Post your helpful chainsaw/cutting tips and tricks.

[anlrolfe]

I always take a second saw or at least an extra bar and chain in case I stick one. Hey guys we all do now and again. Saved my bacon a couple of times.

My 2nd hand Stihl 026 came with an interesting "notch" in the top of the chain brake handle.

Near as I can figure somebody got a little close while "cutting it free"

 

[anlrolfe]

zippo!!!



You can die before you can get a bic to light...

a bic takes one warm strong good hand to light, due to the childproofing!

if your hands are cold, they can be near impossible.

answer??? ZIPPO

You can light a zippo with one hand easy, even cold, as you can roll it along your leg...

with two fists you can get 'er going.

also, a bic cannot STAY lit without your hand.

Light the zippo.. set it on the ground amongst your tinder pile, and once it gets going, you can use a stick to dig out the zippo. No worse for wear!

I have a zippo in every bag I carry.

Keep them fresh fueled! They will work with gas, but be VERY careful!

IMCO Super is an alternate to ZIPPO. I find that it holds fluid longer period of "non-use"

 

[anlrolfe]

more zippo: eff the dimestore card of flints. just pick up disposed of disposable lighters for the best and cheapest flints. rip the top off and extract. easy.

and zippo fluid is coleman fuel is naptha. use this info at your own discretion.

razor charp chain. yes, can never be stated too many times. if you know that you're not good at chain filing, spend some time working on it get self-sufficient! buy good files and think about the process. the time will be paid back to you when you "get it".

i'm just now getting where my freehand is faster than jigged filing...oh it's a good feeling.

Coleman fuel has a little bit of corrosion inhibitor added.
It is much cheaper by the gallon than from Ronsol
English may call this "Panel Wipe"
Learned this from "Coleman Collectors" and "Classic Camp Stoves" SpiritBurner.com
By the way, they hate "dual fuel" stoves that suffer from results of ethanol blend fuels

 

[anlrolfe]

Some guys have difficulty with the delicate task of pouring sticky bar and chain oil from the gallon jug into the small filler hole without spilling it all over everything.

You can buy it in one quart containers, but it it a lot more expensive that way. It's hard to keep funnels clean in the field. So, the thrifty, neat chain saw user buys it in gallons and transfers it to more suitable field dispensers at home/in the shop.

If any oil vendors were lurking, they should get the idea now to sell it in bottles similar to those used for gear oil.

Philbert

(by the way, ever pour a beer from a keg, into a pitcher, then into a glass before drinking?)

Bar oil usually comes with either plastic or heavy foil seal on the top of the jug. I slice out a wedge leaving most of the seal intact. If its not coming out fast enough, squeeze gently. Either way it give a smaller stream that's easier to control than a big GLUG

 

[AT sawyer]

I cut my own felling and bucking wedges that I use in the woods using scrap hardwood. A 4 to 5-degree wedge is about optimal with a pointed end. These are easy to lose, so I paint a blue stripe on them:

The loops hold several. I make these from scrap wire saved from political campaign signs.

The edges look pretty clean. Do you hammer them in with a wooden mallet?

 

[Wood Doctor]

The edges appear clean in the Pic because I had just finished making these. I usually use a 3-lb sledge hammer in the field, but a wooden mallet would also work well. Thanks for reminding me of that. In fact, the sledge is usually overkill. I have several hardwood mallets in the shop that I have made.

These wedges don't last forever, but they work very well. One of my logger buddies goes through about a half-dozen wedges a year. He says that he'd rather use mine than spend $50 a year on plastic ones.

 

[jerry quinn]

i don't have a picture to show for this right now but, i hate how the modern day fuel cans that don't have that air vent on the opposite side of the spout. it was really nice to be able to flip that cap and pour without the chugging that causes spilage. on these newer ventless cans, i've drilled a half inch hole and inserted a tire valve with the core removed. now when pouring fuel, i can remove the black cap and have a vent to pour easier and faster if needed. also, you can pour fuel from the tire valve if needed.

i welded a vise on a hitch ball mount, i can take the vise with me in the back of the truck and insert it into any two inch receiver to use the vise. i liked it so much that i welded some 2" square tube to my trailer at 40" high so i can insert the vise at that location for me or anyone to use.

if you haven't tried the "Ratio-Rite" cup, you need to. i love it. google it to see it. it has all ratios on the cup for mixing different quantities. 20:1 through 100:1 i think is on it.

the previous post about flipping the saw upside down to help with filing, i love it! makes me feel stupid since i've filed 10 miles of chain and never thought of it.

I hear ya on the vise I did the same thing.

 

[Knobby57]

Couple weeks ago I couldnt find the scabbard for my Super Wiz so being the cheap bast^$d I am I grabbed some insulation tubing and made it work. Sometimes you got to do what you got to do. I never leave home without a bed full of saws!

You have to be a man to run some of these. Hhhmph I feel like a wimp . Where to you put your cut wood?

 

[shootingarts]

I have caught myself making a simple mistake carrying a saw, perhaps others are doing the same. Generally the saw is facing away from me when I pick it up in my work area. I grab the saw and twist it around with the bar facing the rear. Sounds fine except for one little detail, I'm now holding the saw with an underhand grip, palm forward.

If I trip the saw handlebar is between my hand and the way it naturally wants to travel to catch myself. I need to release the saw and wait for it to fall free before starting to swing my hand forward to catch myself or I need to fling it clear as I start down then reposition my hand to catch myself. In all likelihood reflexes are going to cause me to try to catch myself with hands in front, saw and all since I either can't let go of it or will let go of it while propelling it right to where I am falling since my palm and fingers are behind the handlebar as I try to release my grip.

All I need to do to prevent this is be mindful that I have the saw in an overhand grip with the bar and the palm of my hand facing the rear when carrying it. That way the saw will fall cleanly giving me the best chance to save myself and it is even easiest on the saw since it just falls pretty much straight down from hand high.

A little thing but carrying the saw in an overhand grip may save me some stitches someday. If nothing else it may save me from a saw damaged when I have to toss it.

Hu

 

[Wood Doctor]

Here's a simple tip that many guys forget. Storing a saw on a concrete slab such as a garage floor for a length of time sets up a chemical reaction that eats into the bottom. Lacking shelf space or a case, a simple solution is to rest the saw on a couple off folded up newspaper sections or a piece of scrap plywood rather than in direct contact with the concrete.

 

[Jeff Lary]

When you are ready to adjust the chain, hold up and pull back on the rear handle a little when you tighten the bar bolts. By doing this you are simulating what happens when you put down pressure on the bar when you saw. Thus you take up the little bit of possible later movement before you tighten the bolts and your adjustment will last a lot longer before needing it again. Also in the middle of the bar grab a cutter and pull up out of the bar groove. You should be able to see 5 driver come completely up above the bar. That is the way I was taught to check for correct chain tension, I have been doing this for 30 years and never had an issue with a too tight chain.

 

[Real1shepherd]

A few felling tips:

Try the open face scarf
I converted to the open face cut for most of my falling and have enjoyed fewer surprises. The key is to make sure that the hinge stays in-tact as long as possible - the traditional scarf will force the hinge to break while the tree is only 1/2 way down.

Felling Wedges on Medium DBH Trees
Trees with a DBH of under 20" can be tricky to wedge, especially if you are trying to make a longer hinge by cutting a deeper scarf. You can't drive a wedge at 90deg to the hinge - it will be too long. Use 2 wedges parallel to the hinge one driven in from each side.

Stacking Wedges
If you need a taller wedge you can stack 2 of them, however this is really hard to do if you drive one directly on top of another. A better approach is to drive the first wedge at 45deg angle to the hinge, then drive the second wedge at 90deg to the first (45deg to hinge in the other direction). This will reduce the odds of spitting a wedge out and can double your taper.

The problem with your open face scarf or 'split the difference cut' as it's called more commonly around here is the scale you're wasting. If you're a firewood gatherer, it's a very safe fallin' cut. If you're a logger, you're losing too much scale off the log butt for your show and especially if your gypo boss expects you to use Humboldt cuts. You can use a modified Humboldt by opening up your angle cut more and increase the safety factor. What a lot of modern fallers have never been taught is stump shot. The height of your stump shot will keep the butt of the tree from coming back at you...in any of the cuts. I see guys coming in at an inch above(or less) on their back cut and I just cringe.

