Servicing your moneymaking equipment

[MasterBlaster]

Nah, just a younger, less-refined version of me.

 

[Menchhofer]

No, you are not the only one.....

We keep on top of the saw services much as you do. We carry enough saws so if there is a problem we just switch to another until we return home where the saw is either sharpened or serviced.

Then there is additional maintenance on the stump grinder, bucket, powertrac, chipper and truck. Along with washing and waxing the vehicles and equipment. Seems never ending but well worth the time spent in the long run.

 

[jkrueger]

Rocky, I agree with your approach. It's just that many don't have the machine mentality I guess. I have to borrow 2 chain saws for Mon. and it's Sun. night and your thread has had me go, ..., agghh, the guy I got these saws from never does maintenance, will they run and do the job?

Thanks for the reminder.

Jack

 

[rahtreelimbs]

No need to mention here that I have quite a few saws. Now that the peak season is here saw maintenance is up also. With all the recent saw purchases I am trying to give each saw a good bit of run time. This is really moot though, as I am much the perfectionist too. Usually everytime a saw goes out I will remove and clean the bar and the air filter. The whole saw will get blown off with compressed air also. The chain will also be sharpened. I will usually tear the saws down once or twice a year to check everything over.

Understand that I only do treework in the evenings and on weekends. I work during the day in a totally unrelated field. The saws can sit a few days if necessary. If I did treework fulltime I don't know how I would manage that cleanup schedule on the saws, but anyone who knows me would know that somehow I would manage to find the time.

 

[murphy4trees]

I wish i took care of my saws like that... I met another tree guy years ago at a chainsaw shop... he was bringing in an 020 and asked me how old do i think that saw is? I said six months... he said 4 years....

I pretty much do the minimun to keep enough good saws around to get the job done... I have three echo 3400's in the truck right now and two 44's and a newer 440. And a newer 460 in the stump grinding truck I can move to the tree truck as needed...

A few months back I reorganized my shed and found 5 or 6 brand new 20" chains, which got lost in the shuffle... So much to do, so little time, and mechanical is not my strength... However i don't like cutting with a dull saw, and I take the time to put an edge on when the files are where they are supposed to be...

I have a handyman, whom is skilled mechanically... I'd like to train him to service the saws, chipper and stump grinder at least one day a week... I showed him some basic saw maintenance.. he has never worked on saws before. Any good references I can get to him that you can think of..

Thanks

 

[OutOnaLimb]

Rocky, I was this close to posting the exact same thread. I spent the afternoon cleaning up the saws. Took the truck down to the car wash and cleaned it up and ordered new filters, plugs and files for my saws. Every Sunday afternoon is a ritual where I sit down with some beer and give my saws the once over. I dont have time to be screwing around with saws on the job site. Once I get there its up, up, up, and away we go. if my groundie rocks a saw during the day, we switch out for another and I sharpen it when I get home that night. Now if I could just convince him to bring a lunch instead of going to Burger King every day. we would be rollin.

Kenn:Monkey:

 

[xander9727]

When I first started my company I did all of the corrective and preventative maintenance. Now I find it easier to pay someone to do it and just check to make sure it was done. Also with saws that take a lot of use and abuse (limbing saws usually) I find it's a good idea to ebay them away after a couple of years. With larger bucking and felling saws I just repair and rebuild them as needed.
I have maintenance schedules for the grinder, chipper, trucks and loader. Without them, things would be over looked. I try to operated each piece of equipment at least once a week to detect any potential problems. Most of the time your lucky if they check the gas.....you can forget about anything else. Vehicles today have become so reliable that most people never check the fluids, tire pressure, etc. It's times like these my signature gets the most use.

 

[dbeck]

never mind simple stuff like dressing bars or blowing out air filters.

Don't the saw manuals say to use soap and water, not compressed air, to clean your air filters?

 

[rahtreelimbs]

Re: Re: Servicing your moneymaking equipment

Originally posted by dbeck
never mind simple stuff like dressing bars or blowing out air filters.

Don't the saw manuals say to use soap and water, not compressed air, to clean your air filters?

When I said I used compressed air, I meant to clean the powerhead. The filter gets the soap & water deal.

 

[geofore]

servicing saws

I think I spent more time with Jaymay75, going over the need for servicing his saw/ inspecting equipment daily than we spent on ropes, block& tackles, rope pullers, caribiners and the like. We touched up his chain, deburred the bar and flipped it over, cleaned and test the chainbrake and talked about how much money he'd save with a sevicing plan on a regular time table. He left with a hank of Blue Streak and a hank of Safety Blue which he said he will use to pull with not climb on. He's not in the biz but he said he'd like to come out and watch or do the groundman thing to learn about it.

