West Coast vs. East Coast

[IchWarriorMkII]

I hear this come up a lot, and Im not totally sure the details and specifics of this argument when it comes to saws...

From what I loosely gather, west coast loggers/arborists prefer longer bars to work over trees that are not as hard as back east. East coast trees tend to be harder, mandating a shorter bar. Also, trees tend to have less bark allowing smaller dogs on the east coast saws?

 

[fishhuntcutwood]

Here ya go-

http://www.arboristsite.com/showthread.php?t=31040&highlight=bars

http://www.arboristsite.com/showthread.php?t=30994&highlight=bars

It all has to do with terrain, wood (soft vs. hard) avg. dbh and cutting style. And it's not so much an arborist thing as a timber thing, though you'll see them with their long bars too.

 

[04ultra]

I hear this come up a lot, and Im not totally sure the details and specifics of this argument when it comes to saws...

From what I loosely gather, west coast loggers/arborists prefer longer bars to work over trees that are not as hard as back east. East coast trees tend to be harder, mandating a shorter bar. Also, trees tend to have less bark allowing smaller dogs on the east coast saws?

Size matters.........





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[computeruser]

 

[fishhuntcutwood]

Now that's funny! :hmm3grin2orange:

 

[IchWarriorMkII]

That helps, makes sense.

 

[MikeInParadise]

Obviously I am too old cause I have no Idea who that is or what it means!

 

[Lakeside53]

Me either....:monkey:

 

[clearance]

You be dissing Tupak? I be popping a cap in your ass yo, know what I'm saying? If any of you ever get the chance, watch the documentary, Who Killed Biggie and Tupac. Lmfao, so funny, basically a British filmaker investigating the East coast-West coast thang (a myth promoted by an evil rap promoter, Suge Knight) and talking to people, I couldn't stop laughing, its too good. Mike, I wouldn't have recognized this tool either, just happened to see the show.

 

[oldsaw]

Obviously I am too old cause I have no Idea who that is or what it means!

There is some kind of big deal between "east cost" and "west coast" rap. Just mocking the difference related to saws.

Mark

 

[fishhuntcutwood]

There is some kind of big deal between "east cost" and "west coast" rap. Just mocking the difference related to saws.

Mark

Yeah, it was all the talk in high school (rural IN no less). Just teenage pop culture. I'm a country boy who listens to Merle and Willie, and I knew who Tupac was.

 

[oldsaw]

Yeah, it was all the talk in high school (rural IN no less). Just teenage pop culture. I'm a country boy who listens to Merle and Willie, and I knew who Tupac was.

Well, I'm too old for that stuff, but I remember when he lost one of his "Pac"s to a gunfight. Some of the guys I worked with at the time referred to him as "one pac" or just plain "single".

I'm still an old rocker, accented with some classical and jazz. And some "standards", to round out the mix.

Mark

 

[Oregon_Rob]

West cost = Big Wood, to bad most of it's:hmm3grin2orange: soft

 

[oldsaw]

West cost = Big Wood, to bad most of it's:hmm3grin2orange: soft

West Coast= Big bars on big saws.

East Coast=Small and medium bars on big saws.

One of my co-workers listens to a morning show where they asked the question "show-er or grower" when discussing the "gentle regions" of the rougher gender. Out west they are "showers", and in the midwest and east they are "growers".

And yes, midwestern and eastern wood tends to be harder...yes indeed.

Mark

 

[Gologit]

West cost = Big Wood, to bad most of it's:hmm3grin2orange: soft

Have they got anything harder than dry madrone back east?

 

[Ryan Willock]

Dead locost. It'll dull a sharp chain in no time.

 

[smokechase II]

hard wood

Has anyone here ever cut dead Mountain Mahogany?

Oak and heart pine and dead hardwoods are all tough. But that Mahogany. Chheeezzzzzz.

 

[tek9tim]

Has anyone here ever cut dead Mountain Mahogany?

Oak and heart pine and dead hardwoods are all tough. But that Mahogany. Chheeezzzzzz.

You ain't whistlin' Dixie... That stuff'll make you think your chain is on backwards. I dread that about eastern Oregon fires.

 

[rb_in_va]

West cost = Big Wood, to bad most of it's:hmm3grin2orange: soft

Did everyone miss the joke here? I got it Rob, good one!

 

[B_Turner]

Dead locost. It'll dull a sharp chain in no time.

While it may be true that on average the west coast woods are of a little softer consistency, mineral content (both naturally occurring and introduced like sand, etc) is tougher on cutting tools that hardness of wood and the west coast has a share of that.

As a full time woodturner, I probably run a gouge through around 30,000 miles of wood (linearly) a year and I get a direct read on cutting efficiency because I am holding the tool in my hand. On certain pieces of wood with high mineral content, even big leaf maple with certain types of small inclusions that deposit mineral matter, I have to sharpen my gouge up to a hundred times on a single piece. (Sometimes I just leave the grinder running for hours.)

I offer this as an example that wood hardness is not the whole story with chain durability.

One thing I am constantly amazed at is how commercial log veneer peelers can often go a whole 8 hrs shift on a single sharpening. That absolutely boggles my mind because even though the bark has been removed, that blade travels a really long way in that 8 hrs. and they need a pretty clean cut on high grade veneer.