Sears Pro
Well, I dropped by Sears, just to see what the Redmax/Ryobi/Craftsman Pro saw actually looked like in person and how it felt to heft. I certainly was NOT going to spend $369 plus tax for one! Well, turns out they had an "open box" one on the shelf. Marked down to $277. Still too much for a hundred dollar saw (if you can find one, that is!). The sales guy says that it's missing the case....I show him on my Droid phone that Sears has it on sale anyway for $249. He knocks another 30% off that price for no case and some more because he can't lay his hands on the wrench. So.....at $166 it's more than I wanted to spend, a lot more that you lucky folks paid for yours, but at least I could cut with it today.
Took it back to the shop and tore it apart before I put gas and oil in it.
I figured there was not much sense in running it stock if I could do the muff mod and the intake mod right off the bat. Sigh. No such luck! The carb screws defeated my best efforts to get at them! There is NO way a hemostat could grab what look like caps over the screws. I couldn't even get my surgical tweezers on 'em! The carb was "Made in China" (although the sticker on the saw says "Made in Japan". ZAMA. The "plugs" are made of alloy and are retained by small brass balls that fit into a small recess cast into the plug. There is a hole in the center and it appears that the adjustment screw itself is hidden back behind all of this. Is this what a DD driver fits? I've never seen one, so help me out here.
So, after checking things out a bit, I put the saw back together and go to put my Oregon bar and chain off my old Echo (dead) on it as it's 14" and I have a bunch of new chain already made up for it. The adjuster for the Sears saw is some EZAdjust rack 'n pinion affair that seems pretty cheezy, but I figure there must be a "normal" adjustment setup. There is....sorta. The case is machined for a typical screw type adjuster that carries a threaded drive pin for the hole in the bar, but the screw mechanism itself is missing. Does anybody know what fits and where to get it? The one off the Echo was much too small. I looked on Bailey's but got lost and they're closed now. Manana, maybe.
So I mount up the stock 18" bar and chain and wander out to the wood pile. Since I can't do the muff mod I just run the thing "stock". I put in 40:1 gas, but that's new for me as my Stihls and Huskies run 50:1. It fires right up, is pretty quiet and runs just fine, thank you very much. A bit down on power, maybe, but if I can figure out the carb adjustment then I can do the muff mod for more HP.
Overall, after running a tank of gas through it I'm pretty happy. I don't see anything else out there on the market for under $200 that I would rather have. It's light, it has a rear handle, it has pretty good power, carries a 3 year warranty, and seems well built. Lots of plastic, but it's GOOD plastic....:biggrinbounce2: They seemed to put metal in the right places and plastic in the rest of the saw for light weight.
One final question: do you experts think I can run the same mix in both the Sears (40:1) and the rest of the saws (normally 50:1)? I was a bit surprised at the 40:1 since the saw is supposedly pretty clean burning. Green? Eco-friendly? PC? Screw that! Gimme the power!!! :chainsawguy: