Black & Decker 12-Inch 3.5-AMP Electric Bump Feed String Trimmer and Edger ST4500

This little grass whacker is a real work horse! Have bad back so needed something a little smaller and lighter. Also love the bump and go, it saves money buying replacement reels.

Liked my old B&D weed whacker which lasted forever. Prefer the 'bump' function to the button on the cord control. But....I am still repeatedly sitting down to re-thread the cord when it breaks short. The wire guide for edging works great, but it was knocked loose by the cord and lost in the second days use in the weeds. Made another one today out of wire but it was knocked off and disappeared too. It doesn't fasten properly to the motor housing. I'm going to properly lock it into place myself with screws and washers next. It'll have to do.

I’ve been suffering for years by using a weed whip with “automatic” line feed. Money is tight, so I have not been willing to buy a replacement. Instead, I’ve been committing hours to hand-winding spools and waiting for line to “automatically” feed out. IF that happened, too much line regularly deployed and took a bite (through my jeans) out of my leg. I have a “W” scab on my leg for just that reason.Liberation day finally came recently when my Black and Decker Bush Hog finally died. Now I see, however, that nobody makes the old bump-feed weed whips. I found this old product, even so. Trimming is a nasty chore, but this trimmer is wonderfully consistent. Just how much I hated my Bush Hog is now amazingly clear. Why, I’ve been asking myself, did this inferior automatic-feed technology ever become the norm?My wife, cleverer than me by far, explained: Yard device manufacturers needed a new revenue steam, so they made buying pre-spooled line vital. They figured that the cost of spooling it yourself and expecting consistent results, a cost of precious time and sanity, would quickly overcome any concerns about money. Mostly, they were correct.And people wonder why I am so suspicious of the latest thing.Toney Baus is also the author of  Son of Sloan , a fantasy adventure novel.

This trimmer is awesome!!! So easy to use and you can edge grass with it as well as trim. I had to buy a second one for my boyfriend after he tried my new one cause he loved it sooooooo much!!!! Which is great since he used to take my old trimmer home to use and he used it a lot and really wore it out cause he has a lot more yard areas to trim. Now with his new one he is a very happy trimmer!!!! We are so very pleased with these purchases! You can't go wrong trying out this trimmer! The price is excellent also! After I had done a lot of checking at local hardware stores and found most of them had no trimmers in-stock at the time and it was a great thing since it made me think I'll get from Amazon and have it pretty quickly. Which I did and the price and brand was much better! I'm grateful I didn't get a trimmer somewhere locally just to hurry and get one because this one is so much better and so was the cost!

When I purchased this trimmer the photo on Amazon was of a typical orange & black B&D tool. I received an all-black unit with a different design handle. It is still marked with the same model number - ST4500. Apparenly B&D updated/changed the design but did not use a new model number. Amazon is partially to blame for not updating the photo for this listing.However, I am planning on keeping and using it because it has the 'bump' feed design. I have yet to use an automatic line feed trimmer that works well. I have a fairly small yard and and the corded design works well. A 75' cord reaches any spot that needs trimming. Yard is not large enough to make gas power worth the trouble, and cordless units units have expensive batteries. Although this ST4500 is small & lightweight, the price is right. And with the size of my yard, lightweight is good enough.

The string can be fed by hitting the bumper on the bottom, but this fails fairly often and you have to take off the knob and restring it through the string opening. It is still hard for me to figure out the optimal angle to hold this at. Theoretically it should be level, but it works better with a little tilt. Better than my last trimmer and got it at a good price.

I had to look forever for a model that was bump fed. I can't stand the auto-feed ones because they just waste line and cost you way more money.It's extremely lightweight and easy to use. The trigger has a very satisfying *click* when you use it and it's not too heavy to where your forearm/fingers get tired holding it down.My only complaint is that the motor is slightly underpowered IF you have pretty thick/tall grass. I waited a couple weeks too long to buy this and my edges got about a foot high and really thick and it took awhile to chop it all down but this thing powered through. As long as you keep up on it every week or every other week you'll never have to worry about it getting bogged down.

I have used the auto-feed trimmers and they all end up eating through line quickly. I wanted the bump-to-feed option in electric corded because that fits my needs (no gas, light weight, feed when ready).Thus far, the trimmer is working great - no complaints. I have used it 4 times for total of about 80 minutes and still on the original provided string. Will update the review if needed after loading my own line and same amount of use.