I have a Briggs/Stratton Edger, walk behind.
Cleaned the plug, fresh gas with stabilizer, clean air filter.

With the choke CLOSED and on the first pull, the edger starts with enthusiasm. However after about 7 seconds, then engine bogs down until it cuts off.

If I OPEN the choke and give the starting chord 10 or so pulls, then RE-CLOSE the choke I get the same re-start behavior.

When I cleaned the plug, it was coated in a medium brown color and the top of the piston inside the cylinder appeared wet.

Heres some picts if anyone is familiar with carburetor adjustments (I know the two bars are associated with the throttle lever):
Suggestions/links/knowledge appreciated. . .
<img src="http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/52819/edger_002.jpg">
Karl

The bottom screw is your needle valve or mixture control screw. The top screw (if the linkage goes to the throttle) is your idle stop screw. Tighten to increase idle, loosen to lower.

Make sure the fuel cock is turned on. It sounds like it's not getting fuel. On a B&amp;S 4-stroke- spark, compression and fuel are all that's required to run. If it starts at all, then you've got spark (did you torque the spark plug?). Ditto for compression. If it bogs out with the choke off, then you're probably not getting fuel. Choke off = more air coming in with the same amount of fuel. If it's been sitting with gas in it for a while, then you probably need to clean/rebuild the carb or at least drain the bowl. I'd open the drain plug on the carb bowl until clean gas came out and try again.

If none of this works, junk it and go buy yourself a stick edger (echo, shindaiwa, stihl etc.). They're MUCH faster, easier to handle and did I mention they're faster? There's a reason why you don't see pros with walk behind edgers.

It had been sitting for a while, father's garage,
and if it gave me too much "lip" then I told it it would be sold for scrap . . . . :P

In addition to being faster, sticks also take up less garage space. . . and you can edge your neighbor's yapping dog more easily.

Thanks again for the time and effort of your reply.