# The China Chainsaw syndrome



## Timberframed (Jan 14, 2016)

I've been reading some very funny reviews over the net. This is not a bash. Some good some not. Either way the write-ups got me chuckling. No way suggesting milling with one. Just Google chinese chainsaw review.


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## A10egress (Jan 27, 2016)

To be honest, If i could get one cheap enough Id like to use/abuse the heck out of one just to see what it can take. Sorta like a harbor freight corded drill i used to build an addition to my deck up at camp.... screw after screw until it smelled like it was burning but it never quit on me. $12 drill. Finally killed it in october drilling 1/2" holes into a Ash stump in an attempt to get it to rot/ dry sooner.


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## kimosawboy (Jan 28, 2016)

Back in the day I used to do commercial tree brushing/ spacing, most of us were using husky's 266. We worked our saws really hard 8-9 hours per day 6 days a week...
Anyhow we had a rep drop off some some new saws for us to try, roughly the same size but more of an unknown company at the time.. Long story short, not one of those saws lasted a day. Most of them just plain broke/came apart, and one caught fire..
I have to admit the rep was great about the boxes of parts he received back, he wanted out input on the pros/cons and what if anything we think could be done to improve the saw..Never heard back from that rep after that, nor did I ever see that particular saw on the market...
Sure was fun though.
G Vavra


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## A10egress (Jan 28, 2016)

Yep, Id love for a item to be dropped off and told "test until destruction"


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## tla100 (Jan 29, 2016)

A10egress said:


> To be honest, If i could get one cheap enough Id like to use/abuse the heck out of one just to see what it can take. Sorta like a harbor freight corded drill i used to build an addition to my deck up at camp.... screw after screw until it smelled like it was burning but it never quit on me. $12 drill. Finally killed it in october drilling 1/2" holes into a Ash stump in an attempt to get it to rot/ dry sooner.



Yeah that Harbor Freight stuff can be tough. I got a $30 chop saw that I abuse the heck out of. Still going strong. 

My bro use to run Ryobi cordless drills and used that thing to drill a LOT of 2 1/2" holes. It would start smoking but keep on plugging away.


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## Jimbo209 (Jan 31, 2016)

The chinka saw are more prolific here in Australia as stihl/husky are a lot more expensive than for you guys.

I have a 5200 saw that for $100 runs well (until I trashed it) and I can practice porting on it.
Exactly like the HF stuff
52/58/62/72/75 $100-$200 eBay AUS shipped. Good ones have nice looking 24"bars kinda Jap like.
Will NOT cut similar to
Ms261 $1599
Ms362 $1800
But does the job once or 10 times before bad fuel kills the saw


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## Sawyer Rob (Feb 19, 2016)

A company sent me a clutch to try out on my sawmill... I put in on and then set a big oak on the mills bunks...

First cut, no problem... Second cut, still good! Third cut I heard a screech and the forth cut it screeched again.

On the fifth cut, there was a BANG!! and the clutch was blown up! lol lol

Time to put the old clutch back on!

SR


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## SalahHH83 (Aug 27, 2016)

I actually bought one of these saws out of curiosity. It's a "Kingpark" - Essentially a Husky 460 knock off. I got it for $95 shipped to my door. I obviously did not expect the thing to be on par with a genuine Husky, but for the price I figured it would be fun to mess with and practice some porting, muffler modding etc.

It took about a week to arrive from California. When I opened the box, it smelled JUST like walking into a Harbor Freight store. Anyway, upon inspection, there was some of the crap you'd expect but overall I was actually pretty impressed. The "manual" was a terrible translation. Parts of the manual say to use 25:1 mix and other parts say to use 50:1. 

