Storm damage and chainsaws

[bulletpruf]

I lived in the Houston, TX area for many years. I've lived through hurricanes, storms, lightning, winds, etc. East Texas has an incredible amount of trees -- pine, oak (several varieties), cedar elm, Texas ash, etc. After big storms, the homeowners come out with their "Barbie Tools" in an attempt to tackle the storm damage. I've seen a lot of kooky stuff. I remember one guy in my area that had a big limb break from a live oak. He was standing at the top of a step ladder holding a hand circular saw that was plugged into a portable generator and was about to tackle the broken limb. Nutz. I talked him down from his ladder perch and told him to put the saw on the ground. He was kinda pissed at first. I told him that I didn't want to drag his sorry a$$ off to the hospital. I brought my saw and tree equipment over and helped him out. He stopped being pissed after that. I saw another local dude attempting to cut a 12" diameter ornamental tree with a chainsaw. I noticed that he was wearing shorts, flip-flops, and a T-shirt. No PPE of any kind. He had a consumer-level Husqvarna saw, so there was real danger for the uninitiated. Damn. I helped him out also. Dude...RESPECT THE SAW. Another neighbor had 2 big pines blow down in his backyard. I heard a chainsaw running for about 20 minutes so I went out to take a look. He has a little 40cc Sears Crapsman chainsaw and safety chain and was attempting to buck up the 2 big pines. His saw was small and the safety chain needed to be sharpened. I showed up with my 385XP wearing a 24" bar and freshly sharpened chain. I had the 2 trees bucked-up and stacked in no time. My neighbor was simply blown away. He couldn't believe that he could "cut" for 20+ minutes and make almost no progress while my saw needed under 15 seconds per cut. It was a graphic example of homeowner vs. pro-grade saws.

After Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Ike, I spent a significant amount of pro-bono "service" time helping folks out. The amount of tree damage is difficult to imagine and even more difficult to explain to anyone who hasn't seen that kind of damage. Big trees can be incredibly destructive. I've seen houses cut in half by trees -- cars flattened by trees -- miles of power lines taken out by trees -- livestock killed by trees, etc. I can't begin to count the gallons of fuel and oil I ran through my 353 and 385XP saws during those days. There was no end to the downed trees. It felt like bailing the ocean using a teaspoon...

Most people mean well, but they are underinformed or uninformed. It's easy to watch a tree expert and think: "I can do that -- it looks easy". Then the homeowner runs off and attempts to imitate the tree expert on his own. Bad ju-ju. I'm happy to teach folks and help them learn. No problem. Usually, my main concern is to help Joe Average Guy understand the dangers of working with chainsaws and trees. Dude...just be careful. If your Spidey Sense starts to tingle...put the saw down and call me.

JQ

Helped out some folks in my neighborhood after storms hit this past winter. Did what I could to teach folks about safety, the right saw for the job, sharpening. I’m out in the country a bit but most folks are still lacking the knowledge and proper tools for the job at hand.

 

[Overlooker]

Pages 53 - 56 in MS500i manual.

It's nice to know that chain sharpening information is in the manual, but how many people actually make it to page 53?! O

 

[ru55wood5]

My grandmother used to say, and there are many variations out there, "experience keeps a hard school; and a fool learns in other."

It's great to read the manual, but you need experience, mentorship and humility. My 70+ neighbor still won't sharpen his chain, won't learn and won't accept help. He goes to our local blue box store and buys new Oregon chains. He has a nail on his shop wall with "need sharpened" scrawled in Sharpie above it. On the nail are 20+ chains.

 

[user 122190]

My grandmother used to say, and there are many variations out there, "experience keeps a hard school; and a fool learns in other."

It's great to read the manual, but you need experience, mentorship and humility. My 70+ neighbor still won't sharpen his chain, won't learn and won't accept help. He goes to our local blue box store and buys new Oregon chains. He has a nail on his shop wall with "need sharpened" scrawled in Sharpie above it. On the nail are 20+ chains.

20s nothing. 100 with my neighbor. Says he's never had to bring down the rakers, and can't understand why. Cause all his chains are new. Some are 10+ years old, dull as can be, yet many of the chains have never seen a file.

 

[user 122190]

OM, you say? I thought "real men" NEVER read instrucs? LOL.... Me, I read x 3, then keep for lounge chair reading again... as I get older, the reading gets more difficult, and the comprehension/ retention suffer, too... especially when you fall asleep in mid sentence

I've read the Count of Monte Cristo 4 or more times. Favorite novel. Very long, complex, yet I can't read the manual cover to cover even once. Maybe Stihl needs to hire better writers?

 

[ru55wood5]

20s nothing. 100 with my neighbor. Says he's never had to bring down the rakers, and can't understand why. Cause all his chains are new. Some are 10+ years old, dull as can be, yet many of the chains have never seen a file.

my neighbor bought an Oregon Benchtop grinder, so i thought he would get after it, alas no joy. the chains still hang and the grinder is still in the box. it wasn't going to be perfect, but it would have been progress.

 

[fields_mj]

I've read the Count of Monte Cristo 4 or more times. Favorite novel. Very long, complex, yet I can't read the manual cover to cover even once. Maybe Stihl needs to hire better writers?

