FSburt
ArboristSite Operative
Ok I have had this Dolmar for a couple of yrs now and would like to present my thoughts on what is going well with this saw and what sucks. My first muliple day falling job I just came off of was as a faller on the Chips fire located on the Plumas and Lassen NF. I was not assigned as a faller but my last 3 days I offered my cutting services since our division was very short handed and all we had were us 2 field observers and the forest dozer who was pushing line. There were alot of fallers on this fire I think somewhere in the number of 20 + sets but they where being kept on the more active high priority sections along hwy 89 on the east side of the fire. So back to the saw. Well I was up around 6800 ft in elevation just south of Soda Ridge in old growth red fir stands. Saw started out cutting very well for the first few trees but I started to notice it kinda bogging out after about 3 big trees. It was most pronouced on the sloping cut. I did not think too much about it at first but it kept getting worse so I pulled the filter and low and behold its all clogged up. Now this seems like a no brainer but with my Shihl it would cut for at least half the day and not get this bad for power loss. Well tapped the filter out like the factory recommends and the glue or whatever is used to hold it to the plastic breaks loose and the element comes totally detached. Not good for the first couple of hrs of cutting. So after some quick duct tape fix I got back in there and kept cutting and found out the fleece cover is what clogs up the worse and almost to the point of the saw being unsafe to cut with especially on backcuts. At this point I came real close to pulling the safety card since the line safety officer was watching me struggle with this saw. Well I pulled off the fleece cover and low and behold the saw cut like a champ. So gotta say for a heavy duty filter system my experiece is from a production standpoint it sucks. I am seriously thinking of how I could rig up a foam filter element or if there are any aftermarket air filters out there for this saw. Since this filter is too weak and flimsy to hold up. I cut for 2 more full days after this and the saw ran fine with the fleece cover off which I know is not the best for it but when your working under a fire weakened tree the last thing I want is a ####ty running saw.
Now for the good part. When I did get the filter issue temporarily corrected this saw cut like a champ. I used a Husky 385 for a few hrs just the see the differnce and wow I went right back to the dolmar jimmy rigged filter and all just because it ran so much better. I was running a 32" bar with full skip round ground chisel. I was working in trees that where 30-50" dbh on ave with big ones being 60-75" dbh and this saw did fine for all these trees. So my conclusion is carry extra filters and hopefully someone will come up with aftermarket filter that will work better. Other than that I was impressed with the power for the weight of the saw. View attachment 251412View attachment 251413
Now for the good part. When I did get the filter issue temporarily corrected this saw cut like a champ. I used a Husky 385 for a few hrs just the see the differnce and wow I went right back to the dolmar jimmy rigged filter and all just because it ran so much better. I was running a 32" bar with full skip round ground chisel. I was working in trees that where 30-50" dbh on ave with big ones being 60-75" dbh and this saw did fine for all these trees. So my conclusion is carry extra filters and hopefully someone will come up with aftermarket filter that will work better. Other than that I was impressed with the power for the weight of the saw. View attachment 251412View attachment 251413
