where do you draw the line with saw perfection, and maintenance?

[procarbine2k1]

Compressed air works well for me, also use a plastic bristle brush as needed. Mechanicals are at 110%. As much as I love my saws, I dont like working on them in the woods.

 

[NORMZILLA44]

Im with ya man. I will if I have to, but at home with the vise, and work bench makes it much nicer.

 

[turnkey4099]

I agee, so long as it runs good I'm not going to take the saw half apart to clean, don't have time here. Blow it off when the bar is off and keep the fins mostly clean. Steve

Same here. Good blow and clean bar groove whenever I sharpen chains since the bars have to come off anyhow and that is about it other than washing filters.

Harry K

 

[Eccentric]

Other than AF and chain maintenance, the most important things for my working saws are keeping the cooling fins clear and clearing the buildup of oily chips and such out of the clutch and drivecase area. I also pull the flywheel cover every once in a while to clear out the accumulated chips and crap so they don't block cooling air. A saw that can't shed heat isn't gonna last as long...

 

[Gologit]

Waxing your saws, applying ArmorAll, using Qtips and tweezers to remove every speck of dirt, and letting them ride in the front seat is obsessive behavior...anything else is just good maintenance.

Okay, I had to rethink my answer. My day to day routine is just normal maintenance stuff to keep it running and to make it last.

But once a year, usually in the winter when work is slow, I do a complete tear-down on both my 660s and the 066 I have for a backup saw. And I mean complete tear-down. Plastics off, clutch, p&c, starter side, carb, muffler....everything. Everything gets looked at and fixed or replaced if necessary. And then everything gets cleaned. There's an amazing amount of tiny little nooks and crannies where gunk builds up and they all get sanitized. Once a year...that's enough. The little saws like the 361 that don't get run as often or as hard as the work saws get a tear-down every other year. That's plenty.

And, I'll confess...occasionally I'll use Q-tips. But I absolutely refuse to wax my saws. No Armor-all either.

 

[NORMZILLA44]

Aaron you say chip's, and such LOL! That's alright Parmeter still say's somewhere's LOL! Gologit that's good maintenace!

 

[Eccentric]

Aaron you say chip's, and such LOL! That's alright Parmeter still say's somewhere's LOL! Gologit that's good maintenace!

Yeah Norm, Parmeter's saw maintenance program differs a bit from mine. Getting his saws back up to snuff is taking a bit more than the usual cleanup. The SP-81's about where I want it, but I'm still digging crap out of the 750. Probably just going to break it down just short of pulling the jug and splitting the cases so I can get all that #### outa there.

You can tell John $70 for the parts. Should be close enough for me to order 'em. If it's a bit more, we can square up later. If it turns out to be less, I'll give him back whatever's leftover.

 

[NORMZILLA44]

Aaron that's to much gotta be a first, oh and Johns maintenace program non existent LOL! You could make a fur coat.