Will Kelly shows how to operate a commercial lawn edger for clean cuts that reduce callbacks. Start at full throttle before touching ground, control blade depth with your right arm height, and use sparks as your guide for a proper cut. Keep the drive wheel on concrete and the blade rubbing the edge for professional results.
So this here is the edger. So this piece of equipment, again, is commercial grade. You want to full throttle this thing, okay, before you go into the ground. I see a lot of people stick it here and then try to full throttle it and it bogs the engine down. This is a full throttle piece of equipment. You always want to start in the front right of the property, but for this scenario we're just doing some training here, so I'm going to show you some techniques. This wheel always needs to be on the concrete. There's very rare scenarios where you would actually go backwards, and that might be if there's a vehicle in the way or something of that nature. Most of the time, 99% of the time, the wheel should be on the concrete riding along. Now, depending on where your right arm is, okay, the higher you hold it, the deeper the blade goes. Okay, the more relaxed your shoulder, the higher the blade sits. Okay, so while you're going through this, you don't want a ton of dirt coming up. That might mean you're too deep. It also depends on the blade length as well. So because this blade is a little bit shorter, it is used, I'm probably going to hold it up just a little bit deeper to make sure I'm getting a clean cut. If this was a brand new blade, I could probably sit a little bit more relaxed with my shoulder. Basically, this edger blade should rub along the concrete. If you get a little bit of sparks, that means you're doing a good job. You can see it's nice and clean cut. Your left hand, the one that is on the handle, is guiding it and almost pulling it to rub along the concrete. If it starts to go off the beaten path and into the sod, you're messing it up. Hug the concrete. If there is a vehicle that is parked very close to the curb, you may have to bow this thing out. See how I'm bowing out the edger? You may have to do that if it's a very tight fit here. It goes super close where you can't even bow it out and fuck. That's the only time that you could actually go backwards with the edger. Show you kind of how to do that right now. Anytime you're edging sidewalk, driveway, curbs, and alley need to be edged in a fine, clear cut.
