I just finish this little piece to post in a new thread. I read your thread and thought it would fit in well here. I believe my journey is a fairly common one for the Chainsaw Forum.
The Simple Life until AS
Life was simpler then, pre-AS. It all started with a sweet Swedish curved pruning saw. My brother got the small Swedish cross cut saw and we shared pole saw duties. We also shared toting Dad’s MAC gear drive with the bow. Later we each graduated to PowerMac 6As for pruning and brush clearing that seemed to never end for boys dreaming of girls and imagining all kinds of cool summer stuff that their friends must have been doing. From there it was my first saw of my own – a PM510 which ran like a scalded dog but was difficult to crank and had a flimsy plastic recoil cover that I repeatedly ripped loose. Nevertheless the saw lasted two years and took on trees that only an idiot or kid would tackle so ill-equipped. The 510 was replaced with a PM700. I wanted a PM800 but the older and wiser dealer talked me out of it. He said I would burn an 800 up with my firewood cutting. I didn’t ask about the PM1000 because it wasn’t made by MAC. Woodcutting took a backseat following marriage and kids, but I used the 700 for the next 20 years or so. After it got really hard to start, I put it on the shelf and when saw shopping. I first looked at the Husky line up as my Dad had left the then old MACs for Husky. I also looked at Stihls. I pick the 036Pro simply on the basis of the advertized power to weight ratio. Until then I had never run anything but a MAC. Life became simpler with the Stihl. It was drop dead reliable. But then the large red oaks started to die in our area – too big to be falling with the Stihl. A local saw shop resurrected my PM700, but it and a 28” bar were on the margin. As more folks asked me to fall their nice big red oaks, I went shopping for a new Stihl. I couldn’t decide between a 460 and a 660. And I didn’t like the prices. My wife introduced me to eBay where I purchased a well worn PM8200. By now no saw shop wanted to work on the old MACs so Google led me to AS which taught me I could repair my own saws, but it unexpectedly led me to more and bigger saws, and spare parts, and bars, and chains, and sharpeners, and tools, and 8 pin sprockets. How I hate bars and sprockets as each combination requires a different drive link, and a few, a different pitch. The good old days of a single saw with a single bar and two chains are gone thanks to AS. If that wasn’t enough, word ran quick that I ran big saws (here another thank you is due AS for big saws) and before I knew it I am cutting Saturdays for 8 to 9 months a year with an organized volunteer organization. Can I ever return to the simple life? Why of course not thanks again to AS, there is so much more so close – the two kart saws and may be a 362 to be ported. I could have bought both a 460 and a 660 by now and had a lot of change left. Do I regret finding AS – not really as there are so many fine folks here. And I have learned a ton about chainsaws and how to use them. But then there’s that chain that is too short for an 8 pin and there’s one that is too long for a 7 pin. Maybe with a 7 ½ pin, life would be simple again. :help: Ron
