Squidward
ArboristSite Lurker
Drove down with my 100# wife(!) to help my Mom clean up from Hurricane Beryl. Low category storm, but still had fairly high winds and ground was super wet.
Knocked over old growth pines (some over 100 years old) all through my mother's neighborhood.
Took my Echo 7310 and 2511T, also 23 year old Stihl MS 290 Farm Boss and an electric pole saw.
Some observations:
1) All the saws had a couple of tough moments starting hot in heat and humidity. That same heat/humidity 91-95 degrees at times, 80% or more humidity wears you out, leading to some operator errors. Pulling the cord on saw with empty tank. Not pulling choke lever when you should, or pulling it when you shouldn't.
2) The 7310 cut some big downed trees. It sectioned up a good bit of pine half as wide as I am tall. Old pine with a lot of resin. Definitely not softer commercial pine. I lost count at over 91 tree rings, and that was not at the base.
3) The Farm Boss has a lot of years on it and a scored piston, but if you squirt starter fluid in the spark plug hole it will start, run and do some good work still. Once it's warm, you can restart it pretty easily.
4) The 2511 was a lot of help in limbing the downed pine and cutting up smaller stuff without wearing yourself out in the heat. It did get a bar pinched and badly bent. That lightweight gives and takes away.
But mostly it was very handy.
5) Big pine that fell knocked a 25-30 foot cedar to the ground. I was surprised at how heavy cedar is for its diameter. Cedar throws some interesting chips.
6) The awkward way the trees fell and the weight of the trunk sections meant you had to keep alert for threat of pinching the bar. Usually I would have a jack or the forks of my John Deere tractor to relieve pressure. But due to the rain, a jack would not have worked. And I would have had to transport the tractor 1000+ miles to get it there. Even lashed up in a trailer, I did not want to risk tipping it on a curve, and it would have probably reduced gas mileage for the commute to about 12 mpg. With a full load of other saws, tools, dog crates, wife and two German Shepherds, truck got right at 19.5 MPG, driving fast.
Mostly I avoided pinches with wedges, back cuts, notching, etc. One pinch on a piece of suspended oak trunk I got free with a cant hook.
7) I would have loved to have some of the pine saw milled. They don't grow 'em like that anymore .
8) Burned mostly canned gas, Red Armor. Also some Red Armor mixed in gallon of premium pump gas. Some Echo stuff can be pretty sensitive to moisture in the gas. At one point, 7310 was hard to start after I filled it from the pump gas can, so I drained it, replaced with Red Armor canned stuff. Whether that was really the issue or not, it ran great afterwards. Thought about getting some pure gas at Buccees, but we did not encounter many. I was a little leery of pump gas in Houston where some of the gas stations had suffered power loss and the gas just sat for a week or so.
I grew up in Houston, buddy and I used to occasionally fell and cut up trees as a side hustle, with his Stihl, my grand dad's Craftsman. But I was young and used to the heat then. I've had over 40 years to get unused to it.
Hard to say who drank more--me with Gatorade and water, saws with 2cycle gas. Luckily the power got restored mid-week, so AC was back in business.
Knocked over old growth pines (some over 100 years old) all through my mother's neighborhood.
Took my Echo 7310 and 2511T, also 23 year old Stihl MS 290 Farm Boss and an electric pole saw.
Some observations:
1) All the saws had a couple of tough moments starting hot in heat and humidity. That same heat/humidity 91-95 degrees at times, 80% or more humidity wears you out, leading to some operator errors. Pulling the cord on saw with empty tank. Not pulling choke lever when you should, or pulling it when you shouldn't.
2) The 7310 cut some big downed trees. It sectioned up a good bit of pine half as wide as I am tall. Old pine with a lot of resin. Definitely not softer commercial pine. I lost count at over 91 tree rings, and that was not at the base.
3) The Farm Boss has a lot of years on it and a scored piston, but if you squirt starter fluid in the spark plug hole it will start, run and do some good work still. Once it's warm, you can restart it pretty easily.
4) The 2511 was a lot of help in limbing the downed pine and cutting up smaller stuff without wearing yourself out in the heat. It did get a bar pinched and badly bent. That lightweight gives and takes away.
But mostly it was very handy.
5) Big pine that fell knocked a 25-30 foot cedar to the ground. I was surprised at how heavy cedar is for its diameter. Cedar throws some interesting chips.
6) The awkward way the trees fell and the weight of the trunk sections meant you had to keep alert for threat of pinching the bar. Usually I would have a jack or the forks of my John Deere tractor to relieve pressure. But due to the rain, a jack would not have worked. And I would have had to transport the tractor 1000+ miles to get it there. Even lashed up in a trailer, I did not want to risk tipping it on a curve, and it would have probably reduced gas mileage for the commute to about 12 mpg. With a full load of other saws, tools, dog crates, wife and two German Shepherds, truck got right at 19.5 MPG, driving fast.
Mostly I avoided pinches with wedges, back cuts, notching, etc. One pinch on a piece of suspended oak trunk I got free with a cant hook.
7) I would have loved to have some of the pine saw milled. They don't grow 'em like that anymore .
8) Burned mostly canned gas, Red Armor. Also some Red Armor mixed in gallon of premium pump gas. Some Echo stuff can be pretty sensitive to moisture in the gas. At one point, 7310 was hard to start after I filled it from the pump gas can, so I drained it, replaced with Red Armor canned stuff. Whether that was really the issue or not, it ran great afterwards. Thought about getting some pure gas at Buccees, but we did not encounter many. I was a little leery of pump gas in Houston where some of the gas stations had suffered power loss and the gas just sat for a week or so.
I grew up in Houston, buddy and I used to occasionally fell and cut up trees as a side hustle, with his Stihl, my grand dad's Craftsman. But I was young and used to the heat then. I've had over 40 years to get unused to it.
Hard to say who drank more--me with Gatorade and water, saws with 2cycle gas. Luckily the power got restored mid-week, so AC was back in business.
