Saw Dr.
Junk Collector
Well I did some cutting yesterday. We had a work day at the church for a shut-in member. Turns out that the member's son must have been out of drug/beer/cigarette money, and he called a logging crew in to clear her several acres of property. The front of her house faces a busy road, and it used to be pretty heavily wooded. After the logging, it was just the typical wasteland. The woman is in a powered wheelchair, and cannot do ANYTHING to straighten it out. The loggers finished a year ago, but we just became aware of just how badly she wanted to be able to look out the window at something decent.
I loaded up on trimmers, brush cutters, saws, and everything else I though I could need and met up with the guys. All of the stumps were left about 18-24" off the ground. I assume this was to protect the loggers chains. Well I don't like stumping with my 440, but that is what I had. I had brought 3 good 28" chains, so I decided to start with the new one and hope I got a few done before hitting a rock. I was pretty careful about clearing debris around the bottom, but I know the saw was being guided from above. I flush-cut a bunch of those stumps, and the chain is still quite sharp. It could use a touch up, but will still throw nice chips. I didn't hit one rock, or even get into the dirt. I brought an 038 for backup, and only ended up using it because I wanted to try it out at stumping.
The brushcutters were running on divine intervention also. I had an FS-74 I got off CL recently on the cheap. I rebuilt the carb, replaced the lines, and got it ready to sell in the spring. One of the guys got ahold of that, and started running it HARD. He had it PINNED for over an hour while running a metal blade (little to no load.) The guy never let off the throttle. I guess he thought it was like an electric motor. I figured it wouldn't last 10 minutes since it was probably running 12K+. Two tanks of fuel later, it was running strong as ever. I also had a pair of FS-80's along, one of which is put together from a bunch of crappy parts. I started off using it, but decided the gearhead was whining too much and set it down. Another guy wanted to use it, so I greased the head with my bar-tip grease gun and sent him away. I figured that would not last 10 minutes either. He ended up re-spooling the string TWICE on that crummy old trimmer after running it for several hours.......
All in all a good day for everyone. The old woman has a much better looking yard, and none of my stuff broke. Only casualty was the gallon of MY premium gas and synthetic oil premix they used to start the fires (!!!)
I loaded up on trimmers, brush cutters, saws, and everything else I though I could need and met up with the guys. All of the stumps were left about 18-24" off the ground. I assume this was to protect the loggers chains. Well I don't like stumping with my 440, but that is what I had. I had brought 3 good 28" chains, so I decided to start with the new one and hope I got a few done before hitting a rock. I was pretty careful about clearing debris around the bottom, but I know the saw was being guided from above. I flush-cut a bunch of those stumps, and the chain is still quite sharp. It could use a touch up, but will still throw nice chips. I didn't hit one rock, or even get into the dirt. I brought an 038 for backup, and only ended up using it because I wanted to try it out at stumping.
The brushcutters were running on divine intervention also. I had an FS-74 I got off CL recently on the cheap. I rebuilt the carb, replaced the lines, and got it ready to sell in the spring. One of the guys got ahold of that, and started running it HARD. He had it PINNED for over an hour while running a metal blade (little to no load.) The guy never let off the throttle. I guess he thought it was like an electric motor. I figured it wouldn't last 10 minutes since it was probably running 12K+. Two tanks of fuel later, it was running strong as ever. I also had a pair of FS-80's along, one of which is put together from a bunch of crappy parts. I started off using it, but decided the gearhead was whining too much and set it down. Another guy wanted to use it, so I greased the head with my bar-tip grease gun and sent him away. I figured that would not last 10 minutes either. He ended up re-spooling the string TWICE on that crummy old trimmer after running it for several hours.......
All in all a good day for everyone. The old woman has a much better looking yard, and none of my stuff broke. Only casualty was the gallon of MY premium gas and synthetic oil premix they used to start the fires (!!!)
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