Re: Off topic chain saws. What do you like?


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Posted by David Sherman on Saturday, September 16, 2006 at 5:19PM :

In Reply to: Off topic chain saws. What do you like? posted by Howard on Saturday, September 16, 2006 at 2:59PM :

If your 4-year-old Stihl is temperamental, something is wrong with it. All the good saw shops know Stihls inside out and it would probably be worth $50 or so to have the guy work it over, get it in top shape, and tell you what you need to do to keep it that way. Rember, saws have two carb adjustments. "lo mix" is your idle adjustment. "hi mix" you set so for max power when cutting. This assumes the air cleaner is clean, the fuel filter is clean, and the carb diaphragm isn't cracked.

My favorite saw has been an Echo 510. They're well-designed, well-build, light weight, and considerably cheaper than Stihls and Huskies. The only problem is not very many places sell them and parts can be hard to get. I used to have a McCulloch, and tried to make it work for me for years before I finally gave up. Few things will make me cuss like lugging a saw, gas, oil, axe, and wedges several miles into the woods on my back and then having it refuse to start. Before that I had a Homelite, which was also bad. Admittedly they were probably 1970s models and maybe the new ones are better, but I doubt it. The Echo is a great lightweight (magnesium housing) strong trail saw and general-purpose woodcutting saw. It always starts and runs beautifully.

I recently bought a bunch of equipment from a tree service guy who was retiring (boom truck, chipper, chip truck, stump grinder, 6 chain saws, ladders, climbing irons, and hand tools) and am trying to decide what to keep and what to sell. He had 2 tiny 14" Echos that you can hold with one hand for pruning, and they work real good. Also had 2 big Stihls, which was my first experience with them, and I know I will definitely keep one of them. It's an older model, and a bit on the heavy side, but it has power like you wouldn't believe. I bucked up my neighbor's 24" spruce tree into 16" stove wood and it was just amazing to see the sawdust fly. I can see why all the loggers use the big Stihls. It had good power at all speeds and loads, unlike many saws that only really want to run at the "sweet spot" of their power curve.

All in all, if your Stihl is a size that you like, I think your best bet is to get it professionally fixed. It should not be "temperamental". Other than that, Echo, Stihl, and Husqvarna are all good. Unless you want an el-cheapo "homeowner" saw for cutting a Christmas tree once a year or something, stay away from McCulloch, Poulan, and Homelite. My only experience with Poulan was trying to get my aforementioned neighbor's saw to work for him so he could buck up the big spruce tree, and I wasn't impressed. It felt like it was all made out of flimsy, floppy plastic, and it had some kind of carb problem where it would idle okay but would die if revved up. It might have been the hi-mix adjustment or some other carb problem but at that point I just decided to buck up the log myself with my saw rather than keep dinking with his.



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