 

[Stumper]

I spent a lot of the weekend working on equipment. A couple of cracked welds on the chipper frame got rewelded. The old chipper got fresh knives and I resharpened a couple of old sets. Pulled the cutter side bearing and cleaned out the vined bark, Reset the disc alignment. Reset the bed knife. Greased everything. Rewelded the cracked expanded metal vent in the belt/engine guard and repainted it.
I try to care for my saws but honestly a lot of that gets done on the job. I occassionally pull filters or dress a bar at the end of a day but usually that makes for a 15 minute "break"at the jobsite. I have a pile of saws in the garage that I haven't got around to fixing-2 are used saws I bought as projects and 2 are saws that I just pulled out of service and replaced with similar sized saws that are running good. One needs a carb kit and the other an intake boot.-No time right now-If I didn't have spares I'd take the time but they can wait for a slack period. Greasing equipment happens every week-sometimes more often if it is being run the hours to require it. Oil changes may get but off for a couple hours of operation but are never let go. Clean oil and fresh grease keep engines happy.

All of which says-I believe in maintenance and get years and years out of my equipment but don't do it as nicely as you do Brian.:angel:

 

[Dadatwins]

Service all my own stuff pretty regularly. Change truck oil every 3K, chain saws get blown out , never with any soapy water on the filter? Do my own chains so I usually swap used for just sharpened. Stay on top of problems with saws before they happen cause I hate being on job and something breaks. Stump machine gets mains greased before every job, even take it to local self car wash for a cleanup every couple of weeks and regrease entire machine. Old habits from years of my dad tree business, before we left every morning every piece of equipment was gased, oil checked, and greased. He would not pay anyone to do the work so I learned to do it all from chipper blades, brake jobs to hydro lines by the book. All good to know and use. Like the title of thread says $$$ making equipment. Broken equipment = no $$$$

 

[wiley_p]

I spend 7 hrs a week keeping 6 saws in working order, another 3-4 on the chippper and stumpgrinder. Rocky I wash my filterss in hot soapy water, done that for 19 years now, Thats normal to me. It takes a day to dry out, can be done in the oven at 150 degrees but that normally gets me in a heated discussion with the roomie. Clean fuel tanks about once a month, grease clutch bearing every 40-50 hrs, dress bars as needed, chain always sharp, flip bar daily, sprockets as needed etc. Noone who has purchased a retired saw from me has had an issue yet.

 

[jamie]

as and when

it all gets done as and when required. if a saw hits something, if we are in a hurry we grab another, if we have a bit of time that person rubs it.....if we are quiet for a bit i generally sharpen saws, flip the bar and clean out the sidecasing, clean air filters.....we slosh some petrol over them.....

jamie

 

[Ax-man]

My maintenance on equipment is pretty much the same as everyone else who has posted here. There isn't to much I haven't done over the years. My problem is that as every year goes by I lose my desire to get motovated to do it. I've spent too many hours, nights and weekends working on saws, trucks and other equipment getting greasy from head to toe, getting doused in oil and antifreeze, ruining good work cloths, fighting other peoples bad maintenance and cheap fixes. I used to enjoy it, but now I would rather hire it out or find some one like Murph has.

One thing I didn't see mentioned when it comes to saw fixing,, after you blow off the coarse stuff, any one spray their saws down with a mild degreaser like Simple Green, helps to loosen that caked on set in oil and grime, after that I spray them down with carb cleaner for like a final cleaning, after I reassemble the saws I spray the bodies down with carb spray and the blow that off. The carb spray not only cleans but also acts like a dryer to get rid of all that oily film the compressor leaves behind.

As far as I'm concerned working on your own equipment is almost a must do if you cannot afford the luxury of a good mechanic, trouble is these are hours you don't really get paid for, but in some way I feel should be figured into your overhead. There is as much time and effort going on behind the scenes to do maintenance that keeps equipment in good working order that the customer just doesn't see. Unfortunately not everyone in the business shares this view, other wise they would be charging more, instead of less than what we do.

Larry

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

I tend to buy the very best tools I can afford, and then proceed to beat the crap out of them, both with hard use and negligence.
For example, if I dull a saw, it gets thrown in a pile until I need it again, then I get it out and sharpen it. Sometimes the pile gets big and I feel overwhelmed by the work they need and I just buy new ones.
It sounds stupid, but it works for me and I get new tools pretty often. If I worked on them all the time, I would want to get rid of them and I'd still be running two man saws.

 

[Ax-man]

So now we know why you need to get paid so much, you are always buying those new toys.

Larry

 

[dbeck]

rocky, do you add oily residue to your car air filter so it can collect particles better also? I don't really know, but i think your theory there is incorrect which is why saw makers tell us to use soap and water - to getr that oil out. I imagine that oil has to rob the engine of some oxygen also.
clean your saws on friday after work, let the filters dry over weekend.

 

[murphy4trees]

I heard years ago that diesel would do a good job of cleaning the air filters... And I remember when I bought my 084, it came with a little red oil that was supposed to be put on the filters after cleaning with soap and water.....

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

Each type of filter has a different "best way" to clean it.
The foam filters like on the inside and outside of the paper filters, get soap and water, dried, then a drop or two of oil.
The white plastic filters like on little huskies get soap and water. The big paper filters, I do the rocky ********. The ones I haven't figured out are the cheapo fuzzy brown filters like on an 026. I think I heard compressed air can damage these and you're only supposed to blow across, not through these, then wash in soap and water.
For the filters that require soap and water, I don't worry one bit about a little water going through the motor, you don't think some water gets on the fliter when you cut on rainy days?