Titanium would help on the exhaust, bars, handlebars, mounting bolts, bar studs(mebbe) - basically replace steel with it to save weight. Titanium can only be hardened to somewhere in the 48Rc range. A chainsaw chain drive link is most likely 3000 series or 4000 series chrome moly, so it would eventually wear the titanium down unless it is nitride coated/anodized. Precipitation hardened Ti is something like 48Rc at best. So that's about as hard as the chain. You want it to be harder to last longer. Ti Nitride is something like 85Rc, but it is a very thin coat(anodized surface hardening). How long does it take before you see a GB Ti bar turn shiny? They supposedly hold up well.
You probably could realistically replace all your bolts, and maybe even the lugs, with Ti bolts for about $200 or so. That may save ya a few ounces.
titanium bolt set | eBay
You could grab some Ti Bike Handlebars and put them to use for the saw. Here's one that is 22" long and 162 grams - so maybe 40 grams less than a 6061 Al bar:
Titec titanium ti MTB XC handlebar 22 inches wide 162 grams! | eBay
You COULD go with carbon fiber on a handle bar. They do not cost more than Titanium. And often cost less. And weigh less. But outside of a homeowners, won't last.
Ti would be lighter than stainless for the exhaust and last longer. And a really cool side effect is it changes colors once you start to use it:
But Husky already use super thin metal there as it is(I wonder why...). Your chainsaw bar will also turn that color around the leading edges when your oiler stops working.
You could replace the rod with titanium, but Ti is a very poor heat conductor. I dunno if the con rod pulls a lot of heat from the piston to the chassis. Or if it needs to. The poor conductivity of Ti may not require a heat shield/deflector behind the muffler, so would save that tiny bit of weight on some models.
You could maybe use aluminum beryllium(AlBe) pistons or cylinders. But those are silly expensive. They use it in Satellites and refurb-ed some Space Shuttle stuff with it, too. That's also F1 stuff. Actually, it was banned by F1... 'Be' by itself is stunningly expensive to fabricate. Or at least it used to be back when I was looking at it. In particle form, it is hazardous to your health. Here is an AlBe quote from an F1 site:
"A typical commercially available aluminium-beryllium alloy has a specific stiffness 250% greater than a good piston alloy, and 44% greater thermal conductivity."
So there ya go. Might as well make the handlebar from that, too. Oh, and your chainsaw bar.
It's 3:30AM! I am gonna go have a smoke and some bourbon.
