Down here at the pawn shop

[BigV]

The two main places where I'm a customer I definitely test the item in question. Their standard policy is to offer a 7 or 30 day return for store credit, with receipt. I have on a couple occasions gotten them to change that to money back in 48 hours. The last time that happened was when I bought a 24" display, but it was a pig in a poke. There was no way to test it in the store. I was willing to buy it, but I wasn't willing to make cash deposit in the bank of pawnshop. He got the manager to make an exception, I bought the monitor, it works, I'm using it right now. We're both happy.

I got an tool for the Stihl trimmer there. I asked them if I could test it. The next day, I brought in my trimmer, minus the string trimmer head. I took their tool, a long hedge trimmer extension and attached it, took it outside and fired it up. The hedge trimmer blades were a blur. I bought it.

Got it home and found it wouldn't cut the pyracantha climbing up the side of the house. That is one tough shrub. Damn. So I moved to the laurels on the side of the driveway. Nope. WTF? How about a dandelion? It appears that I have the world's strongest dandelions, or... I have a hedge trimmer that sucks.

Turns out the hedge trimmer sucks.

There's a plate at the bottom of the gearbox that translates the rotary motion of the shaft to a reciprocating motion for the blades. That plate takes six torx head bolts and only two were present. Huh. Weird. That was why I was suspicious in the first place, but... I brought in my own trimmer and it worked (let the record show I'd originally ended this sentence with ", right?" and have deleted it. Sorry, I'm trying, really.). So, that's on me. I take the plate off the gearbox and work out for myself how it works and discover that it's missing a cam that sits on a shaft and moves the blade back and forth. Without the cam, it just slides along the other blade but without power. (two cams, 180 deg apart, moving the two saw toothed blades in opposite directions like scissors. my unit had only one cam, driving one blade and the other blade just coasted along freely. It LOOKED like it was powered and capable of cutting--I didn't test it at the pawnshop with my finger. but at home, it was defeated by a dandelion).

Anyhow, I was outside the return window by this time, and besides, I really did want the tool. And I got a screaming deal on it. But, it's no deal if it doesn't work. I visited all the big box stores, their repair departments, no cams. I couldn't even find the fucking screws! I wound up ordering a new pair of cams and a package of screws from some small engine repair outfit on the internet for less than $20 including shipping. Eventually they arrived. I haven't put them in yet, but I expect it will work.

If it doesn't then I'll have learned a couple things, test better, test faster, get better return terms. But I'm sure it will work.