Bob - got any ideas for this as a remote throttle / handle?

[Brmorgan]

I picked this up at the scrap yard today for free:

It's the case and throttle assembly from a fairly old Husky brush saw. I thought the throttle assembly might be somehow usable as a remote throttle / handle assembly for my Alaskan, but I'm not sure. The orange throttle "wing" on the end of the handle is thumb-operated, unfortunately though it appears to be designed for right-handed use and might be awkward to use with my left hand. The orange tab down the shank of the handle is a safety interlock / throttle lock. It can lock the throttle wide-open but not at intervals in between, which might be handy. The really tricky bit though, is that the action of the throttle trigger TURNS the cable accordingly, rather than inducing a push-pull effect. I'm thinking that'll make it a bit more difficult to adapt to pulling a saw's throttle linkage, but I'm sure it could be done.

Any ideas, guys? It may end up being completely useless, but I figured for free it wouldn't hurt to keep around.

Alternatively I do have at least four junker cheapo weed whackers kicking around, a couple of which don't run, so the throttle assy. from one of those might be usable. I know the one on my good Stihl FS56 would probably work great, but then my FS56 wouldn't work! Of course I do have a second one of those too, but it only needs rings to be usable again, and I'd hate to rob other parts from it.

 

[BobL]

I think everything you have already said makes that particular unit problematic - especially the bit about using the thumb as the trigger.

Of the 3 types of remotes (lawn mower fixed setting, bicycle brake handle and MC throttle) I have tried the most comfortable is definitely the hand wrist twisting MC throttle. I think milling has some similarities to long periods of MC riding which has to be comfortable to reduce rider fatigue.

Having tried remote throttles on a variety of places the best place for me is the left hand because I like to move my right hand around on the mill so I have two movable handles on the cross tube handle.

The other advantage of having the remote on the wrap is the saw can be removed from the mill with minimal effort and can still be used as a regular saw without having a trailing throttle cable.