It came with a tool kit, the powerhead, 20" bar and chain and a little mixing bottle. I was disappointed that the screws to attach the felling spikes were missing (so I picked some up at the hardware store) I put it together, mixed up some 25:1 and fired it up! The thing actually started pretty easily and ran pretty darn well out of the box. After some warming up and shutting down the saw a couple times because the damn chain needed to be re-tensioned, I decided to try cutting some wood with it. I had some red oak stumps in my yard that I needed to flush cut anyway, so I figured I'd attack them. These stumps were dry and the wood hard as iron. Well, I was actually pretty impressed! The engine lacked some torque (I think some tuning and modding can wake this thing up some), but it sure as hell can cut hardwood! 

The stock chain is absolute garbage, but I expected it to be. I had to tighten the thing about 6 times. I was scared the whole time that the crappy chain could break and hurt me. I went and got a 20" Husky bar with an Oregon chain. HUGE difference. With the Oregon chain, it cuts more like a real saw. It really eats through hard oak pretty darn well.

At the end of the day, this is obviously NOT a replacement for a genuine Husky if you are a professional. But to have around as a spare saw or for a homeowner or just to mess around with, the thing is actually quite impressive. 

The good: for the price, it's pretty good at cutting wood. It's not very heavy. The muffler looks pretty choked up, so I think opening it up can unleash some good power. It spins a 20" bar in hard wood and with a good chain, i'm overall impressed with its ability. 

The bad: the "chain brake" does not seem to work at all. The plastic does have a cheap feel to it. The tensioner is something I am worried about, but it looks a LOT like a genuine Husky tensioner and I think I can make a real Husky tensioner work on it. The chain oil leaks some. It's not terrible, but it is annoying.

I'm going to run 25:1 in it for a couple more tanks and then start running the mix at 40:1. I'm going to mod the muffler some and tune the carb. I get the feeling there's a good bit more power in the saw. Will it last me years and years? Probably not. But for as little as I paid for it, it's pretty darn impressive.


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## BobL (Aug 27, 2016)

Over the years I had been asked by a few friends and work colleagues to look at their saws and since joining the local community "Men's Shop" a few more of these types of saws have been directed my way.

A classic saw that was given to me to look at about a year old was a brand new saw that had never been started because the 78? year old owner could not start it. His 40 year old son could not start it either. I quickly worked out the kill switch was shorting. When I pulled the kill switch out I could see that it was a POS, and the mere act of soldering on the connections had melted the plastic switch housing so much so that when the switch was pushed into its slot in the saw case the switch distorted so the contacts shorted. I managed to pull it apart and fix it but unfortunately I ended up reversing the switch position when reassembling. I took the saw back to the shop and started it up for the owner but he decided it was too much for him and donated it to the Mens's shop - and it has sat in its box since then - I seriously doubt it will ever be used.

Another saw I was asked to look at recently was a well used thing with a chain that "won't go around" , "can't be tightened" and "cuts slowly in circles".
This one was more a case of operator maltreatment than cheap quality.
The reason the chain "wouldn't go around" was that a number of the links had rusted together.
The reason the chain couldn't be tightened was because the chain tensioner lug was so worn away it was barely locating in the bar hole and could easily slip out of the hole. I looked like the owner had tightened the bar bolts down with the tensioning lug out of the hole and hitting the bar because the bar had a corresponding dents and grooves in it.
I replaced the lug and flipped the bar as it looked like it had never been used on that side.
This B&C had several other things wrong with it - it looked like the LHS cutters had never been filed as they were almost the original length and badly rounded, whereas the RHS cutters were about half worn. The rakers looked like they had never been touched. 
After freeing up the rusted links, dressing the bar, filing the chain, fresh tank of gas and away it went.


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## BroncoRN (Aug 31, 2016)

Over the past several years I have noticed that virtually the same thing you buy at Harbor Freight shows up at Home Depot/Lowes, etc. I am a member of AMZ Review Trader and one of the sellers and I email back and forth frequently. He is located in Shenzhen City, China (big surprise). One day I asked him about this and he told me there are varying levels of quality for the products produced depending on what the buyer is willing to pay. I had always suspected this but it was kind of interesting to see it validated by someone that is involved in the process from overseas. 

