4 hours, 7 cords, one saw

[drmiller100]

WEIRD situation.

I bought a bunch of firewood at a landing, and all of a sudden the state is giving me and the loggers a bunch of junk about all of us being out of there in a week. So, I am cutting firewood out of a landing while the loggers are still there loading trucks.

make a long story short, we are bucking limbed 40 foot logs. they are 24-30 inch white firs, dead for a year.

My new Dolmar 7900 still has gas the dealer put in. We start bucking. Pros wander over to show us how it is done. I look over, watch them , and realize what a schmuck I am. Those guys look sooooo smooth, graceful, confident.

one guy starts cutting down the log from me, and I find I'm cutting 3 bucks to his 2. He wanders off to sharpen his 044.
Other guy is cutting. I am bucking a little faster then him, but close. Turns out he has an 066.

So, the comparison was a pair of pros running working saws versus my BRAND NEW 7900, and I sort of kept up. to be fair, I had brand new chain, they had working mid day chain, but they were a lot better then me.

Later they asked me what chain I ran. I had no idea, so brought the saw over, and it turned otu we were running the same Oregon chain. Then we had a discussion about what the heck a Dolmar was. One old timer talked about a guy that cut with them for a lot of years.

This is a really cool experience. Those guys have soooo much experience on me, and we learned so much today.

For the 7 cords, we were just bucking and had a skidsteer to push rounds out of the way, and swapped saw operators, but I'm pretty happy with the 7900......

I have GOT to figure out a better program to sharpen my chain. Skidded logs are dirty, and we ended up spending a LOT of time with a stupid round file sharpening up the chain by teh end of the day.

 

[Freakingstang]

chaulk another one up for the 7900! lol.

It really is an awesome saw, to say the least.

i find carlton semi chisel chain to hold up very well in dirty wood. Alot of my cutting is done after i fell the branches and the trunk, it is drug to the langing with a tractor and will pick up dirt on the way. I use square filed chisel for the clean stuff and the semi chisel for the dirty stuff. Sounds like a fun day.

 

[ciscoguy01]

Oh yes

That plain out kicks A55. I am getting one also brotha. I shall conquer the dak's with it, lol. Prolly not, but I'll cut a bunch for sure, and I'll have a big smile while doing it. I'll bet you did also...

 

[drmiller100]

chaulk another one up for the 7900! lol.

It really is an awesome saw, to say the least.

i find carlton semi chisel chain to hold up very well in dirty wood. Alot of my cutting is done after i fell the branches and the trunk, it is drug to the langing with a tractor and will pick up dirt on the way. I use square filed chisel for the clean stuff and the semi chisel for the dirty stuff. Sounds like a fun day.

I'm new. and ignorant.

the loggers talked about feller chain, also called chisel chain. Said it cuts faster. I'm guessing that is square cut chain.
They said it requires a grinder, and you can't touch it up in the field.

cutting logs up that are laying in the road says that sooner or later I WILL screw up and run it through a rock, or the log will have a nail or something. Does that mean I will have to swap chains?????

 

[Freakingstang]

I'm new. and ignorant.

the loggers talked about feller chain, also called chisel chain. Said it cuts faster. I'm guessing that is square cut chain.
They said it requires a grinder, and you can't touch it up in the field.

cutting logs up that are laying in the road says that sooner or later I WILL screw up and run it through a rock, or the log will have a nail or something. Does that mean I will have to swap chains?????

Your not ignorant cause you don't know...

Chisel chain can be round or square. Round is easily filed, just like semi chisel, but cuts faster, but will dull quicker in dirt.

Square chain is ground on a grinder from the factory. most big time fallers will have theri own grinder. those that don't, and most loggers i have talked to will touch up square chains in the field with Chisel bit files. They are specifally meant for the square chain. I wouldn't recommend picking this up if you are just an avid firewood cutter. it takes a lot of time to learn and more time than round to sharpen. Really meant for softwoods, but I use it on hardwoods here in the east

 

[spacemule]

Your not ignorant cause you don't know...

Huh?

 

[Andyshine77]

You can hand file a square filed chain, but it's not easy.

If you hit a small nail you can hand file the chain in the field, but if you hit a big nail or a piece of metal you may need a new chain.

 

[Husky137]

Huh?

I think freakystain is confused by the difference between ignorant and stupid.

 

[B_Turner]

WEIRD situation.



For the 7 cords, we were just bucking and had a skidsteer to push rounds out of the way, and swapped saw operators, but I'm pretty happy with the 7900......

I have GOT to figure out a better program to sharpen my chain. Skidded logs are dirty, and we ended up spending a LOT of time with a stupid round file sharpening up the chain by teh end of the day.

Yes, anyone not run a 7900 just doesn't know what the big deal is. I have and do.

I find I am much more productive and mentally focused by bringing a bag of chains and not sharpening on site. Arborists friends have told me that the forestry profession has commissioned studies of efficiency and those studies also found pros that sharpened on site got less done in a day on average. And with logs/stumps that have been handled much by machine at all, the grit in the bark would have me sharpening more than cutting if I did it on site.

(The study was based on having a grinder at the base shop.)