Kevin

 

[shootingarts]

The problem with your open face scarf or 'split the difference cut' as it's called more commonly around here is the scale you're wasting. If you're a firewood gatherer, it's a very safe fallin' cut. If you're a logger, you're losing too much scale off the log butt for your show and especially if your gypo boss expects you to use Humboldt cuts. You can use a modified Humboldt by opening up your angle cut more and increase the safety factor. What a lot of modern fallers have never been taught is stump shot. The height of your stump shot will keep the butt of the tree from coming back at you...in any of the cuts. I see guys coming in at an inch above(or less) on their back cut and I just cringe.

Kevin

Kevin,

Talk a little more about stump shot please. Makes sense to me but I have also seen people knocking not placing the back cut even with the apex of the cut or very slightly above, that inch or less you are talking about. If you don't mind give me numbers. Say, a thirty inch pine at cut height, a hell of a lot lower than DBH if you are logging, what top and bottom angles are you using for your notch and how high above the apex are you cutting the back cut? How high above a Humboldt would you come?

Any downside that you know of other than a little scale loss from placing the back cut a few inches higher which I believe is what you are suggesting?

Thanks for any additional information. I have cut down a few dozen or so large trees over the years just as a land owner but I'm getting older and gimpier all the time and it gets more important to do things right the slower I move. Cutting more trees than I used to now too, I need the wood.

Hu

 

[Real1shepherd]

Kevin,

Talk a little more about stump shot please. Makes sense to me but I have also seen people knocking not placing the back cut even with the apex of the cut or very slightly above, that inch or less you are talking about. If you don't mind give me numbers. Say, a thirty inch pine at cut height, a hell of a lot lower than DBH if you are logging, what top and bottom angles are you using for your notch and how high above the apex are you cutting the back cut? How high above a Humboldt would you come?

Any downside that you know of other than a little scale loss from placing the back cut a few inches higher which I believe is what you are suggesting?

Thanks for any additional information. I have cut down a few dozen or so large trees over the years just as a land owner but I'm getting older and gimpier all the time and it gets more important to do things right the slower I move. Cutting more trees than I used to now too, I need the wood.

Hu

Hey Hu,
I was taught fallin' by an old logger on the west coast. He was adamant and without finding the old book of Douglas Dent's, so was Dent on stump shot...the rule on stump shot was at least 3-4inches. You could have more on large trees, you just lose scale. The height of the stump shot counteracts(with the hinge wood), the tendency of the tree butt to sometimes kick back at you as it's going down. No downside...just some scale loss versus your life. I'm not letting any wood's boss tell me to cut lower because he's losing scale...it's about saving my ass.

So using the Modified Hombodlt, my favortie...your first cut about a third of the way in, depending on rot or frozen wood. Then my angled face cut is around 60 degrees..wedge chunk falls to the ground and pushed out of the way. Always clean your face cut up AFTER you get the wedge chunk out if your lines didn't meet up perfectly...don't ever do multiple cuts with the wedge chunk still in place. This is also a good time to recheck your fallin' angle. Backcut after scribing both sides with a lumber crayon, is at least three-four inches above the first cut. Always at least palm a wedge in as soon as it fits. Wedging and use of a tree jack is a discussion for another day.

You'll be thrown off most jobs I worked if you're trying a conventional or 'split the difference'(open face scarf cut) cut. It's a very safe cut for a novice though. But given most jobs on the west coast require Humboldt style cuts, I went with the modified which by its very nature lets the tree almost go all the way down before the face cut closes. That's the problem with conventional and Humboldt cuts.....depending on how much negative lean, the face can close way before the tree is completely down...increasing the chance of barber chair and the butt launching back at you.

Kevin

 

[shootingarts]

Hey Hu,
I was taught fallin' by and old logger on the west coast. He was adamant and without finding the old book of Douglas Dent's, so was Dent on stump shot...the rule on stump shot was at least 3-4inches. You could have more on large trees, you just lose scale. The height of the stump shot counteracts(with the hinge wood), the tendency of the tree butt to sometimes kick back at you as it's going down. No downside...just some scale loss versus your life. I'm not letting any wood's boss tell me to cut lower because he's losing scale...it's about saving my ass.

