Chain for Australian hardwood

[KASH]

Really enjoyed reading this thread.
If I have a tree that is dirty on one side I try to put the dirty side up and cut from the bottom up that way your chain throws the dirt away from the saw instead of pulling it into the saw.It still will dull if it is really dirty but most often the dirty section is at the base only for a cut or two.
Kash

 

[davidwyby]

395 is an animal….gotta get the chain juuuust right for euc. Gotta the perfect grab in the sharpening process and feed pressure. You either get no bite or too much. Now I know why the aussies always look like tweakers jerkin the saw aroundSharpening every 2-3 cuts. I tried 24” square this morning on the 2166. So smooth it doesn’t feel like it’s cutting. I thought about maybe taking the rakers down and getting some more bite…but I tried it in some Aleppo pine first and it had Plenty of bite in that. You will hear the 395 screaming and 4 stroking. Probably a little fat from the fuel change and also it’s work to keep up with it and keep the feed pressure right to keep the rpm right.

I think it’s easier to Stand Up and Buck with the 3120, 42” heavy bar and .404” and just let it eat vs. working the saw.

 

[davidwyby]

Really enjoyed reading this thread.
If I have a tree that is dirty on one side I try to put the dirty side up and cut from the bottom up that way your chain throws the dirt away from the saw instead of pulling it into the saw.It still will dull if it is really dirty but most often the dirty section is at the base only for a cut or two.
Kash

My stuff has been sitting out in the desert for 20 years, bark is long gone and dirt is in the cracks. Best I can do is pressure wash it out.

sure is beautiful wood, would like to make something from it.
I just remembered there’s a large blowdown outside town, I should see if I can have it and try some green.

 

[joe.snow]

Well I've been cutting lots of green eucalyptus the past 2.5 weeks and I've come to the conclusion that my .325 chain will cut the fastest if i use a combination of hand filing(3/16 file) and the 2 in 1. I start with the hand file to remove a little gullet, but the hand file wont completely hit the cutter if the gullet is removed. So i go over it again with the 2 in 1 for a few strokes, which hits the cutter but not the gullet.

 

[Fraser]

I only cut firewood for personal use which is old and sitting on the ground. The timber is hard use 30" bar with skip semi chisel and it works well. Usually can cut a load without touching up the chain ( 1.5 tanks) . Logs are 20 to 40" in diameter and covered in dirt and sometimes black from fires.

 

[camel2019]

I often tell Australian boys that I know much more about cutting Euc then they do and of course they say what they want. However California has the widest array of hardwoods and Euc that will rival any place in the world. I have cut Euc in several central to Northern Cal places with several in between. There is not any thing that compares to dried Euc in our desert communities with twenty plus years of blowing sand in the heat of the summer. It takes plenty of sharpening and patience to fill up a truck. Because Euc is so plentiful and does not decay it is often a very cheap alternative to Live Oak. I would have to say it burns fine even though you can not cook with it. Thanks

You say California has more hardwood then the rest of the world come on over to the Carolinian woodlands nothing comparable to Aussie Euc but plenty of species/sub species of a variety of hardwoods. All I ever see from that coast is dug fir.

 

[trains]

Well I've been cutting lots of green eucalyptus the past 2.5 weeks and I've come to the conclusion that my .325 chain will cut the fastest if i use a combination of hand filing(3/16 file) and the 2 in 1. I start with the hand file to remove a little gullet, but the hand file wont completely hit the cutter if the gullet is removed. So i go over it again with the 2 in 1 for a few strokes, which hits the cutter but not the gullet.

cutting green euc is like cutting balsa wood.

I let it dry off a bit if I can, so the leaf colour turns brown, less sap to gum up the chain, but still soft to cut.
Let it dry off for a year or so, and low rainfall growth is like iron.

 

[davidwyby]

Came across this thread again. Been dropping green euc...butta. I will have to let it dry a bit like you say @trains. Bit messy.

Previously I had only cut and split the dry dirty stuff. Yes, it's not crazy hard, just dirty. Stihl .404 semi chis or square is the best.

Been trying to get the green to hinge when felling, open block faces and high back cuts help. Haven't split it much yet but one round from right above the felling cuts split pretty easy with a 5lb axe. Limb wood hinges better and seems nearly impossible to split, rubbery.

 

[sean donato]

Not familiar with your trees so take this with a grain of salt. it looks like your not leaving enough holding/hinge wood imo. Looks like you cut through about half of it. Hard to tell about your face but from the side it looks a bit odd, which could just be the camera angle. Seems where your gun and bottom cut come together has a pretty wide margin, which could have been purposeful. Normally that's pretty tight even with a typical open face cut. Should make a "v" angle. Don't take any offense if I'm off base, again not familiar with that type of tree.

 

[davidwyby]

@sean donato You're kinda right, that face wasn't pretty...but the trees are just spars really, don't need a lot of holding. Some took way too much wedge beating so I got to where I pretty much just left the holding wood on the tension side. Euc is brittle and doesn't hinge well.




I edited 8 minutes of wedging out of this one. Should have just nipped the face.



I was successful in swinging that curved spar into the road vs. across it. Have some more bigger ones to drop, and more videos to upload. You can wander around my YT.

 

[davidwyby]

Kinda messed this one up. High back cut kinda makes some hinge time...but too high and it just snaps off at the upper face cut instead of the hinge peeling away from the stump.

 

[trains]

As your discovering, its strong, but brittle.
Have said before, it dosent hinge well. You can get it to do a bit, but dont expect much from it.

