You are here: Home / Clever Gadgets

Clever Technology for your Garage: Secateurs

November 29, 2011 by

OK So the Secateurs may be more for the garden – but many of us also keep our tools in the garage. Clever technology? There is so much clever technology in the design of Secateurs you never even knew about.

There are two major types of secateurs: Bypass Secateurs that work with the two blades coming together like a pair of scissors. Good for cutting delicate stems without mangling them. Then there are Anvil Secateurs which consist of one blade closing on a flat surface which are good for cutting woody stems.

Further types are as follows;

Ratchet secateurs

Good for feeble wristed people like myself these require little force because the clever ratchet mechanism allows build up of pressure by squeezing together and releasing the handles until the blades cut through the stem. These are a type of anvil secateurs.

Secateurs are made in different sizes with different types of grip. Slightly padded rubber grips prevent blistering if you are having a summer rose –fest or autumn cut-down, and though it might be sense to pick a smaller secateurs for a smaller hand, smaller secateurs are not as powerful. So that is when you might choose

Battery powered pruners (such as Bosch Ciso battery powered pruners from around £45)

Although the handle of battery-powered pruners holds a battery as well as a motor they are still quite light and easy to use. Great for pruning the roses and more and good for one-handed pruning or for those with a weak grip.

Filed Under: Clever Gadgets · Tagged With: , ,

Clever Technology for the Garage: Lawnmowers

October 16, 2011 by

There are two major types of technology that are used for lawnmowers: cylinder mowers and rotary mowers. Grasscutting purists (like greenkeepers and lawn specialists) will always say that cylinder mowers are the most superior because of the finish they leave.

The cylinder mower consists of a cylinder with offset sharpened blades rotating to cut the grass when the mower moves forward. They cut the grass against a fixed bar set parallel to the ground. The blades can be adjusted to alter the cutting height. Cylinder mowers are not suitable for long grass where the lawns are only cut infrequently or bumpy lawns.

Push mowers: Low tech and the most environmentally friendly option, is the non-powered push mower. Though the “pusher” uses energy (and builds muscle) there is no CO2 produced, and are excellent and easy to use  for small lawns as they need no plugging in or filling up with petrol.

Rotary mowers are always powered and use a petrol engine of electric motor on top of the rotary blade housing. Rotary machines have a spinning blade held horizontally above the ground and the blade therefore “skims” the top off the grass to cut it. They do not give as good a finish as cylinder mowers/

Lawnmowers can be powered by 2 stroke or 3 stroke petrol engines or electricity though mains powered motors are limited by the cord and rotary mowers run by electricity have little torque for longer grass.

Filed Under: Clever Gadgets · Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Clever Home Technology: Steam Generating Iron

September 2, 2011 by

It’s not always easy to see why you would invest in a rather expensive steam generator iron when you can buy a much cheaper ordinary steam iron. Only those in revel in long and fraught ironing sessions where you struggle with crumpled stuff trying to get the creases out realise what a boon they can be. For those large numbers of us who love real cotton sheets ironing with an ordinary iron becomes a martyr’s task.

Steam sinks into the outside of the fabric being ironed allowing the creases to stretch and become flattened. The steam generator iron actually has a separate boiler producing pressurised steam, which when it is switched on is forced into the iron and thus penetrating much deeper into the fabric giving a better, quicker result. If you fold your sheet into 8 layers the steam will usually penetrate through all the layers (it does for me) so speeding up a task of drudgery. This super extra pressurised steam is reckoned to halve ironing time of an ordinary iron. The iron’s water reservoir is usually pretty large, but if you have a big family and a lot or ironing look for the largest as it is a pain to have to refill before you have finished.

There are a number of manufacturers making steam generator irons including the excellent Philips Steam Generator GC8323 at £185 (though there are less expensive models) and Morphy Richards Steam generator at around the same price with a number of more reasonable models.

Filed Under: Clever Gadgets · Tagged With: , , , , , ,