I remember when I first saw these green Ryobi trimmers in the 1988/89 period there were three main levels. The Lawn Hornet which were everywhere, including Target which had the least flashy engine fairing with the on off toggle switch attached to the engine block and no primer bulb, bent shaft.
Then we had the Weed Hornet with bent shaft also, but more bells and whistles which I liked, and subsequently got my mum to buy. It had a metal J handle with comfy foam grip instead of the inner inferior simple plastic ring handle of the lawn hornet. The J handle made the machine very well balanced to handle. The feature which made me want to go to this model was a primer bulb (even though I find the lawn hornet I now use no problem without it on a cold start).
The WH also came with a three prong brush cutter blade (which I never really used) and a more ornate and substantial looking engine cover with the on off switch attached to a more convenient location on the plastic cover.
Then there was the straight shaft Scrub Hornet with an even more elaborate bar handle with the throttle control on the tip with a shoulder strap.
The mid and upper tier models as well as the entry level Lawn Hornet were sold in more major department stores like Grace Bros (Myer equivalent). So many of these Ryobis were sold that years later, it was common to find them abandoned everywhere, often with minor issues to get them going.
There were three abandoned in a lane way for years until recently without anyone grabbing them!
Our Weed Hornet never failed to impress anyone who saw it in action with the abundance of apparent low end power and torque for them to see as it devoured the weeds on pathways in front of them! It was almost like showing of your latest car purchase!! I loved the looks on their faces when they saw it in action.
Since getting my professional grade Kaaz straight shaft 26cc machine, I really appreciated it's more high end power delivery and luxury smoothness, not to mention astonishing fuel economy.
The Ryobi is an absolute guzzler in comparison and the low end torque isn't ideally suited to weed wacking duty anywhere near like the Mitsubishi TU26. But the old Ryobi Lawn Hornet I have is much nicer sounding than this crude later build MTD whipper snipper I used one time. It was seriously crude and noisy compared the the TU26 Kaaz I had recently got at the time.
