Chain Saw

[picksbigwagon]

I posted this in the tool section as well:

My wife was talking about getting some shrubs or something, I was on FM so I was pretty much ignoring her, anyway, she said, "what do you think of that?" to which I answered, "Well, I will probably need to buy a chainsaw then" Had no idea what she had said or what "we" were talking about, but she looked at me and said, "Why don't you have a chainsaw yet? How much are they? I don't care if you get one..."

Still have no idea what I am doing to the gardens in front of the house, all I know is I have the green light for a chain saw. So my question is, what is a good Middle of the Road 18" chainsaw? I don't want to spend over 300 bucks....Brands I know that are out there: McCulloch (said like it gets caught in your throat), Echo, Husquavarna, Stihl, Homelite, and whoever it is that makes the lime green Wild Thing.....

Thanks for the help

[picksbigwagon]

Okay powerstroke, novice in the department of buying a saw, but I have used them before. Good advice on the safety equipment, I have many sets of ear protection, being a gym teacher, I am already losing my hearing. I will contact you, I will post on the moderator forum, yes I would like to see one first. The 2152 comes with the catalytic convertor, don't ask me why, but I thought it would be kind of nice to have that....like I said, I don't know why.

I will probably start with the 16" bar and get a 20" for up north at my friends....or make him buy the 20"

My dad almost split my brother in 2 30 years ago when they were out harvesting wild honey. Needless to say, he told my brother to not say a word to Mom, hard to walk in the house with 1/3 of a shirt but she only found out 3 years ago.....

[Dave]

My dad bought a 14-inch Sears Craftsman from Sears Surplus 25 years ago! And, I'm still using it at the hunting land. It's seen its share of abuse and use and has been a great chainsaw.

I'm interested in this topic since I've always wondered, what actually makes one saw brand better than another?

[jltimm]

Alot of the older saws were tough saws, that actually lasted along time (Mac 10-10) Heavy, loud, but last. Nowadays the craftsman,poulan, and homelite are all the same saw which are disposable saws, and don't last if you use them alot.

[trollingforeyes]

For most work that we do a 16" bar is enough. With a longer bar us weekend loggers usually wind up hitting the ground when bucking trees or hitting other stuff (rocks, gravel,sogs, cats, ect.

[Powerstroke]

Quote:

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My dad bought a 14-inch Sears Craftsman from Sears Surplus 25 years ago! And, I'm still using it at the hunting land. It's seen its share of abuse and use and has been a great chainsaw.

I'm interested in this topic since I've always wondered, what actually makes one saw brand better than another?

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One great point and one great question in there.

#1. If you take care of things they will last no matter how "average" the quality is. That is true of anything. If you know you are someone who is rough on things and you don't perform all the extra maintenance, then don't buy a cheap saw

#2 Like I said some breands are made of average quality and materials. They may have an inferior air intake design. It may have fewer bells and whistles and safety equipment. Its not hard to find a gap between the Craftsman/Poulan/Homelite saws and the Stihl/Husky/Jonsered saws. They vary in price and extras.

I think its the extra that make them superior rather than the other brands being inferior. The other ones aren't "bad", its just that the big names are better. There are better motors with better carbs that adjust for air intake volume. They ahve better airflow designs to minimize the amount of dust that atually makes it to the filter. The safety features are huge on the bigger names. They make them more and more safe with every new model. Ergonomics go a long way too since those who use the saws for a living choose them for comfort. Things like how to adjust chain tensions and "tool-less" access to important parts of the saw are great. They aren't always the most durable, but they are getting better. The quality of the anti-vibration equipment and the sheer amount of shock-absorbing material in the top of the line saws is getting better too. The two saws that I own were used nearly every day for 5 years and they still run great. I carry it on my saddle climbing the trees and it bounces and bangs off of trees. It has been dropped from 60ft up in the air. Its fallen off the back of a truck. I've never had a major repair (knock on wood) or failure. It gets new air filters and spark plugs as needed and will get a tune up at the shop once a year to make sure the carb is in spec. It costs me less than $100 a yea rto keep it going like that. I've seen many saws come and go in the tree business cause they can't handle daily abuse like that. I own 2 Stihls and I've been very satisfied with the 2 Jonsered that we have at work. We do have 1 new BIG Husky that I like alot. Time will tell, but its doing great.

I think of the inovations in the last couple years and its crazy. Inventions like toolless chain adjusting, multiple auto chain stopping measures, anti-kickback bar and chain designs and nice things like toolless gas and oil caps. You can also get narrow bars and chains that cut faster and are lighter. You can get bars made out of other materials like titanium and poly to cut weight.

Also, if you don't know how, you should learn how to sharpen your own chains. Its very easy to do and saves lots of money. Having a chain sharpened ususally between $3-5. If a new chain is $20 then you paid for a new chain after 5 sharpenings and you can hand sharpen a chain up to 20x if there aren't and chips or broken teeth. There are sharpening tools out there that do it all in one motion cutting sharpening time in half.

