Thread: John Deere Chain Saws

Does anyone have any experience with the John Deere Pro Series line of chainsaws. The C56 and C40 are the most impressive ones for me. Any feedback would be great.
Thank You

John Deere saws are made by Oleo Mac in Italy, formerly known as Olympyk. Oleo Mac makes good saws. The only problem with Deere is they jump around too much and you dton know if they will still be affiliated with them in five years or so, so parts could be a problem.

Howdy,

Olympic saws have a good reputation for durability, and there are quite a few of them sold in eastern Canada, mostly toward the Maritimes. I would think you could find a dealer for them around Toronto, and be able to locate what the comparable model is. This is handy to do, since you can compare price, and also know what is available for an alternate source of parts.

John Deere makes at least a legit effort to try to assure that saws they sell are good quality. They own Homelite, but don't sell them. They have had some parts problems with their former line of saws which were made by Echo. Good saws, but when the marriage was over, so went the parts supply appearantly. You can avoid this problem, if you make note of the equivalent model from the supplier, and keep track of those notes!

Regards,
Walt Galer

Actually, the line of JD saws between the Echos and the Olympiks were green Homelites. That didn't make very many people happy.

ive heard some stories from some old timers about the older homelites. They say that they were one or the best saws around at the time and todays dont even come close to them from back then Any one familiar with that

Tim,

Back in the olden days (1967) when I started climbing, the super XL-12 was the best light weight(about 16#) climber's saw going. I remember how great it was to be able to climb all day with this lightweight hooked to the clip on your regular pants belt. Now it would cut me in half. My first saw was a XL-12 that the foreman had backed over with a slightly raised crane outrigger. He bought the big boss a new saw and sold me the fixed up one for $50 I think. I used it for another 10 years or so. By then my climbing saw had switched to the model 25 poulan sold as an Allis Chalmers. By the way, our saw for up in the tree to chunk out large limbs and trunks was an O66 Homelite with 30" bar. They were about as indestructible as they were heavy, especially when I weighed about 110 myself.

Bob Underwood

In the 50's, 60's, and 70's Homelite was as good as any saw avail then, Stihl, Jonsered, McCulloch, all of them. Then in the 80's they kept using the same deisgns from the 70's and started falling behind the new high speed designs of today. MOST (I say MOST) Homelites from the 60's and 70's will not outcut in terms of speed todays Stihls and Husqvarnas. They can still be very dependable saws however, but there is a speed and weight penalty.

Never heard a Homelite that didnt sound good, though

The Homelites I was talking about were the ones JD used after the Echos. Typical cheap Home Depot junk. I think they made the right move going to Oleo-Mac saws.

Now, the older Homelites are a different story...