A Great Lawn And Garden Invention - The Weed Eater

A Great Lawn And Garden Invention - The Weed Eater

By Tony Hanes


I was born in 1966, and lived in Atlanta Georgia. If you know anything about the greater Atlanta area, then you knew we are known for our spring time emergence of flowers, flowering trees and lush green lawns.
Each weekend, I would go visit on of my pairs of grandparents and help them tend to their lawn duties. I vividly remember raking the leaves in the fall, and spring time was full of pruning and trimming of the bushes and lawns. One of the primary tasks that was entrusted to me; or perhaps delegated to me for the horrendous labor involved, was the trimming of the edges of the lawn.
In those days of course, there were no fancy string trimmers; only a pair of modified scissors that required the operator to be on hands and knees. Crawling and inching one painful inch at a time, with repetitive snipping of the scissors, hours would pass before I had made one complete revolution around the perimeter of the lawn. As I remember, the most painful part of this process was the burning and cramping my little hands felt after approximately one million snips of the scissors. I vividly remember thinking, 'surely there must be a better way'?
Around this time, some great person was toying around that the very solution that I was looking for. His name was George C. Ballas, Sr. The inventor of the first string trimmer, which at the time was known by brand name of the 'weed eater'.
It was at a trip to a car wash that George noticed the bristles of an automatic car wash. Through a bit of trial and error, he eventually had his first prototype developed and was well on his way of transforming the way the world trims the edges of their lawns. Eventually his company was bought by Emerson Electric and merged with Poulan to create a new improved model, which was later purchased by Electrolux.
Of course the first versions were significantly heaver and were somewhat smoky; even so, they were well embraced by the general public. Newer versions became lighter, and ran better. Over the course of the evolution, weed eaters are now manufactured in gas, electric, and battery operated models. The original brand name of weed eater, has now more effectively become known as lawn trimmer.
Heavier models with more horsepower were soon created for tougher areas that required more than the weed eater could provide. These newer models became known as the brush cutter; and this model is sold with handle bars for greater control, and the cutting device is that of a cutter blade, rather than monofilament line as the conventions weed eater required. This model is far tougher, yet is also far heavier.
Personally I am very thankful to George Ballas for his incredible contribution to my own life by inventing the first generation weed eater.

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