Wesco garden tools Vs proper brands

I’m in the market for some cordless garden tools. A strimmer for the allotment and also I’m thinking about getting a chainsaw to deal with some downed trees locally that are ruining the flow.

Anyway I’ve seen a brand called wesco on Amazon. Taking the chainsaw as an example they do a 36v 4.0 Ah 30cm bar chainsaw for £170 on offer at present. If I compare that to an equivalent Makita, you’re looking at £400+

There is one review of the chainsaw online and it’s pretty positive when comparing it to Makita etc.

So, seems a bargain, but buy cheap buy twice and all that…
Whether I would be able to source spare batteries in the future is a concern.
Any thoughts?

Does anyone have any of the wesco tools?

For budget brands generally, is it a safe assumption I will be able to source batteries in the future?

Cheers!

You tube is your friend for this sort of kit. Real time usage.

From the vids there, the ‘official’ vid is misleading, its clearly been sped up, as when you se the saw in actual use, the blade is considerably slower.

Personally I dont like the look of the action of it. It seems to be something that unless you go very slowly,the saw will stall or just run out of torque and either take ages to cut, or just not cut. It also looks like its just cutting and thats a new saw with a new blade.

It’s going to take the manual work out of sawing, but a sharp saw like a silky or even bowsaw would slice through thinner material just as easily.

I think if you use such very very occasionally, it might last a year.

As to batteries, there appears to be a number pretty much the same, so maybe those batteries could if it’s all generic.

as when you se the saw in actual use, the blade is considerably slower.

Yes official vid looks sped up but actual use visa Doesn’t look any different to any other battery/electric saw I’ve used.

And while I have a Makita electric saw I wouldn’t consider it a “propper brand” when it comes to chainsaws…. It’s piss poor quality stuff when compared to the likes of Stihl which I have in the past used professionally – but the Makita gets it done for chopping firewood quietly.

Don’t know about Wesco but we have an Aldi strimmer that uses short replaceable plastic blades rather than wire. It works about the same as a standard plastic wire garden strimmer for doing the edges of the garden grass but wouldn’t be in any way able to replace the brush cutter sort with a harness that you need for tackling banks of long grass and weeds.
For standard garden stuff great would buy again, for heavy duty strumming no chance.

Cobra. Distributed from Nottingham, local dealers, no real price difference between HQ and dealers. Battery and charger separate purchase but choice of 24V and 40V
More expensive than Wesco but that doesn’t mean much
I have Cobra petrol and they’re as good as and sold by local Stihl dealer

el_boufador
Full Member

For budget brands generally, is it a safe assumption I will be able to source batteries in the future?

No, not at all. I mean, there’s generally ways to do it, like adaptors, but part of the problem is just id’ing the battery. Like, I have some little 12v tools that are great, and have batteries that look exactly like about 5 different 12V batteries but none of those fit.

One option for cheap tools, is to get ones that are compatible with known batteries. Frinstance I have a few “for makita” tools, some are direct lookalikes, some are basically standalone products that happen to take the 18v makita batteries. None of them’s been as good as the real thing but they’ve all been usable- I’d buy makita for anything that’s harder working or where a failure would be more infuriating (like drills and impacts) but my cheapo £50 strimmer is actually doing really well, a cheap LED light has turned out better than makita’s own, the grinders are almost as good (but I bought 3 cheap grinders for the price of my one makita, so they can have different discs/tools in rather than swapping, so useful)

Have a look at Von Haus stuff.

My wife works for them, and we get a discount, but I’ve bought a lot of their kit, and it’s bloody great. They have just got into B&Q. It’s imported stuff, but it’s all really solid kit.

I tend to buy mains kit though.

Thanks for thoughts all. I quite like the look of the cobra kit.

@Northwind how did you manage to find kit compatible with Makita batteries?

I have tried searching around, but really not obvious.

Very frustrating there isn’t a set of battery standards which tools conform to. It’s very wasteful.
I suppose it isn’t in the tool companies interest though.

Basically ebay, amazon, aliexpress, “for makita” is a common term, or if you search lxt and look for stuff that isn’t makita that can work.

This is a pretty good example: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/134118392736. I have a petrol strimmer but it’s a faff for little jobs, I don’t expect this little dude to be up to heavy work but it’s really convenient for tidyup.