It's this little guy. Will tackle anything within it's full 16 inch bar length, including hardwoods. Dry ash in this case, very tough stuff, makes you appreciate a good gas log splitter!
My friend uses a Husqvarna 455 and an Echo cs590. We compared the 3 saws, all three were running the same chain, a full chisel 3/8. My friend was very impressed by the power of the Homelite, he feels it was not much slower than the other 2 saws. I tried out all three back to back. The 455 was a bit faster than the Homelite, and the 590 was a bit faster than the 455- by about the same margin. That meant that in a 10 inch piece of wood we were only seeing of about 1 second difference in cut time each step up.
The 2 most noticeable differences were weight and vibration. The newer saws were a fair bit smoother, (AV) and in fact had a very similar "feel" to them, but the Homelite was by no means debilitating after 6 hours of cutting. The Homelite was considerably lighter than the other 2 and probably has a higher power to weight ratio judging by the cutting times. Oh yeah, all freshly sharpened or new chains were used, so a valid comparison.
Seeing how the trend for a persons body is to increase in age every year, I feel I will be leaving the big saws on the shelf until some very thick hardwood justifies their use.
My friend uses a Husqvarna 455 and an Echo cs590. We compared the 3 saws, all three were running the same chain, a full chisel 3/8. My friend was very impressed by the power of the Homelite, he feels it was not much slower than the other 2 saws. I tried out all three back to back. The 455 was a bit faster than the Homelite, and the 590 was a bit faster than the 455- by about the same margin. That meant that in a 10 inch piece of wood we were only seeing of about 1 second difference in cut time each step up.
The 2 most noticeable differences were weight and vibration. The newer saws were a fair bit smoother, (AV) and in fact had a very similar "feel" to them, but the Homelite was by no means debilitating after 6 hours of cutting. The Homelite was considerably lighter than the other 2 and probably has a higher power to weight ratio judging by the cutting times. Oh yeah, all freshly sharpened or new chains were used, so a valid comparison.
Seeing how the trend for a persons body is to increase in age every year, I feel I will be leaving the big saws on the shelf until some very thick hardwood justifies their use.
