Weed Eater
Established 1971Founded in 1971 by George C. Ballas, Weed Eater is the manufacturer and inventor of the original string trimmer, weed eater or weed whacker. Before the invention of the string trimmer, people needed to trim weeds around trees and other areas that they couldn’t get to with a lawn mower with their hands, making the task very time consuming. George Balas got the idea for the trimmer from the spinning nylon bristles of a car wash. He thought that he could come up with a similar technique to protect the bark on trees that he was trimming around.
Wead Eater eventually merged with Poulan and was purchased by Husqvarna in 2006.
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