Here's an update on my Echo trimmer/brushcutter. I have a big ditch, about 175 feet long, full of weeds that I have not cut in about four years. Some of the grass was five or six feet tall. After a little confusion on how to install the blade kit, I put the blade on and went after it. I went through the thickest part, about forty feet of the ditch, in an hour or two, using one full tank of gas. The brush blade is really amazing for thick weeds. It just slices through them like butter. It doesn't handle thin spots of grass that well, it tends to push it over instead of cut. The brush blade burns a lot of gas because it needs to run wide-open the whole time, and it takes a couple of seconds for it to spin up to speed. A bigger engine might spin it up faster, but once it's spinning this engine does a fine job.