Thread: Starting age for chain saw

At what age did you first use a chain saw?
At what age would you let your kids start, saw with a small electric? (Eye, ear, etc., etc. protection assumed)

Pop let me use whatever when I could hold it up for 1 minute at arms length, axes by the end of the handle straight out, same for saws.

Asking as DIL was a little perturbed when I let the 4 YO G/S use a hatchet (supervised)

I was 21, and I cut myself within two weeks.

I don't really remember. I ran one a good bit at 16-17 but prior to that I'm not certain- what sawing I did with a chainsaw prior to that certainly didn't ammount to much. I have never cut myself with a chainsaw(other than a nick from slipping while filing the chain and a couple of tiny marks from a thrown chain). Knock on my wooden head!

I started on the saw when i was 19,I have only had a few mishaps like hand slipping a cutting finger when filing(should of been wearing gloves) & also a kick back that resulted in my scrotum having a 4" scar on.

is this for your own kid?
if so, age aside.........how intelligent are they? whats their common sense level like etc
i've got an 11 year old girl who can't even be trusted to walk the sidewalk without walking out in the road into a car

I started when I was 8.

I agree with stephen... it would all depend on their maturity level, etc.

Saws were just something to look at. Dad would let my brother and I go for rides in the bucket truck and make ziplines across the backyard with his saddle, he even got us 50cc dirtbikes when I was seven(brother was six). But touching a chainsaw was out of the question. First ran one when I was eighteen and i'm only twenty one now. Yeah it would be nice to have more experience, but thats just how things worked out.

I remember one birthday when he got my brother and I each a small saw for our birthday. We thought that was the best thing ever! Haven't seen the saws since. He must have been trying to pull a quick one on my mom saying they were for us, then he kept them for himself!!!

What a tease!

I can remember takeing them apart and cleaning them before I was even in school. As far as running a saw I guess I was around 6. Dad would bring the log truck home and drop off piles of small diameter logs and I would spend time in the summer hacking away at it. I got my first saw a Jonsred 361 for my 14th birthday. He told me as long as I had a saw I would never be broke. I still have that saw and only that saw. I have two boys 7 and 10 and let both of use a saw once but I never took one of my own hands off the saw once. I wouldn't trust them until they were 16 to 18. I wouldn't forgive myself if anything would happen. I don't even really want them to follow in my footsteps at all. Not even for fun.

i first had a play with a saw at the age 18 no ear protection,chaps ,eye protection nothing .......used/shot 12 bore shotgun at 12

at 18 i ran a chainsaw for this nursery i worked at cutting a pine limb ober the entrance. i fell off the ladder and caught the limb i had cut half way through. got back to the ladder and was done with that for the day.

Got a hardship dl at 15 and was selling firewood that summer and fall. was driving a '47 Willys and running some nightmare heavy, big Homelite my Dad said I could use. A 9something.

First time I was 11 it was an 056 Stihl at that. I caught heck for running it into the ground. Then again at 14 and ever since. Used to cut 20" billots for furniture squares that paid $1 a piece.

Mike C

Started my first saw around 10 or 11 years old. Think it was a homelite xl12 or a ez. Dad had me start it on the ground, foot in handle. Always used it with dad around at that age. Bucked up some firewood that I used to split and sell to the neighbors.
Took a few apart at the age also to see what made them tick, but the only thing that was ticked was dad for taking apart a running saw.

I was on the dummy end of a big old Mall model 7 at 14.Was cutting osage orange ,for fence posts,at 15,with a 250 mac,and a bow bar,also some big old gear drives.The gear drives,seemed awful heavy then,but come to think of it,they seem heavy now. I think,growing up in the farming area of Ohio,and during the early 60's,we just did things at an earlier age.It was a common thing,for example,for a 14 year old farm kid to drive a loaded grain truck to the elevator,or to operate a Td-14 dozer to push out fence rows,and many other things.

I think I was about 14 when I started playing with a chain saw.

Like MB it was not long before I cut myself. Was cutting to close to a woven wire fence, darn old Poulan caught that wire and ran straight up that fence and cut me right over my right eye, still got a scar from it. There was no chain brakes on saws back then.

My father warned me about cutting by that fence, but did I listen, being a young know it all punk, of course not. But I did learn a valuable lesson about how quick a chain saw can cause an injury. Even to this day I'm leery about cutting around fences, I'll use hand tools before I use a chain saw around any wire fence.

Larry