So using the Modified Hombodlt, my favortie...your first cut about a third of the way in, depending on rot or frozen wood. Then my angled face cut is around 60 degrees..wedge chunk falls to the ground and pushed out of the way. Always clean your face cut up AFTER you get the wedge chunk out if your lines didn't meet up perfectly...don't ever do multiple cuts with the wedge chunk still in place. This is also a good time to recheck your fallin' angle. Backcut after scribing both sides with a lumber crayon, is at least three-four inches above the first cut. Always at least palm a wedge in as soon as it fits. Wedging and use of a tree jack is a discussion for another day.

You'll be thrown off most jobs I worked if you're trying a conventional or 'split the difference'(open face scarf cut) cut. It's a very safe cut for a novice though. But given most jobs on the west coast require Humboldt style cuts, I went with the modified which by its very nature lets the tree almost go all the way down before the face cut closes. That's the problem with conventional and Humboldt cuts.....depending on how much negative lean, the face can close way before the tree is completely down...increasing the chance of barber chair and the butt launching back at you.

Kevin

Kevin,

Many thanks! I did follow you all the way through with no problem, well explained. I have wedges and I do use a safety wedge to prevent sitting back and pinch felling, pinch bucking too when it is hard to tell just which way the pinch will want to go. Something I haven't tried yet is jacking. I have the capabilities for jacking and winching and a couple trees that I may have to deal with that will require one or the other. I'm curious about jacking because I can tote the jack places I'm not set up to use the winch. No need to go into that now though, I have watched some video and don't know when I'll actually do any jacking. I'll try it on a tree or two where I could get by without it before one I'm counting on the jacks.

Hu

 

[Real1shepherd]

Kevin,

Many thanks! I did follow you all the way through with no problem, well explained. I have wedges and I do use a safety wedge to prevent sitting back and pinch felling, pinch bucking too when it is hard to tell just which way the pinch will want to go. Something I haven't tried yet is jacking. I have the capabilities for jacking and winching and a couple trees that I may have to deal with that will require one or the other. I'm curious about jacking because I can tote the jack places I'm not set up to use the winch. No need to go into that now though, I have watched some video and don't know when I'll actually do any jacking. I'll try it on a tree or two where I could get by without it before one I'm counting on the jacks.

Hu

Hu,
I used to have a Silvey 50 ton tree jack. It was amazing....but it was stolen. So....I replaced it with a 30 ton decent quality, hydraulic jack from NAPA. I went down to a machine shop and made a 5"x5" plate, one inch thick. I use that between the top of the ram and the tree surface. Works like a dream on good sized timber. Trick is cutting out your 'window' box for the jack....takes practice. You really need to know your saw here, because kickback from the tip as you plunge cut, can be brutal.

I use wedges buckin' about as often as fallin'. Sometimes I guess wrong and the log peaks up and the wedge falls on the chain-better safe than sorry. Plus, I use the rattiest of my wedges for bucking....keep the pristine ones for fallin'.

Kevin

 

[shootingarts]

Hu,
I used to have a Silvey 50 ton tree jack. It was amazing....but it was stolen. So....I replaced it with a 30 ton decent quality, hydraulic jack from NAPA. I went down to a machine shop and made a 5"x5" plate, one inch thick. I use that between the top of the ram and the tree surface. Works like a dream on good sized timber. Trick is cutting out your 'window' box for the jack....takes practice. You really need to know your saw here, because kickback from the tip as you plunge cut, can be brutal.

I use wedges buckin' about as often as fallin'. Sometimes I guess wrong and the log peaks up and the wedge falls on the chain-better safe than sorry. Plus, I use the rattiest of my wedges for bucking....keep the pristine ones for fallin'.

Kevin

Kevin,

I figure that all my wedges are likely to come to a bad end or be lost, ordered extras. Trying some quarter sawn gum too. I did stay away from the ones with steel inserts, murphy being murphy one way or another those steel inserts and my chain would find each other.

Have to strap them to the tree or consider that they will fall out but I have a ten ton toe jack and access to a couple much heavier ones. Heavy in more ways than one, they are chunks! Anyway, I was thinking a couple pieces of heavy plate to spread the load and use the toe jacks, I would be able to cut a much smaller box, only about two to three inches tall. This is a link to toe jacks in case you aren't familiar with them, not the ones I would be using.

http://moveheavystuff.com/lifting-solutions#toejacks

Bought my old Napa bottle jack when I had an eighteen wheeler in the mid eighties, still going strong! The Napa stuff wasn't cheap but it used to be quality.

