jomoco
Tree Freak
I had an interesting experience a few years ago when I went up to the Lake Arrowhead area to work and spend time with a friend that had called me saying how impressed he was by the loggers that had come down to work the area after the recent fires.
I got hired by an outfit doing dead tree removal around the shore line of Lake Arrowhead itself. No doubt this logging outfit was good, they had an old world war two tank landing craft on the lake, they'd run it up on the beach drop the gate, run out a big tracked bobcat with a grapple attachment. They would drop as many trees as possible, load the slash into the bottom of the landing craft with the bobcat, then load the 33 foot logs onto the landing craft sideways across the gunwales until the boat could take no more, then fire up the twin detroit turbo diesels, back off the beach and off to the main landing to unload.
These guys were fast, highly mechanized and very productive, Their problem was the trees that couldn't be dropped, and their lack of a climber that could get them down with no damage to the private residences owned by various movie stars like Kevin Costner, Winona Ryder, Vanna White etc.
The owner of the outfit was a third generation logger that was a very highly respected no nonsense, hands on guy that at the end of the day was indistinguishable from any of the other of his dirty dust covered mud grimed employees. I liked the guy right away, and he liked me because I had solved his problem of getting these giant pines and cedars onto the ground safely and with no damage. I showed them how to speedline heads and logs onto the beach, and false crotch big wood down over houses, walkways, boat docks etc.
One day the owner and I were driving out to look at a particularly challenging swath of trees in his truck, when he stopped at a gas station saying he needed to fill up chainsaw mix cans. I jumped out and grabbed the premium grade pump nozzle to start filling the containers, when he said " no, not that one, the regular " shocked and surprised I did as he asked while trying to explain to him that high compression saws like the Stihls that his crews used required a high octane fuel. He got a little pissed with me saying he'd been running regular gas in his saws his whole life with no problem, and wasn't about to change now. So I shut up.
Now it's my understanding that you can get away with running regular grade fuel in the lower compression saws like Huskies and others, but not the high compression saws like Stihls. I noticed later that the owner of this outfit had a huge pile of blown up 66's, 88's, 46's etc. all Stihls.
My question is who was right, and what are your fuel grade preferances for your expensive saws. I myself never used any of Matt's fuel mix while I worked for his outfit, though he was one of the most skilled loggers I've ever met.
jomoco
I got hired by an outfit doing dead tree removal around the shore line of Lake Arrowhead itself. No doubt this logging outfit was good, they had an old world war two tank landing craft on the lake, they'd run it up on the beach drop the gate, run out a big tracked bobcat with a grapple attachment. They would drop as many trees as possible, load the slash into the bottom of the landing craft with the bobcat, then load the 33 foot logs onto the landing craft sideways across the gunwales until the boat could take no more, then fire up the twin detroit turbo diesels, back off the beach and off to the main landing to unload.
These guys were fast, highly mechanized and very productive, Their problem was the trees that couldn't be dropped, and their lack of a climber that could get them down with no damage to the private residences owned by various movie stars like Kevin Costner, Winona Ryder, Vanna White etc.
The owner of the outfit was a third generation logger that was a very highly respected no nonsense, hands on guy that at the end of the day was indistinguishable from any of the other of his dirty dust covered mud grimed employees. I liked the guy right away, and he liked me because I had solved his problem of getting these giant pines and cedars onto the ground safely and with no damage. I showed them how to speedline heads and logs onto the beach, and false crotch big wood down over houses, walkways, boat docks etc.
One day the owner and I were driving out to look at a particularly challenging swath of trees in his truck, when he stopped at a gas station saying he needed to fill up chainsaw mix cans. I jumped out and grabbed the premium grade pump nozzle to start filling the containers, when he said " no, not that one, the regular " shocked and surprised I did as he asked while trying to explain to him that high compression saws like the Stihls that his crews used required a high octane fuel. He got a little pissed with me saying he'd been running regular gas in his saws his whole life with no problem, and wasn't about to change now. So I shut up.
Now it's my understanding that you can get away with running regular grade fuel in the lower compression saws like Huskies and others, but not the high compression saws like Stihls. I noticed later that the owner of this outfit had a huge pile of blown up 66's, 88's, 46's etc. all Stihls.
My question is who was right, and what are your fuel grade preferances for your expensive saws. I myself never used any of Matt's fuel mix while I worked for his outfit, though he was one of the most skilled loggers I've ever met.
jomoco
