New method of destroying a saw

[Tommy in Wilton]

I destroyed TWO cheap "Home Depot" saws in two years. A 26cc Homelite and a similar Poulan.

I took the first dead one apart and discovered that the piston and cylinder were horribly scored; This with a perfect gas/oil ratio. I know because I have a mixing bottle that I use for my boat [fill to the line for this much ratio and this number of gallons], and the boat runs beautifully.

I used it to cut down a palm tree in the back yard, and then cut it up. It was a hot day, and I worked the saw hard. It sounded right, but after a few cuts on the fibrous trunk, it started to get weak....and then just died. Palm trees are fibrous but very soft- they really are just a huge woody celery stalk. NO WHERE NEAR as hard as the oak trees that me and my dad took down in Michigan when I was growing up! Dad's 1979 Pioneer saw would work and work and work, and we chopped up a dozen 100 foot oaks and then broke them down into sections with his saw. I think he still has it.

-In my opinion, new non-Stihl saws are:

1. Built of cheap materials. And they are NOT designed for E10 gasoline!!!

2. Come from the factory with the carburetors set WAY too lean. The second saw I destroyed happened when I was working on it. It got progressively harder and harder to start, and we are talking about a saw with maybe 1 hour total time. I cleaned the plug, which looked fine, and removed the fuel filter, figuring it was plugged. I finally got it to start, and I revved it out for about 20 seconds. Near the end of 20 seconds...the RPM slowly dropped until the engine quit. It has no compression now, and won't start!

-I'm sorry, there is no solid explanation you can give me as to why this thing died, other than INFERIOR engineering. The saw was running with a strong 2-cycle sound; A saw that has its carburetor set properly should sound more like a 4-cycle at max RPM and no load [I learned this on here afterwards!]. In My Humble Opinion, the factory sets the carburetors TOO LEAN on purpose so that the saw burns up and you wind up buying another one a year later.

This is why I purchased off of eBay a 1960's McCulloch 250 and had Mastermind rebuild it for me. THIS 50 year old saw WON'T die any time soon. If you are going to do something, do it right-

 

[TreeGuyHR]

Reminds me of what happened to my old Stihl 029 Farm Boss.

My employee (mow "ex", although what he did in regard to the 029 was just one "brick in the wall") liked to "fix" my saws by taking them apart and cleaning them, running them full bore with no bar and chain, file them by hand without even a guide, (and by pushing the nose into the tailgate hinge), running them full bore when cold for a full minute, never putting plastic guards on bars when loaded in the truck, running the chains too tight, doing slanting back cuts instead of using a wedge, cutting his holding wood off on purpose, cutting his stumps waist high, leaving long stubs on firewood, cutting. tossing, and praying instead of rigging pieces down.......:bang::bang::bang:

OK, enough.

Point is, some guys are completely incompetent and instead of taking criticism or learning, simply pass the blame.

This guy "fixed" the 029 by cleaning it and leaving the needle bearing set on the bench when he reassembled the clutch. Saw ate itself the first day, and it was totaled -- shop said around $200 in parts and labor, and I had bought it new for about $350 to $400 12 years earlier; I gave it away to the HS for the students to fool with in their small engine program. :msp_smile:

Could have been fixed, but I would rather spend money on parts and labor on my fleet of pro saws, and the saw was also 12 years old. My MS361 is lighter and cuts twice as fast with no mods.