Yeah I picked up the R version last week too, got it from farm city at auburn. They're one of the few stihl dealers that know their stuff and give good prices on gear too. Don't let the fact that it's run by girls put you off - they can both rebuild a saw quicker than any of my boys and probably beat them in an arm wrestle too!
We don't do that many hedges a year and tend to just hire a hedger if needed but theyre not cheap to hire and never seem to run right. Most of the time when we get called for hedges you need a saw to do them anyhow. I quoted a ****** job with a couple hundred metres of ivy covered walls and 5 metres of camelia as well as another cypress hedge on a seperate job and actually put the full price of the hedger into the job since I wasn't really that fussed about winning it. They went for it, so the tool paid for itself on the first job and the job paid well too. First impressions were man, this thing is light! Cuts great too. The rotating handle is good, and the blades closer to the machine with the extra holder can get through camelia bigger than my thumb no worries. Girls gave me a tip to lube blades sparingly with lanox, not inox/wd40 because its lanolin based and doesn't harm plants.
First day I ran it I must have tried putting the chain brake on like 6 times. Weird! Then gave it to one of my boys who tried putting the chain brake on so hard he flipped the hedger up and hit himself in the elbow with it. We both pissed ourselves laughing. The long blade makes short work of it, I'd figured 2 days but we were done in a day with a bit of time to spare.
