Fed the Big Dog Today
Well I took her out of retirement today! I decided to see what the beast would do so I sharpened up the chain and made sure she'd start...haven't fired it up in at least 4 months and it started on the 6th pull.
My buddy and I drove to a friend of his neighbors where we were pretty much told to take whatever we wanted; she had 10 acres of woods that were damaged from the ice storm years back and hasn't been cut in over 50 years...big wood. We of course started with the delimbed red oak logs she had previously cleared. I was making 3 cuts to every one of my buddy's one. This SP81E freaking devoured the logs, I can't imagine what it'll due with a new chain as I have no idea how old the one on it is. The telling trait is the way it throws the sawdust out the bottom, the stuff was just pouring out...pretty cool.:hmm3grin2orange:
While the 28" bar still takes some getting used to it is not as intimidating as I imagined it would be. About the worst part was since the bar is so long, I really had to watch for what the tip was hitting on the other side of the log (lots of rocks here)...not so much of a problem when it came to the larger logs. My buddy just sat there and laughed as it tore up the larger ones; of course by the end of the day both our backs were trashed as we had to get the logs onto the trailer. All in all cut an 18 foot dovetail trailer, with 2 foot siderails, worth of seasoned oak and all it cost us was the gas/oil.
I think I'm going to buy a 20" and 24" bar/chain set-up and experiment with it some. Changing bars takes minutes but I still need to look into the sprocket and what is involved in changing it; I don't have any manuals so if anyone has one electronically they want to share I don't think Mcculouch will mind. I also need to replace a screw that vibrated out of the side cover and a bar nut that came off too; maybe locktite is needed due the high vibration? A self locking nut maybe or a lockwasher? Never lost one before.
Thanks for the mail and help, this is a good site with loads of info. Not sure how much I have to add but I will when I do. I'll get some pics uploaded soon. Lee