Top Handle Saws

[seesaw]

Marketing is a tricky biz...

Keener,
If all those homeowners follow your lead and buy the brand the pro used while at their house.....all the homeowners will have saws and do their own work! Then you'd have even more saw jocks in the tavern b4 noon! Yikes!
I'm all for it, less expensive saws from the factory, more profit for the dealers and a great deal for the end user! How do we get this thing done?

 

[Keener]

I don't think we should worry too much about the homeowner doing his own work because he owns a good saw.
Common sense and a strong self preservation instinct will keep them out of the trees or from tackling anything too tricky.
Just means the dealer won't have to work on cheap crap and more good used saws will be available for resale rather than the dumpster.
Besides all that only the chainsaw brotherhood know the secrets of proper saw filing on the job, thats half the battle right there.

 

[seesaw]

Amen Brother!
All that was just tongue in cheek you know. Hell, it amazes me everyday that every tree guy is the "best" chain filer he knows! I've been at it for too many years and still don't have it down! It is an art for sure.

 

[Keener]

Another marketing idea just came to me.
Picture a dark and stormy night (all the best stories begin this way) Joe Ballcap is driving his pickup truck ( insert favorite truck) when just at the extreme range of his headlights a 20" tree crashes across the road.... as traffic starts to back up( including the couple rushing to the hospital because she's in labor) Joe reaches into the truck and unclips the emergency top handled saw from its spot beside the first aid kit and fire extinguisher (tracing around the saw with marker shows where it hangs).
By now one or two people are shaking heads in hopelessness at the size of the tree and that "toy" saw... then he starts 'er up first pull and mouths drop open at the wail of the Dennisized Solo( insert favorite top handled saw) as it rips through half the log and a ripple of applause breaks out as Joe hops over the log and rips through the other half (leaving just enough tag to trigger the log to drop clear with that last sweet blip of the throttle).
As several now admiring fellow truck driving ball cap wearing burly guys roll the log clear of the road in the background, Joe is seen blowing the sawdust off the saw (ala Gunsmoke) in the foreground and storing it back safely in its appropriate spot ( as per outline drawn on the truck cab wall).
I bet you could sell a million top handled saws with a commercial like that, or has it been a really long week and it's late and I'm getting punchy.

 

[seesaw]

Outstanding!
I could almost feel myself in that situation. Good story Uncle Keener, tell us another one. Maybe you could write a chapter a week about old Joe Ballcap and his adventures? You know we'd read it.

 

[geofore]

top saws

Keener, common sense and thoughts of self preservation will save the homeowner from himself??? Not! He would tackle that tree and land it on the house if he had the pro saw. The guy across the street from me was driving me nuts one saturday running his chainsaw full tilt trying to cut the hedges in front of his house. After he blew through about a full tank of gas and didn't get so much as one branch off. I went over and ask him to let me sharpen his saw cause it sounded dull to me. I brought it over to the shop and in about 10 miniutes I took it back over to him. He filled it with gas and oil and started it back up and leaned into that shrub. Faster than you can say, "Watch Out" he ran it through the bush and strait into the ground,buried nearly the entire 16" bar in the ground. He went a$$ over tin cups trying to hang on to the saw. Guess he never dealt with a sharp saw before. His comment to me was, "It didn't even cut that good when it was new." Laying on the ground he looked as if he were suffering from a common homeowner disease, crainial rectial inversion,( head up your a$$, this saw is sharp and will cut like greased lightning) sort of the opposite of common sense. He had the saw two years, never sharpened the chain and never adjusted the carb. OOPS! He would have been better off with a handsaw. I went home and rolled on the floor laughing my a$$ off. Nope, common sense won't save Mr. Homeowner.

 

[Dennis]

Keener...I am bringing my video camera and saw over just so we can film that commercial...lmao...even if its never aired...as long as I have it on video...that will be d@mn funny....but I want Rotax with the ballcap ok??

 

[tony marks]

did u sharpen his saw forim again.
not that it would do any good .
some people just belong in a office or something. they need to call somebody like me . a lot safer for everybody.
not that im the best ,but like u said
common sense is just about a necessity
with a chain saw in your hand.i really am amazed sometimes at this type.
make u feel like a genius. but the old timers around here are able to show me the error of that type thinking.

 

[Keener]

Remember, I did not say every homeowner would be saved by self preservation instinct.
Besides lets not use the term homeowner in a negative way, after all some of us here own homes as well ( the bank mostly).
Lets call the people we are thinking of in this context as the chainsaw impaired or for ease of use call it C.I.S. which is short for Chainsaw Impairment Syndrome, as in " he attempted to cut bricks with his chainsaw due to a lack of common sense brought on by his latest bout with C.I.S.
Imho only the most serious cases of CIS need worry us as far as attempting work we would end up doing anyways.
What occurs when other CIS sufferers hear or see the results of the latest bout their fellow sufferer went through, i.e the tree on the house or car, bill from the power company for reconnection, personal injury ect ect ect, they( the other CIS victims) find it easier to fight the urges.
I have found that wives often help in this way to,as in " if you attempt that tree yourself I will ......"

 

[geofore]

CIS

No, I didn't get to sharpen it a second time, he went out about a month or so later and bought a new smaller saw at a tool sale. All he realy needed was a new chain. About $100, for a reconditioned, ( like new) saw, 14" with about 1/2 the hp of the old one. He's better off with a small saw but there is little you can do to cure the CIS, just treat the symptoms.

 

[Dennis]

Solo 633

Got the Solo in my hands today.....havent been under the hood yet as month end paperwork is driving me crazy....but I can already tell I am going to like working on this one better than the 335, just for ease of access....

pics and more to follow...