I don't have one or use one but
I've watched a couple of You Tubes .

They explain how soaking the line for four hours prior to use makes the line last longer, less brittle.

So I showed the guy at the cemetery the video.

He noticed a substantial difference.

The videos don't mention specific brand names , so your results might vary.

My current line replacement is ‘braided’, seems ok. At least my Echo is easy to refill.

I bought a new Sthil brush saw this year. The sales guy is very experienced. He told me always soak the string overnight. Manufacturers recommended.
Took thirty years to learn this.

Thank you sir, have not heard about this before, and will look into it!

Well hot damn. Learn something new every day.

I wonder if I can just keep my 1400-ft. spool of Echo Crossfire soaking in a 5 gal. bucket, or can you over-soak polymer line? It obviously soaks up something, so maybe it can go too long?

-Rob

Line is cheap and easy to install so I'm not sure why anyone would go the the effort unless it was your all day job.

"wonder if I can just keep my 1400-ft. spool of Echo Crossfire soaking in a 5 gal. bucket"

None of the three videos I watched mentioned or addressed over soaking.
4 hours was the minimum .

Regardless of the Cost
I'd say that doubling the usefulness of anything seems attractive.

Yeah…nahh.
I’ve got like 300ft of line…The last roll lasted three or four years..I’m not worried about extending its life

Just out of curiosity I may try this next time I weed whack. Too late for today.

quote:

Originally posted by 220-9er:
Line is cheap and easy to install so I'm not sure why anyone would go the the effort unless it was your all day job.

quote:

Originally posted by MikeinNC:
I’ve got like 300ft of line…The last roll lasted three or four years..I’m not worried about extending its life

Exactly. Looking at the effort vs. benefit leads me to believe that it simply isn't worth it for the average homeowner.

The last 300' spool of braided nylon trimmer line I bought cost $11, has lasted me 4 mowing seasons of near-weekly edging on a quarter acre suburban lot, and will last me well into or through next year before it runs out.

So $11 over 5 years is just over $2 per year for trimmer line. Even if soaking it doubled its lifespan, I'd be looking at saving ~$1 per year.

My time and effort involved with soaking the line every time before use is worth more than $1 per year. In addition to just the time to soak the line, it also means loading a new length of soaked line every single time before I go edge, and then unloading whatever I didn't use that day. Whereas now, I can load 20ish feet of unsoaked line at a time into the bump feed head, and just leave it loaded to use over multiple weeks until it's gone.

Plus you'd have to factor in the cost of the water you'd be using every time you filled up a tub in order to soak the line. That alone might add up to over $1 per year, thereby negating even that meager cost savings.

At my old work the grounds crew (public) precut line and soaked it for spares to rewind spools during the day. They also kept extra spools.

quote:

Plus you'd have to factor in the cost of the water you'd be using every time you filled up a tub in order to soak the line. That alone might add up to over $1 per year, thereby negating even that meager cost savings.

Maybe the spool of line could be soaked in a bucket of water.

I’m curious as to why soaking basically what is very thick monofilament fishing line is helping it??

I had an old school saltwater guy show me how to tie leaders and he always wet the end that got tied with spit, he said it helped it make it better knot.

I got the impression that they were soaking the amount of line that they were to be using that day.

I actually have bigger things in life to worry about........

like no. life is too short for enhanced life on string trimmer line bought in reels of thousands of feet. And that would be if it even worked which I doubt anyway.

I took the plastic safety guard off and it drastically extended the life of my line. I use to have issues with the line breaking and have not since.

The nylon abosorbs water which helps it feed out of the spool without getting jammed up. The line also lasts longer. The net effect is, I spend no time dealing with line stuck in the spool and less time wrapping new line around the spool.