The 270mm Shredder Blade (4000 713 3903)

Steel double blade for thinning and removing tough scrub and thorny hedges.
Must be used with the appropriate shredder guard.
Only approved for certain bike handle machines.

The wider (320m) shredder blade is designed only for the FS 560.

Still my queries were now being dealt with by Jan at Helston. I had discovered other blades, 3 or 4 cutters to do heavy work and a saw blade for trees over 2cm.

By now, still Monday, I was in repeated conversations with Jan and head office at Stihl. Stihl's technical support were very helpful but problems arose and by Tuesday the mire had thickened. Jan at Helston was fine but Stihl's technical support were not very clear about some anomalies and customer services (01276 417600) were even less helpful or should I say utterly confused and at a loss.

It centred around fitting a 'shredder blade'. The first thing is that a special guard is supposed to be used. It is taller to catch the shreds that are produced buy the two dimensional cutting that produces bits flying in vertical as well as horizontal as is usual with a strimmer or simple blade. The shredder blade can be used to trim the sides of hedges and small bushes although the height of the blade is recommended to be at waist height or lower for safety.