More power from MS280

[elektrobot]

Well,

My name is Aaron, and I'm a homeowner user.

I bought my first saw last winter, and was pretty chicken sh!t about it- so I got a smaller saw with some extra safety features, like the secondary quick stop brake mounted on the rear handle. I like the saw, and I'm becoming familiar with how it handles in the wood- but it would be great to squeeze out a little more power from this thing. It's got an 18" bar and I am frequently burying it in oak and hickory that would normally be considered to big for this saw. Maybe some day I'll step up to a 361 or maybe even a new 441, but for now- the 280 is what I have to work with. Is there a 6 spur drum or rim that would give it more torque over the current 7 spur drum? I know this is not a very popular saw, so thanks in advance to anyone who has some input.

 

[begleytree]

that 280 should pull a 18" bar burried in hardwood easily, imo.
No 6 pin sprockets that I know of.
could always use 1/2 skip instead of full comp, but thats avoiding the problem, not fixing it imo.
you could also drop down to .325 pitch, ( if you're running 3/8) sprockets come in 7,8 and 9 pin stock
sounds like your muffler needs opened, and the carb adjusted.
-Ralph

 

[computeruser]

The usual suggestions would apply here, I'd think: maybe open up the muffler (and re-tune the saw afterwards!) and definitely make sure that you're always running a nice, sharp chain. I don't think that a 6T sprocket exists for that saw and even if it did, here in the mid-west the saw is properly matched with 7t/.325, and an 18" bar is well within what you can expect that saw to competently handle.

I have never used one of these saws, but owned a 290 for a few years and now own an 026; power output of the 280 on paper is roughly in between those two saws. In my experience with the 290, which is probalby a closer comparison than the 026, performance all came down to the chain. Running Stihl RS or RM, kept sharp, and it was a decent saw in green hardwood. RM2 safety chain with a crummy sharpening job, it was horrible, tedious. Keep your cutters sharp, don't get your rakers down too low, and let the saw work at its own pace - smaller bites with higher chain speed is the best way to get the full potential out of that saw.

If I were you and trying to get the most out of that saw, I would put my efforts into getting my sharpening as good as it could be. When you have extra power you can make an inefficient chain do an OK job, but when you're using most/all of what the saw has to offer then the quality of your sharpening matters all that much more.

 

[omegajim]

In complete agreement with computeruser. Keep the chain sharp, if you don't want to sharpen in the field take 2 - 3 extra chains along.

I want to share a story from when I was a lad, along these lines. When I was a teenager and didn't know any better, I finished a job my father had started, but the chain was dull as hell. Long and the short of it, a job that should've taken 20 - 30 minutes maybe 40 on the outside, took nearly 2 hours. I was quite young and if I had ANY idea how to sharpen a chain at all at that time, a great deal of pain would have been saved.

Generally speaking, two tanks of gas (maybe three, but that's really pushing it) is the interval I like to file the chain. Also, as computeruser mentioned keep an eye on the raker height. Confused? Buy the $3 chain guide at the store and you can easily (well maybe not easily) eye up if your rakers are at the proper height. Too big a drop(0.030" and that's just 0.005 more) and the saw will bog. Not enough, and no matter how sharp the chain is, you'll barely cut and be revving the p*ss out of the saw.