My edger sat in the garage for 2 years. I tried it today and it wouldn't start. Oil is clean and nice. I am not sure if the spark plug looks good. One thing I noticed is that tip is wet by either gasoline or oil. I spent 1 hour trying to start it with no success. This edger might be 8-10 years old based on how it looks. I just got it from craigslist back in 2008. It really worked pretty well. Stupid me, I didn't drain the gasoline.

It used to be that people knew how to maintain and service small engines. Somehow that art has been lost on the younger generation. If you don't know how to disassemble and clean the carb, take it to a shop. That looks like a very nice edger and certainly worth fixing.

Gas gets pretty yucky after a year. I'm not a mechanic, but here's what I would do if it were mine: Try some instant start first. If you're lucky it will start. If not, drain the gas tank, get some fresh gas and a new plug and give that a try.
If that doesn't work, it's likely time for some carb cleaning like eriocaulon said.

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Ok. Will do. Need to find out how I will drain the gas.

You should be able to pop off the gas lid, tip it over and dump it into an old gas can using a funnel. Then find out if your city or county has a hazardous waste collection. Our county has at least one a year which is where I take the used mower oil. I don't know if they take gas, but it's worth a call.

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You need to have the carb cleaned or replace it. I work on a lot of small engines, and this is the number one problem with them. They need to run often, and if not need to be ran out of gas before storage. Happens all the time with rv generators, keeps my bills paid

which is the carburetor on my pic?

Find the air cleaner/filter and it will lead you to the carb. If you can take it off and get access, get some engine starter spray (get from auto parts store/wally world, etc) and get it into the carb. Replace the plug but just prior to getting ready to fire it up, spray a shot of engine starter in the cylinder. Don't spray in a deluge, just a quick mist!

Regardless, empty the tank into a gas can and make sure you use gas stablizer in your gas cans. As and fyi, I do it year round so I never have to worry about gas getting stale and recommend this practice.

On the bottom of the carburetor there should be a drain screw. Drain that gas as well. There's not a whole lot to screw up with cleaning a carb if you are willing to do it. The fact that you don't what one looks like may make this task take a little longer to complete but we can walk you through it. The "bowl" on the bottom of the carb typically has four screws holding it on so if you can take that off and clean it out with a can of carb cleaner that may also get you there (assuming you follow everything else). When you buy the can of engine starter, get a can of carb cleaner too.

With fresh gas (and stabilizer), a clean carb bowl and the engine starter, give it a pull and see if it fires. If it does, let it run for a few minutes to warm up and then shut it off and replace the air filter and whatever else you had to take off. It's not that hard.

If this fails, take a picture of your carb and we can tell you what to take off. Essentially you will need to take a couple pieces apart on the carb and spray it like heck.

Assuming it is fuel on the spark plug, check to see that the air filter is clean and the choke is not stuck in the ON position.

Sounds like fun.

Air filter is clean.

I'll work on it tonight.

Check the choke? Certainly before you tear anything apart, do the simple stuff, first.

I know it's against the man-code to RTFM however, the Craftsmen manuals are usually very detailed with their assembly drawings. Looking in the back of your manual it should show you the "nuts and bolts" so you can figure out how to get the filter box off, etc.

You don't want to just spray in a ton of carb cleaner without a way to get it out. If you take the carb off and spray it heavily for cleaning you want to let it dry or use an air compressor to blow it dry before you reassemble everything.

All carbs are different, and some are complicated with adjustable jets, etc. Most lawn and garden engines are pretty simple though. Just take the bowl off and clean it out. Spray into every little hole you see. Use compressed air to dry out if you have a compressor. Then clean it some more. If all else fails replace the carb or take it to a pro to clean.

lawnandgarden,

you said, spray engine starter in cylinder. Is that the hole where the plug is connected?

I remember yesterday when I removed the air filter, there was a 1 inch diameter hole. I think the hole is somewhat wet. I even thought the little liquid I saw was gasoline but I wasn't sure. The hole was clean though. The air filter is clean and dry

Here is what I bought. Lucky there was a spark plug which matched mine at WalMart.

WOOHOO!!! My edger is back in the saddle! Thanks everyone!!!

Video of my dead edger, now up and running.

Good deal. Just keep stabilizer in your gas. If something is sitting for a long time, it's best to run it every so often to get fresh gas into the carb.

Have fun with the edging.

I used my edger today! I'll use it again this weekend to edge my garden beds. Hopefully it will work since I've never tried it yet.