I'm the opposite. I can't stand to read most books, but give me something that describes how my machine operates and I'll go through it cover to cover. I may not read every section, but I'll glance over it all and read the (admittedly few) important parts in detail. I do the same thing with my vehicles. Then again, I'm an engineer so I guess it makes sense. Pays off once in a while though. Was on my way home a few years back and noticed a few vehicles parked on the side of the road just past my turn off so I pulled up to see what the fuss was. Turns out, some lady in her late 40s was driving her Jag, and it up and died on her. The hood was up and 3 or 4 guys were looking over the engine trying to find the problem. I asked her to describe exactly what happened. She said she was just driving along and the car lost all power, then died. I asked if she hit any of the big pot holes about 100 yards back and she said yeah, she hit "that big one". I told her she had tripped her fuel shut off. The car thought it had been in a wreck and shut the fuel supply off to prevent a fire/explosion. A couple of guys rolled their eyes like "Yeah, right, fuel shut off, whatever..." She asked if it was repairable. I had her dig her OM out of the glove box, made her look up FUEL in the appendix, and then go to the page listed under Fuel Shut Off where it described the location of the unit and how to reset it. It was behind the panel under the glove box. Removed the panel for her, pointed out the unit, and reset it for her as she watched. The car started right up despite the battery being almost dead from all the previous attempts.

 

[fields_mj]

I am the mechanic on an Alabama Baptist Disaster Relief chainsaw team. I have worked with a lot of different men who run chainsaws. I was recruited when they found out I could sharpen a chain. I also make minor repairs that can be done in the field. I do more major repairs in my shop at home. All our guys have to attend a two day course on running chainsaws. The course is modified or red necked from a course developed in Sweden. You can look on YouTube Sweden Arborist chainsaw course. Also I think Husqvarna's chainsaw course is the same. I've ran chainsaws since I was a teenager. I'm in my 70's. I learned from the course how much I didn't know about running a chainsaw. I've learned a lot about sharpening since I joined the team. I've had as many as 15 cutters and at the most two would keep their chains sharp themselves. Keeping that many touched up all day with a few home owners saws added to the mix can keep me busy. I always sharpened by hand but because of arthritis in my hands I've had to learn to use a pencil grinder. I try to show anyone who ask how to sharpen chains. Usually it will be the younger guys who ask. I think the older guys don't want to admit they don't know how. I tell them if they use a saw for a few minutes once or twice a year and it needs sharpened maybe every three years they can't expect to sharpen like a pro. We were working in Jacksonville Al. near the college campus maybe 6 or 7 years ago. Don't remember the Storm, never could. I had two crews and several home owners I sharpened for. They kept me busy, hardly any time to break. I'm sitting at my table sharpening saws and this guy pulls up in a new Jaguar and parks beside my tool trailer. He gets out wearing this fancy shinny looking suite. I thought maffia. He came over and ask me if I would show him how to sharpen a chainsaw chain. I said sure pull up a chair and I would explain as I worked. I found out he was a "PROFESSER FROM THE COLLEGE". He watched as I sharpened two chains. I offered to sharpen his chain or we could bring a crew and cut up his trees. He wanted to do it himself because we had so much to do. He didn't have his saw with him so I told him to look on his bar to find what chain he had so he could buy proper size file or take it to where he bought it and they could tell him the size file he needed. I told him if he needed to take the gauges down he could buy the file and gage while he was at the store. I hadn't taken down the gages while he was watching so I told him to look on the back of the package and follow the instructions. I've often wandered how he made out.

You might want to take a look at the Timberline sharpener. It's a slightly simpler version of the Arnold Precision sharpener from the late 70's that uses a carbide bur and a hand crank instead of a file. Very easy to substitute a cordless screw driver or drill for the hand crank. There's a slight learning curve, but much faster than learning to hand file (which I can do quite well). The up side is that it produces very uniform cutters that are razor sharp and keeps all the angles the same. Plus, if you're not using the hand crank, its a lot easier on your arthritis. My dad gave me his old Arnold several years ago and I finally ordered Timberline cutters for it and started using it last year. I bought myself the Timberline system as an early Christmas present late last year and took it with me down to Kentucky to help with their cleanup. We were with a crew on Kentucky lake with some track loaders and track hoes so progress was a bit slow due the steep terrain, but the Timberline did a great job of keeping all 4 of the saws I took razor sharp along with 3 or 4 of the others that were willing to admit that they needed it. I keep a small inverter in my truck and used it to keep a battery charged for my drill. Since my diesel has two 1000 CCA batteries, I didn't need to worry about running them down If that's not an option, you can get a small solar panel system to take with you.

I also have a decent and cheap vice setup that's very useful for field repairs. It fits a 2" receiver, and is adjustable for height. I've added a pair of receivers to my trailer also so that I don't have to unhook from the truck if I need to use the vice. I'd be happy to send pics if you are interested. Just don't laugh because I threw it all together in a hurry one day using what I had laying around. Definitely looks redneck

I need to get into one of those classes, but I always seem to have a scheduling conflict. I've been cutting for a few decades now, but I'm CERTAIN they could teach me some valuable lessons.

 

[Cricket]

I've read the Count of Monte Cristo 4 or more times. Favorite novel. Very long, complex, yet I can't read the manual cover to cover even once. Maybe Stihl needs to hire better writers?

My late and much lamented mate had it figured out - he'd hand me the manual, saying "Read this and tell me if there's anything I need to know." Best of both worlds, didn't have to actually give in and read the thing, but all the info at his beck and call.