In Europe, probably imposs. It all started many years ago with ‘The Lake Constance’ dictat. No more 2-stroke o/b motors. Now it’s all over the place - The Thames, the English Lakes, Inland Waterways - basically anywhere not the sea.
I was very pleased when the guy that supplied me with outboards for our work boats at the boatyard came up with 4-strokes [all ex-RNLI, so immaculate]. No more messing with 2-stroke mix.
Aren’t I allowed to make an observation based on my experience? This is the second time someone has given me advice about a subject that I know inside out. Is the forum full of patronising members? I expected it to be heavier but it is not. Neither ICE powered strimmer is as heavy as the battery powered one. However they are all well balanced and no problem to use. If they were heavy I have a harness that I could use but don’t. My observation was that I always felt that the 4-stroke didn’t seem as well suited to strimming as the high revving screaming two strokes that I’ve used.
Just got to show you a photo of Shakey - this was taken (in 2004) at our farmhouse in the UK where Stuart was stripping the walls in the (soon to be) dining room.
As I mentioned in my previous post, Shakey still does a wonderful job here in France. It’s big, it’s powerful and it’s very well built. For all the use it’s had, it’s in an excellent condition, probably because one of his ‘things’ about equipment and tools is that it always has to be cleaned up after use.
I don’t know if it is still the case but when the ban came in it was only for amateur users, professional boat users could still buy 2-strokes. Mind you even with separate oil tanks 2-stroke outboards were an environmental nightmare. I have been using an electric outboard for about a year now. It is a bit lighter than the 4-stroke Honda it replaced but it is easier to carry because the battery and shaft can be carried as two separate items.
Aren’t I allowed to make an observation based on sound engineering experience? As stated before there are less parts. Are they the same cubic capacity?
As for patronising, how clever of you to notice. 
Knock it off fellas!! 
Ahhh, you can’t beat the banshee cry of a flat out two stroke bike. Plus the heady smell of Castrol R. It should really be available as an aftershave for bikers. Four strokes are far too quiet.
Err. They come in different sizes. Surely you know that. I was talking from experience, you appeared to be telling me that I was wrong. I’m sorry I don’t know you, I will not take you word over my knowledge. Patronising and unnecessary.
We got one of these a few years ago It suffers a bit from wheelspin, but it makes moving tens and tens of kilos of salt down to the cave for the water softener a doddle.
Really? Come on David chear up a bit. For the same size of engine, one would expect the 4 stroke to weigh more due to the extra parts. I never said you were wrong just as above, one would expect more metal parts = heavier.
Err that was joking not patronising, maybe you have issues so I wont talk to you again, easier that way
Merry Christmas.
You do realise that this is the internet?
In answer to your question @GreenGates . All my power tools in UK and France are De Walt 18v. The batteries have (what appears to me) to have a perfectly adequate life, though having used no other
battery brand I don’t know if that is a fact.
Cheaper in the UK. Loads of price competition. Only small disadvantage is need to use a plug adaptor in france. Bare tools are really worth considering as you do not need as many batteries as tools.
Good luck with your move.
If you don’t need them back in the UK just chop off the 13A plugs & put on French ones.
It should really be available as an aftershave for noisy sixteen year olds.
Love old tools, mahoghany and brass etc.
I’ve bought a couple of saws from this wonderful old hardware shop in Cockermouth that restores old tools and then sells them for very low prices. It’s probably ten years since I was last in there, but checking prior to posting, I was pleased to learn another generation has taken over and now they have a website, rather than a printed flyer, but it looks as though nothing else has changed.
Worth a glance at their site if only for a bit of nostalgia for a certain sort of quality and craftsmanship.
Thanks !!!
Thanks, Point noted…
A retired photographer friend of mine makes planes by hand (not the Blériot/Boeing kind, but the sort you shave bits of wood with):
I am no expert but they look very nice to me. And a snip at £950-£5000. 
You cannot be serious! [J.Mac] Has the decimal point slipped to the rt?
The plague of towns, cities and villages everywhere as yoof shows off its incipient manhood by circulating pointlessly at peak revs, having knocked the baffles out of the exhaust.
And as for jetskis 
One of th most pointless machines ever invented, save for close inshore rescue.
Image a blissfully sunny evening in summer. Swing gently on your mooring in the river, you’re sitting in the cockpit with your party, sipping the G & Ts or the Savvy Bl. All of a sudden a ‘banshee wail’ breaks out all around as yoof slaloms thru the moorings on jetskis. The wash has people clutching at their glasses …
Ashore, I hear this. Dragged away from my own slurp, I put on my wig and gown, stomp down to the pontoon, fire up the workboat, cast off and intercept slaloming yoof.
“Oi, you lot! Bugger off! You’ve got the ski area do that!”
Muttering about "Toffs … " they head downstream to Harboumaster Devonport’s designated “noisy buggers’ zone”
These guys’ jetskis that have seen better days. An oiled up 2-stroke is a very reluctant starter. There’s always one yoof stuck on the public slipway, 200m downstream, endlessly pulling at the cord and producing nothing but a loud spluttering noice - ad naus.
Late one evening, as dusk was gathering, I was tipped off that ‘there’s someone in the river, hanging off a mooring’.
The tide is ebbing, so the figure hanging on to the mooring with one hand and a jetski with the other is facing away from me. I circle round and simultaneously the casualty and I both let out “Oh, no! It’s you!” The yoof I last had words with about thrashing about amongst the mooring.
He was suitably grateful for being rescued. I did not let the oppertunity pass without giving a lecture on not upsetting ‘The Toffs’ in their boats or me on my patio.
I raise my glass to the day, not far off, when 2-stroke vehicles are no more.
There’s a great source of classic (and modern classic) hand tools near Ipswich. I buy all of my wood carving tools / cabinet hinges etc from them:
I’ve been searching for a French equivalent for years but have failed so far.