[jltimm]

You mentioned sharpening tools.I use a hand file to touch them up, and it does a little good, but I'd prefer another method if possible.What type of tools are you talking about, and where would a guy get them.Do they cost an arm and a leg?

[BAIT956]

Powerstoke mentioned the toolless chain adjusting feature available on new saws. This is a good time saving and safety feature. It makes it easy to have the proper chain tension at all times. It is an annoyance to manually adust the tension or worse, use the saw with a loose chain.

Chain sharpening tools are another needed addition. I have tried a couple besides the traditional file, but haven't been really satisfied with them. I would be interested to hear other input on sharpeners.

[Bobby Bass]

I use a stone/file for chains on my dremel, you can buy an attachment but I find working free hand does a better job.

[Powerstroke]

As far as sharpening goes, there are 2 things to sharpen. You need a round file for the tooth and a flat file to take down the raker (hook shaped piece in front of the tooth. The raker height tells the tooth how much to cut. If its too hight you don't cut enough wood and if its too low it can dig too deep and bog down the saw or break teeth. So getting it right is important and difficult cause you're dealing in one-thousands of an inch.

Check out Pferd filing system. You'll have to google. Its a chain sharpening system that has both a round file and flat file in one and its set to get the right angles and depth on your rakers all in one stroke. Its fantastic. Its also under $20 and comes with 1 of each file. A box of files is also less than $20. I sharpen chains about every other week and a file still alsts me about 2 months. The average joe homeowner can make a file last a year. They can be found at Sherrill. They are Vermeer sales in Burnsville. check it out.

There are bench grinders and dremel type tools out there that will sharpen a chain, but the best edge comes from a hand file. ALso, high speed grinders can do just that, GRIND. They can take off too much metal and can also temper the metal from being too hot (ever seen metal turn blue when you're grinding it?).

[Powerstroke]

Its kind of hard to explain chain sharpening without photos, but if you are really interested you should understand cause you can go look at a chain to see what I'm talking about.

In the actual cutter portion of the tooth, the only part doing the cutting is teh forward most point of that tooth (not the raker). That point should be a POINT, like a fishing hook. The straight edge that tapers back towards the opposite side of the chain should be sharp too cause that strips the chip out. Its not cutting, just stripping the wood at the depth created by the raker. The round bowed out side of the tooth doesn't really matter and neither does how deep the tooth is.

The biggest mistake people make sharpening is they sharpen DOWN towards the bar instead of BACK into the extra tooth metal. By pushing down they are sharpening away from the actual cutting surface which is the top of the tooth. There is nothing gained by having a big "hooked" tooth with a deep throat that holds that round file in.

The next part is the hardest to free hand. The rakers. The standard is the make the raker .025" lower than the top of the tooth. HOw the heck do you do that? There are depth gauges and tools designed to sit on top of the tooth and you file over it till the extra metal is gone. I've never found one I like and it takes forever to do all the teeth. With the new file guide I mentioned above, the flat file is incorporated into the sharpener and is mounted at the right height below the tooth.

The next toughest part is you want every tooth to be the same size and length. That means if you have a bunch of teeth that got chipped when you hit a rock or some metal, then you need to sharpen them all down to the size of the smallest tooth. You also want them to be equal from right to left. If the right side teeth are sharper than the left then you will not cut straight. It will cut on a curve through the wood and bind up. Getting this part right is hard with hand sharpening and can be great for using a bench grinder or dropping it off to get sharpened so they all are the right size again. I do this any time my chains get damaged.

If you sharpen a chain properly it should cut like a hot knife through butter, literally. WHen I place a saw to wood it pulls itself through the log. I don't push or "saw" back and forth. ALso a way to check the efficiency of your cutting is to look at the wood chips. Your saw should spit out nice long chips. Saw dust or powder is a bad sign. It means your chain is dulll or the rakers are too high. In theory, a perfectly sharpened chain would leave one long continuous strip as a wood chip. I've had chips as long as 1-2" before and thats pretty good. Almost never happens though.

A little tip for getting the best performance out of your chains is to touch them up before every use. Take your round file or shapener and make 2-3 passes on each tooth. You won't take much off, but enough to touch up that edge, just like you do on your filet knife. I touch up every chain even the new ones out of the package. Its the only way to get a "sharp chain".

Oh yeah, and always wear leather gloves. It may be for cutting wood, but properly sharpened they will slice skin in no time. Also there are burrs and metal slivers on the bar but thats a whole nother maintenance topic.

[jltimm]

Thanks so much for the in-depth reply! I'll look into this tool you've mentioned, and to think I always wondered why the chain would not cut that great after just using the round file they sell you when you buy a chainsaw!