take a metal blade, and its tiny engine and spinning nylon string were never designed to work as an edger.
So I went back to using the Black & Decker, though it made the job such a pain that I haven’t done the edging for the past several weeks, and the tubers have grown up to 10 inches out onto the sidewalks.
A few weeks ago, I finally decided to try to get a gas-powered edger with a nice big, metal edging blade. The main problem with that idea has been that edgers are expensive. Whether you want a “stick” edger from Echo and other companies, or a walk-behind “cart” edger from Sears and other companies, the cheapest models cost well over $200 (USD).
So I was hoping to pick up a used one for $80-100. I’ve been checking Craigslist for them every day, and I’ve seen several of them advertised in that price range, but every time I’ve found one and called the seller, they’ve already sold it.
Yesterday, I saw that a guy who lives about 20 miles away was selling two walk-behind edgers for very reasonable prices. So I called him, discussed the edgers, and then immediately drove out to look at them. I fully expected that he would sell them to other people before I even arrived.
But when I got there, he was waiting for me, and he still had both of them. One is a McLane and the other is a Craftsman. They each have a 3 HP engine. They both run and they both work, though the McLane’s engine is stuck at a medium idle speed, because its throttle cable needs to be reattached inside of its control lever housing; and the Craftsman needs a longer drive belt and its screw-on gas cap has a crack in it.
After trying them out, I made my decision.
I bought both of them.
For a total cost of only $35.
As soon as I got home, I started up the yellow McLane (with only one pull) and used it to edge both sides of my front sidewalk. It took less than 3 minutes. Even at its medium idle speed, its 9-inch blade cut through the thick, matted St. Augustine tubers like a hot knife through warm butter, leaving a straight, clean edge. I’m actually looking forward to quickly and easily edging both sides of my driveway, my front walkway, all along the street, and my side and back sidewalks later this afternoon.
I’m going to keep both edgers for awhile, to clean them up, fix the McLane’s throttle cable, replace the Craftsman’s drive belt and gas cap, and make sure that they’re both reliable. If they are, I’ll sell one of them — probably for a lot more than what I paid for both of them.
UPDATE, 3:45 PM: I took apart the McLane edger’s throttle control lever housing and discovered that the throttle cable had become disconnected because it had seized up, due to internal rust at the opposite end, where it was anchored to the engine. So I carefully removed the throttle cable and worked penetrating oil into it for about 20 minutes, until it slid back and forth freely. Then I shortened its internal cable by about 1 inch at its throttle-control end, to make up for the fact that I had removed that much of its rust-filled outside cover at its opposite end, right where it had been anchored to the engine.
Now the throttle lever works perfectly — instead of running at a constant medium idle speed, the engine has a full range of speeds from completely stopped to full speed.
So I started it up, and it took me less than 10 minutes to finish the whole rest of my edging job, all around my house, plus about five more minutes to clear away all of the edgings with my gas-powered blower.
As my high-school buddy Eddie Seidman used to say: “Such a deal!”
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September 25th, 2011 at 11:07 am
How much do you want for it?
September 25th, 2011 at 11:48 am
For $35, you can have the Craftsman (with a new blade). For $60, you can have the McLane (with a new blade, new wheels and a new throttle cable).