Milling sycamore

[Lightning Performance]

When I hit 45" oak with 404 it slows down or you make changes. I made scratcher to tryout next month on 45" oak. The skip would probably out run it so I made a new loop of that in January and never tested it. Much more drag in the scratcher is my best guess. The scoring cutters are longer as they say it should be.
If one loop is better I'll copy that in 375 and lp then test those. Considering nk chain on shorter little bars for the board ripper. Beams with a small saw on skinny trees should go quickly on a G555 with a steel boxed straight edge attached.

 

[Coralillo Lo Pro]

When I hit 45" oak with 404 it slows down or you make changes. I made scratcher to tryout next month on 45" oak. The skip would probably out run it so I made a new loop of that in January and never tested it. Much more drag in the scratcher is my best guess. The scoring cutters are longer as they say it should be.
If one loop is better I'll copy that in 375 and lp then test those. Considering nk chain on shorter little bars for the board ripper. Beams with a small saw on skinny trees should go quickly on a G555 with a steel boxed straight edge attached.

My starter drum on the Makita broke so that saw out of commission. Ran out of gas same place again 6-8” from end and couldn’t finish cause of the broken starter. After a bunch of messing w my Stihl 056 Super and switching carbs on it I finally got it running enough to finish the cut though couldn’t get it tuned to full power. Started another cut and tried to tune it but got nowhere. Despite having four carbs, three I rebuilt and one rebuilt one from Ebay, I’m not sure a single one is really working right. I need to number them so I can remember which ones have worked partially and which ones hardly at all. One carb was working decent before the coil to chip wire broke on the ignition but think may have switched the carb out while diagnosing the problem. If all else fails, may break down and get one NOS Tillotson HS118B just to be sure I have one definitely good carb.

Tried every carb I had this morning after brief bit of life w one, saw refused to start no matter which carb or what settings. Feel like ignition wiring has come loose again. Ordered a new aftermarket ignition for 045 Super from Germany, might yet have to get another for the 056 too. Doubting carbs are problem, as some of them worked fine when my ignitions were working. Ignitions are down to $75 shipping included from Germany where they used to be $120, so don’t mind throwing money at them as much now, particularly when they’re the known fatal flaw of these saws.

I did see someone say on another forum they kept snapping Archer lo pro on their 24” bar but had no problem w Stihl PMX so not sure about quality of Archer LP. I haven’t snapped any of these 36” Panther LP chains from the UK yet and assume they’re just average China quality so I take others’ experiences w a grain of salt as being user error a lot of the time.

 

[Coralillo Lo Pro]

When I hit 45" oak with 404 it slows down or you make changes. I made scratcher to tryout next month on 45" oak. The skip would probably out run it so I made a new loop of that in January and never tested it. Much more drag in the scratcher is my best guess. The scoring cutters are longer as they say it should be.

Little unclear what your scratcher array is. A pair of full width full length scoring teeth followed by a cut back pair of teeth that never cut, only carry/shovel? Did you say you eventually ground off the cut back teeth completely on the one .404 setup, like I did on mine? Any reason not to, beyond it just takes more work to do so? You did seem to suggest it was more efficient with them gone completely.

 

[Coralillo Lo Pro]

If one loop is better I'll copy that in 375 and lp then test those. Considering nk chain on shorter little bars for the board ripper. Beams with a small saw on skinny trees should go quickly on a G555 with a steel boxed straight edge attached.

Snapped my first lo pro chain finally w my 64cc saw, and learned upon replacing it that the chip clogging issue really isn't that bad at 26-30", it's overly dull chain that was my problem. Was impatient with cut speed, pushing harder to get it to go faster and pushed a little too hard and... snap. Still failing in my hand sharpening. The new chain started milling effortlessly on one of the biggest center slabs, self feeding with virtually no pressure and maintaining high rpm's, but I could already feel it slowing down 4-5' into the cut. The next slab was slower and even the increasingly narrow ones going to the bottom never got any faster because the chain kept getting duller. I tried the 2 in 1 hand file on it after the first two slabs and didn't seem to get it any sharper. May be same deal as the first chain, they burned the teeth at the shop, doesn't want to hand file. Need to go to a system of four chains for large logs, switching out after every two big long slabs, and sharpen on the grinder at night.

I felt like teeth were staying reasonably sharp through 5 or 6 slabs on narrower shorter mesquite, but as one would expect on big logs, the small teeth of lo pro don't stay sharp for very long when 16-18 cutters are engaged steadily. There's pretty much no way to get around the fact lo pro is going to need sharpening more often than larger chain in big logs - sub-20" hardwood logs it flies through them so fast it seems to stay sharp longer but when it slows down in big logs to the same speed that larger chain is cutting at, obviously the lo pro is going to dull quicker. If I was milling to sell, I'd probably not bother trying to make lo pro work in large logs. Milling for my woodworking though, it's worth it for the finish to save me extra router slab leveling work later and wasted material.