Scrench mod and carry
- Thread starter maowwg
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IntegrityCarpentry
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https://westcoastsaw.com/products/ratchetscrench-tool v3 is available now. $20 plus shipping. Another site Buckin promoted sold out at $30
As a guy who has just cut his own firewood on a number of steep acres for a couple of decades, I'm curious. How often do the rest of you guys have to replace sparkplugs? Is it worth carrying a dull t-handled pushknife on your body just waiting to stab through important parts of you if you slip and fall? Especially dangling from a cord? I'm surprised at how few seem to even use a short piece of PVC pipe or smaller plastic tubing as a scabbard. But then, some get off on pain...
Scrench is for chain tension and adjustment and chain replacement. That it usually fits the spark plug is mostly a bonus.
I was thinking of how it is configured. A hand-friendly large rounded handle, and about six inches of dull stilletto blade. It seems to me that they were designed to be cheap to make and give the manufacturer an excuse to claim they provided useful tools. As a lifelong mechanic, I'm not impressed with it's design as a tool. It's nearly optimized to penetrate the user in a fall in order to save 15 cents in manufacturing. Beancounter design.
Anyway, I'm just a mechanic and not going to further fight chainsaw tradition. It is what it is.
BTW, I took an appropriate junk box end wrench that fits the bar nuts, and ground the other end to fit the adjusting screwdriver slot.It's much less clumsy than a scrench. I stuck it in a piece of tubing and put it in my pocket. If the spark plug goes bad, I have the luxury of going back to the garage and changing it out. If I was working 30 miles from home, I might make a point of having a small toolbox handy.
There were some 2-piece designs that you might find safer.
Like plumbing wrenches. Tube that fits over the bar nuts. Screwdriver fits crosswise though the tube to tighten / loosen. Won’t poke you as a ‘T’ wrench. Easy to lose pieces.
Guys who use socket or conventional wrenches sometimes over tighten bar nuts and strip out studs. The ‘cheap’ wrenches actually act somewhat as a limit.
Philbert
Like plumbing wrenches. Tube that fits over the bar nuts. Screwdriver fits crosswise though the tube to tighten / loosen. Won’t poke you as a ‘T’ wrench. Easy to lose pieces.
Guys who use socket or conventional wrenches sometimes over tighten bar nuts and strip out studs. The ‘cheap’ wrenches actually act somewhat as a limit.
Philbert
I'm used to making my own tools. A slightly offset open end wrench with the other end ground to fit the tensioning screw works better for me than the factory scrench, and I imagine there are better designs. I still don't like the semi-pointed end if I don't put it in some kind of scabbard, but I was mostly just blowing off steam about how much worse the factory tool seems to me.
So don't pay too much attention to the n00b.
A few screnches from the scrench farm. I also have a few flat ones, but they are packed with those saws right now. The 2-piece one, shown, goes with a string trimmer, so it has a Phillips tip, instead of a flat blade.
On many older saws, spark plugs got pulled a lot, due to flooding and fouling. Does not seem to happen as much, these days, so a separate spark plug tool could be an easy thing to accommodate.
The reason I mentioned ‘cheap wrench’ thing is that I did not believe it, until it happened to me. Tried to loosen the bar nuts on someone’s MS250 (plastic case), and my scrench bent into a spiral, like it was made out of lead solder.
They said that their scrench was misplaced, so they used a 3/8” ratchet. Clearly easy to over torque with those. Was lucky that we did not strip those bar studs.
Philbert
On many older saws, spark plugs got pulled a lot, due to flooding and fouling. Does not seem to happen as much, these days, so a separate spark plug tool could be an easy thing to accommodate.
The reason I mentioned ‘cheap wrench’ thing is that I did not believe it, until it happened to me. Tried to loosen the bar nuts on someone’s MS250 (plastic case), and my scrench bent into a spiral, like it was made out of lead solder.
They said that their scrench was misplaced, so they used a 3/8” ratchet. Clearly easy to over torque with those. Was lucky that we did not strip those bar studs.
Philbert
Here is another thread you might like.
Folding scrench (also photos of a few more styles, including one similar to what you describe?):
https://www.arboristsite.com/threads/new-flat-scrench.304350/
(EDIT: Removed link to this thread!).
Philbert
Folding scrench (also photos of a few more styles, including one similar to what you describe?):
https://www.arboristsite.com/threads/new-flat-scrench.304350/
(EDIT: Removed link to this thread!).
Philbert
HansFranz
Addicted to ArboristSite
Gotta love it when, while discussing the finer points of juggling 6 running chainsaws, somebody gets all a-fret over the possibility that a few drops of bar oil flying off the bars of those WOT chainsaws might fall onto the floor and make it slippery. SAFETY FORST!
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Please, please, please- somebody- anybody! Someone please research the number of A&E admissions for scrench related epidermis puncture wounds versus chainsaw related ones....... PLEASE!
ning
ArboristSite Lurker
I cut my scabbard just a bit long, got the scrench warm and stuck it through the end.
It's a snug fit to get in and out and it definitely won't fall out, and I can always find it now just by looking for the scabbard.
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I have on an electrician’s leather belt with tool pouch when I’m out in the woods cutting firewood. The heavy leather Pouch fits 3 wedges, and has two closed-end screw driver holders where the screnches go. I bring a long handled axe for pounding in the wedges, but might try adding the neat Estwing leather handled woodsman hatchet I got for Christmas if not too heavy. Quick to pound in wedges when bar gets jammed.
HansFranz
Addicted to ArboristSite
I cut my scabbard just a bit long, got the scrench warm and stuck it through the end.
Call me lazy and unimaginative, but I just use the scrench-holder that's already molded into my Stihl scabbard:
No aortas, left ventricles, eyebones or earballs were punctured in the making of this image...
This is where mine sits as well, however, I put a rubber band around mine as it likes to fall out.Call me lazy and unimaginative, but I just use the scrench-holder that's already molded into my Stihl scabbard:
No aortas, left ventricles, eyebones or earballs were punctured in the making of this image...
Why? Because I mentioned that I am uncomfortable personally carrying some scrench designs? It's not like I called for banning them. Sheesh!
Apparently I'm either an excessively woke *****, or a wildly unsafe animal. Because I think it would be reasonable to carry a scrench on my body in a way that won't impale me instead of leaving it over there on my chainsaw case. But some also think it's ridiculous for me to consider the possibility that I might fall and get impaled and should just carry the scrench jammed in my belt or something.Call me lazy and unimaginative, but I just use the scrench-holder that's already molded into my Stihl scabbard:
No aortas, left ventricles, eyebones or earballs were punctured in the making of this image...
Come on guys. Is this forum that divided about safety?
No. You prove that deep puncture wounds are insignificant.
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