Leaf blowers/lawn vacuums

[fan-of-fans]

Does anyone have any older leaf blowers or lawn vacuums?

I remember my grandma used to have an electric blower that was yellow in color and the brand name "Paramount". Over the fan intake there was a louvered like black cover that could be adjusted somehow if I remember right. A few weeks ago I saw a similar Paramount blower at a thrift store.

Does anyone know when those were made or if they got bought by another company?

We also had a couple of Weed Eater brand blowers, green in color. The intake was on the bottom, had a flat cover with openings on the sides.

Since then we had a couple Craftsman gas blowers.

Never had any vacuums but I can remember a Craftsman electric chipper that I've never seen another of. Gray color, kind of a funnel shape and had a string trimmer like line in the bottom on a shaft that spun around. I think it was mainly for chipping up leaves. Anyone remember this one?

 

[cycla-fabric]

Remember Paramount Blowers

Paramount leaf blowers were made in the late 1970's, I remember them well as they were a good product and CU rated them highly. We had one and it worked well. They were sold at Value House/Service Merchandise which is showing my age. They also made grass string trimmers too. I don't recall who bought them out though.
Doug

 

[dustin92]

Apparently Paramount also made an electric edger.. One of our neighbors has one and I just edged her driveway with it this week. I'm pretty sure the blade was very worn, it didn't work well at all and the blade didn't extend past the guard at all. It was pretty quiet, I'll give it that at least.

 

[petek]

Funny you bring this up... I just got rid of my old "leaf eater" . I bought it a few years ago at a garage sale for $5.. it didn't work all that well so never really used it. I'm trying to remember what name brand it was,,it was probably 30 years old when I bought it.

I just bought a lawn vacuum a few weeks ago but haven't really used it yet … we have a lot of leaves in the fall, and pine cones, so I'm hoping this things works well.. if it doesn't it's going back. (thankfully the store I bought it from has a no quibble return policy with no time limits really)

As for leaf blowers.. I noticed nearly all of our neighbors had Stihl leaf blowers and for the 10 years we've lived here they were all still working and when asked none of them had had a problem with them.. I had an echo and then something else,, and they were always giving me problems.. Bought a Stihl leaf blower last year and it starts every time,, no more grief.

 

[kb0nes]

I have two Stihl blowers, a hand held and a backpack model. Both are as good as they get. The hand blower cost a mere $139 and showed me how the 'Creamsicle' power equipment is the best of the best. It started a collecting spree that added a couple chainsaws and a string trimmer/clearing saw too.

I bought the backpack model a year later. It uses their "4-Mix' 4-cycle engine and it is quieter then my lawnmower. It moves enough air that even 1" branches get out of the way of the airstream. The backpack blower was kinda pricey though but for a good size yard it sure does the trick.

Both have always started right away when I pull the rope, nearly 10 years old now. Never use any gasoline with alcohol in it in occasional use engines!

 

[petek]

I also have the Stihl mini tiller with the optional string trimmer and edger attachments.. it replaced a McCullough ? mini tiller and Homelite weed eater both of which always required effort and swearing to get them started.. Not so with the Stihl.. it always starts on the first or 2nd pull.

 

[fan-of-fans]

We used to have a Stihl that we actually got out of a neighbor's trash. lol A quick tune up and the thing ran very well and used it a long time. Probably about 15 years ago now, don't remember what happened to it. Had two new Craftsmans bought new since. I think we had another in between from Lowes but returned it for some reason. The Stihl was probably form the 80s but kept going.

Currently our weed eater is a Homelite that also came out of the trash. lol

Can remember I had a toy weed eater that I would walk around with and pretend to edge the yard while my dad used the real thing.

I also had one of those old push fertilizer spreaders that my grandmother had given me. I used to push it around the yard, put dirt and water in it and mix up mud in it. lol

I had a look around eBay, the best source for info when you can't find anything else on a subject. Apparently Paramount also made gas blowers and even a rechargeable one with a huge (by today's standards) battery pack that could also be used to power other things.

 

[robbinsandmyers]

I have a 19 year old Shindaiwa EB240 hand held blower I bought new for $200.00 then and its got a zillion hours on it but still looks and runs like new. I prefer Shindaiwa or Redmax over them all. Paramount had those blowers made for them. I had a gas one years ago I got for free. Wasnt very powerful but ran ok. Paramount couldnt compete with the competition plus parts may have been hard to source back then.