All of that being said I find that a lot of those tools are very usable for the homeowner (like me). I personally cannot afford to drop hundreds and hundreds on every tool or i'd have only a handful of tools. Most of my stuff is bought lightly used or china-built and I don't mind working on things to get them into usable shape. Just my 2 cents.


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## wombler (Sep 14, 2016)

I got an el cheapo Chinese 25cc top handle for pure sh*ts-and-giggles, on the assumption that if I dropped it out of a tree I would not be particularly sad. I've muff modded+retuned it, had to fiddle with the oiler pump to get it started (works fine now, though), and generally put a lot more work into it than I would for a Stihl, but at around 15% of the price, I'm OK with that. I chalk it all up to learning, anyway.

My take on the situation is that these cheap knock-offs are great for the "amateur enthusiast", and pure poison for everyone else. The enthusiast has enough knowledge to fix up most of the little annoyances, isn't typically trying to make a living out of using them (so when they go *poof* or catch fire, it's entertainment, not lost bread money), and the low cost means we can satisfy our Chainsaw Acquisition Disorder for a lot less money. The fact they're so cheap also means you can mod the daylights out of 'em without fear of ruining a good saw.

Meanwhile, the pro needs something that'll go all day, every day, without fail, because they're living off the things. At the other end of the spectrum, the homeowner needs something they can get serviced and repaired (under warranty or otherwise) by someone else.

All that being said, I'm not about to go replacing my Stihl stable with Shenzhen Specials any time soon...


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## Dugndeep (Sep 24, 2016)

SalahHH83 said:


> I actually bought one of these saws out of curiosity. It's a "Kingpark" - Essentially a Husky 460 knock off. I got it for $95 shipped to my door. I obviously did not expect the thing to be on par with a genuine Husky, but for the price I figured it would be fun to mess with and practice some porting, muffler modding etc.
> 
> It took about a week to arrive from California. When I opened the box, it smelled JUST like walking into a Harbor Freight store. Anyway, upon inspection, there was some of the crap you'd expect but overall I was actually pretty impressed. The "manual" was a terrible translation. Parts of the manual say to use 25:1 mix and other parts say to use 50:1.
> 
> ...



The one I bought is a Pandamoto 52cc 20".Easiest starting chainsaw I have ever used.Had a little trouble with the oil pump,didn't seem like it was working right so I took it off and bench tested it,seemed to work so I put it back together,must have needed priming or something but seems to work now.It leaks a little chain oil too,just have to set it on a rag or something but for now seems to cut fine,haven't really used it all that much which is the case for my Stihl and Homelite.I don't heat with wood so main use is clearing tree's or fallen branches and what not..I give $65.95 free ship to my door.Go to Aliexpress and parts are cheap,I can get the cylinder,piston, total top end rebuild kit for less than $20 with free shipping.Mine come with the tensioner mounted next to the bar but I have ordered the side adjusting bevel gear set,my saw has the holes for it,for less than $3 w/free ship but probably be 3 weeks getting here.Just be easier to tension chain with the combo spark plug wrench.


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## Dugndeep (Sep 24, 2016)

BroncoRN said:


> Over the past several years I have noticed that virtually the same thing you buy at Harbor Freight shows up at Home Depot/Lowes, etc. I am a member of AMZ Review Trader and one of the sellers and I email back and forth frequently. He is located in Shenzhen City, China (big surprise). One day I asked him about this and he told me there are varying levels of quality for the products produced depending on what the buyer is willing to pay. I had always suspected this but it was kind of interesting to see it validated by someone that is involved in the process from overseas.
> 
> All of that being said I find that a lot of those tools are very usable for the homeowner (like me). I personally cannot afford to drop hundreds and hundreds on every tool or i'd have only a handful of tools. Most of my stuff is bought lightly used or china-built and I don't mind working on things to get them into usable shape. Just my 2 cents.



I agree total with that,all other stores are selling the same stuff as Harbor Freight just a little more expensive.


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## r3dpuma (Jan 20, 2020)

Here is my 5200 not even broken in in some dirty frozen wood...video from last saturday


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