Hu

 

[Real1shepherd]

Hu,
Thanks for the link...didn't know what they were. The compact toe jacks look very interesting....but the one I like is $2,000+!! I just did some research and found out that Silvey no longer makes tree jacks.....so what's out there is out there....what a total pisser. Time to start looking around the two states....

For awhile, I had some aluminum wedges that if hit the chain, took most of the abuse without dulling the chain. Haven't seen them for yrs. The only problem with plastic wedges is that with some hard-case trees, you can pretty much demolish them by the time the tree comes down. 'Course if the tree is good scale, it doesn't really matter....but it does matter if I had twenty more trees yet to cut. When things are going that hard, I usually break out the tree jack.

On that modding & porting site I mistakenly got into.....I had to laugh to myself at the guy talking about making one load for a day. If I couldn't cut at least three log truck loads in a day, it wasn't worth walking onto the site. The rule of thumb was that more than 25 logs to a load and you were in crummy scale timber....basically tree thinning.

I'm gonna call Silvey Monday and ask why they still feature their tree jacks on their site, but they're not supposed to be made anymore....I'm confused.

Kevin

 

[shootingarts]

Kevin,

Hasn't been too many years since my friend bought the bottle style toe jacks. Pretty big but I don't remember the ton rating. Looked like 30-50 ton jacks but I assume they are downrated as toe jacks. Pretty sure they were under five hundred each. Those slide in jacks are cute but like you say, they like them! Have to find some at auction or from an equipment reseller. Kind of thing you mostly find when you aren't looking for it. Got a call in to my friend, I'll see if I can get any info on those jacks.

A chuckle about loads, I was talking to a great large raw boned country boy that had grown up in a pulp wooding family. He told me he used to hand load a truck load of short logs by hand every day by himself and think nothing of it. Best I recall about six and a half cords and a pretty tough throw to the top of the load when you got that high. I never batted an eye, told him I wouldn't think much of doing it myself!

I've worked very hard sometimes but not if I could avoid it. When the pay was $20 a day for farm help I used to pay twenty for two or three hours work, annoyed the local farmers. I explained to them that I worked four tens then drove 750 miles each way to get 520 bales of alfalfa. Got caught once loading the hay alone in a five or six hundred feet long co-op barn. The hay was by the door, the closed door the farmer didn't have a key to! My truck fit between 20'-30' tall stacks of hay like a cork blocking what little air was back there, no light to see if there were snakes in the hay, quite a job for a man still looking at a 750 mile run home and then helping unload and stack the hay in time to catch a nap and hit work Monday morning climbing iron hanging insulation and sheet metal. From then on I made sure laborers came running when they saw that red cabover hit the town limit!

Hu

 

[Real1shepherd]

Hu,
Lol....on the work ethic thing. Unfortunately for our generation, there was little regard to safety. If you were a 'company man' you could easily let them work you to the point were you were bent & broken. Fortunately for me I was lucky and had wanderlust....so I keep moving around the country picking up trades as a challenge. What that enabled me to do was move to the next state and so on and so forth. Loggin' I truly loved, but the bosses where simply, slavers and you were their red meat...at least the gypos. On the other hand, work for one of the big outfits like Crown Z and the pace was so slow, you wonder how they ever got any wood moved to the mills. I just got tired of chasing my check down on later Friday afternoon with the gypos, or listening to the excuses of why there wasn't enough payroll that week, or how it was "you fallers fault", etc. Too hard and too dangerous to deal with that. I almost got into horse loggin' up in northern Idaho once...but got distracted with something else.

The young fallers, they don't wanna hear the old tales...they know it all...until they're killed or maimed for life.....but then that's youth to a large degree. At least I was respectful and tried to pull all I could out of the old guys while they were still around.

I did a CL search last night for Silvey jacks....was really disappointing. Only found the backpack set with two jacks and the pumping station for $2,000! And the set-up looked really rough. I don't need anything more these days than the single jack. There were two school on tree jacks; the guys that cut a row for them and used them from the start with their back cut. And then the guys that used them if they had too. I fall into the latter category, unless I have negative lean and will start out with the jack. Of course if you were down in CA into Cypress and Redwood, you'd be in the first category.

Kevin