Yeah, open face sort of helps a bit, I use that on hung up pieces that I block down to vertical to give me a tiny bit more de ass the area time, but I think if you added side loading to that, you would find it would fail pretty quickly and you would loose control of the fall.
Rope up into the spar to overcome the initial strength of the hinge, and get it going where you want instead of chasing with wedges and then deciding to cut the hinge thinner and running quickly out of options.

Glad you noticed the difference of the growth of them, straight spar vs limbs that spread out quite a bit, the timber that grows on those weighted limbs is very different in structure than the straight stuff, and if you look closely, the upper wood in tension is different to the lower compression side too.
You notice it when cutting and definitely when splitting.
Plenty of green euc just off the stump cut that will bounce off a splitting maul.

Generally green euc can be easy to cut, but gum up your chain quite badly, so run it thru some dead stuff to clean the chain .

I prefer to bore cut, set hinge, know what I am dealing with re wood condition inside the stem, and then release with back cut.

 

[Bob Hedgecutter]

As your discovering, its strong, but brittle.
Have said before, it dosent hinge well. You can get it to do a bit, but dont expect much from it.

Yeah, open face sort of helps a bit, I use that on hung up pieces that I block down to vertical to give me a tiny bit more de ass the area time, but I think if you added side loading to that, you would find it would fail pretty quickly and you would loose control of the fall.
Rope up into the spar to overcome the initial strength of the hinge, and get it going where you want instead of chasing with wedges and then deciding to cut the hinge thinner and running quickly out of options.

Glad you noticed the difference of the growth of them, straight spar vs limbs that spread out quite a bit, the timber that grows on those weighted limbs is very different in structure than the straight stuff, and if you look closely, the upper wood in tension is different to the lower compression side too.
You notice it when cutting and definitely when splitting.
Plenty of green euc just off the stump cut that will bounce off a splitting maul.

Generally green euc can be easy to cut, but gum up your chain quite badly, so run it thru some dead stuff to clean the chain .

I prefer to bore cut, set hinge, know what I am dealing with re wood condition inside the stem, and then release with back cut.

Aussie trees eh? They have the same sense of humour as German saw designers.

Not only are they fun to fall- they are dicey to spur climb.

 

[trains]

Aussie trees eh? They have the same sense of humour as German saw designers.

Not only are they fun to fall- they are dicey to spur climb.

You have plenty of hard dicy stuff to cut over there too, so stop complaining .

 

[rogue60]

@sean donato You're kinda right, that face wasn't pretty...but the trees are just spars really, don't need a lot of holding. Some took way too much wedge beating so I got to where I pretty much just left the holding wood on the tension side. Euc is brittle and doesn't hinge well.




I edited 8 minutes of wedging out of this one. Should have just nipped the face.



I was successful in swinging that curved spar into the road vs. across it. Have some more bigger ones to drop, and more videos to upload. You can wander around my YT.

Looks like River Red Gum? is hard to say so many types of gums crap looking whatever it is but still make good firewood.
Not all Gums are soft and brittle would love to see ya cut some Grey Gum or Forest Red Gum they'll test ya filing out.





Here's some Grey Gum very hard dense timber.

 

[trains]

I thought they had mostly a type of blue gum over in the states.
Again, depends on rainfall and climate on how it can turn out.

 

[rogue60]

I thought they had mostly a type of blue gum over in the states.
Again, depends on rainfall and climate on how it can turn out.

Yeah could be Blue Gum? but they have such bad examples of our Gums horribly looking things is hard to identify them lol
Bark looks to white but could just be lighting in the vid? looking at a blue gum forest they give off a blue hue colour to them.

Like this.

 

[ericm979]

Here in California Blue Gum is the most common species of Eucalyptus. But I see some other species which I have not identified.

I have a stand of Blue Gum on my property which I am slowly getting rid of. In California Blue Gum are a fire hazard tree. Many of the Blue Gums here get rot in the core but I don't see many of them falling because of it.

 

[rogue60]

Here in California Blue Gum is the most common species of Eucalyptus. But I see some other species which I have not identified.

I have a stand of Blue Gum on my property which I am slowly getting rid of. In California Blue Gum are a fire hazard tree. Many of the Blue Gums here get rot in the core but I don't see many of them falling because of it.

Not sure why they chose Blue Gum and bad seed at that personally I don't rate it very high awful stuff to mill for timber for a few reasons and it doesn't have very good durability compared to other species of Eucalyptus. Even Spotted Gum would have been a far better choice IMHO but I guess one plus with Blue Gum it's like butter to cut.

 

[davidwyby]

Hey fellas. Thanks for the input/discussion. We have lots of different kinds of Euc. More planted yard trees than forests. San Diego county on the coast has some “forests” but I don’t know that they are intentional. I think they are blue gum. The ones I cut are in the desert but in irrigated ag areas so the water possibilities are all over the place. They also get hit with pesticides etc. sometimes.

The fencerow I’ve been working on was supposedly planted with 20 different species of Euc. I am just starting to try to learn which are what in the last couple years. I have a couple apps that help sometimes. I have ID’d iron bark(cut one), silver dollar. Most I think are red gum. They are thick at the bottom and quickly fork off into codoms. Most are smooth bars but some are flaky (center) and some have lines like cedar or mesquite (2nd from left).




The trees I have been dropping have been trimmed and topped to spars basically so I have been able to get them to do what I want a little. I pull them or change limb weight from a lift when needed but mostly there are no major obstacles.

This one at my buddy’s I could not get high enough to piece down and it was hanging over the wall so I took all precautions. Adjusted limb weight, measured face cut and hinge from a stake, and winched it over.



I could see it being sketchy to spur as the bark falls off easily.

@ericm979 I have been up there cutting with @Bob95065 once.