Task Force 18 Electric Hedge Trimmer By Alexsandralyn on Jun 11, 2008 - Updated Oct 15, 2011

I have honeysuckle bushes and yews in my yard that are over twenty years old and that grow prolifically. When they were young and small, it was relaxing to me to use pruning shears to trim them. But after spending several hours trimming hundreds of little overgrown twigs on one of my honeysuckles last fall and picking up several painful blisters and scratches as a result, I'd had it with the hand job. This was war.

Now these honeysuckles just laughed at me the year before when I tried to trim them with my brother-in-law's whimpy Black & Decker single-action blade, so it was back to the pruning shears and blisters for another year while I saved up to buy my own hedge trimmers. But I knew these honeysuckles wouldn't be prepared for the cutting power of a 3.5 amp Task Force and its dual action rust resistant blades that would catch those twigs both coming and going to leave them no means of escape from my electric hedge trimmer automation weapon. I'll tell you what, I had all of those honeysuckles and yews trimmed up beautifully in less than half an hour, and that was enough of that monkey business.

The Task Force weighs about 6 pounds, so it's not too heavy to hold unless I'm balanced awkwardly in my trimming position. I still have to use a pruning saw for branches that are thicker than 1/2", but that doesn't bother me. I've never sharpened a hedge trimmer blade before, so I have no idea whether this one would be easy or hard to sharpen. But it does need oiled regularly with light machine oil so that the dual blade action continues to operate at peak performance.