Top Handle Extravaganza

[Franny K]

I am certainly not in a position to say which one is best. The Husqvarna 338xpt that is now available as a Jonsorend 2139 seems to have the best anti vibe design. The Husqvarna 540t also has some effort put into the anti vibe. Is there anything else that is not basically the handles isolated from the rest. The battery electric has no anti vibe and is truly variable speed without the manual telling you to only use it full speed. This can be more precise in my experience.

I do not climb or work out of a bucket truck. I have worked out of a man lift for take down and chose a pole saw and a rear handle. The tree work I see the top handle fills a very small amount of cutting between a hydraulic pole saw and a rear handle. I have not watched orchard pruning.
What is best is subjective to the application. In the grand scheme of running an arborist business the cost of a top handle saw most likely is pretty small.

 

[Andyshine77]

I think it is fair to say, the input from someone who is an experience saw mechanic is valuable information. If it takes that much to work on these saws the design is poor and not thought out IMHO.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

 

[Oliver1655]

The Jonsered 2139T & Husqvarna 338T are both easy to work with. I have worked with a MS-201 but prefer the 2138T & 338T which I have both of.

 

[rbtree]

Bump, lol.

I don't post here much these days, but just popped in to say that I was an early adopter of the 335XPT, circa 1996. They had lots of problems. Not all were solved, but most were. I never felt they were fast in stock form, so I have always run them with ported mufflers. This allows them to run close to a 200T/201TC. They still have problems with hot starting, once they get well used.

That said, the latest Battery powered saw, the Husky 540i, has been shown to be the fastest yet among stock top-handled saws. Expensive (2 batteries needed if a pro user) and not light. I'm 71 and not working every day, so won't be getting one.