long term stihl RDR carbide chain review

[flashhole]

I bet that homeowner was glad you took the job. Did you get an "after" pic?

 

[imagineero]

He agreed so quickly to the price that I instantly had that sinking feeling that I had charged too little. There was almost a 'negative hesitation', like he'd said yes before I even said the price. I didn't get an after photo because the batter ran flat. We took the whole lot though, left only bedrock. It was hard hard work, but the chain did well and saved a lot of time.

I get my chains for only $3 or $4 each from my local hire shop. Sometimes even less. They put a new chain on every saw they hire out and quite a lot come back in good condition not even really needing a sharpen. Some are completely trashed though. They are all carlton chains. At that price, $100 worth of chains is a lot of chains to use on a stump... like 30 chains. Still, there's a lot of time involved in changing out 30 chains.

By comparison, list price for a 20" stihl chain is over $50 in aus.
Shaun

 

[Stihlman441]

Rep sent, good stuff mate.

 

[galde]

I lucked into a bucketfull of damaged RD chains a while back that a fire dept. was throwing out after they were quoted a price on repairing the chains. They were all 60-link and I found enough good teeth to transplant to make a dozen or so 72-link chains. I grind them (with diamond wheel or dremel bit) a little less aggressive than RM and they cut much slower than sharp RM or RD, but I have lost very few tooth inserts. The inserts come off more readily when they have been ground back a lot, as there is less surface area for the joint. The inserts will stand up to a lot of dirt and sand, but they peel off if snagged on hard steel, such as high-tensile small diameter fence wire. They will cut limestone, but not silica-bearing stone.

 

[Dan_IN_MN]

......The chain cuts in a very different way from normal chain. It doesn't throw chip, it grinds. The biggest surprise is that you cant dross cut with it in the normal sense. If you lay it across a log and try to start cutting it will just start smoking and throw nothing, not even dust. If you lean on the digs it grabs and stalls. I thought the 044 might have been not enough saw, so we put it onto a snellerised 660 with a 7 pin rim. Same story. You have to use the chain pretty much the way they do in the rescue vids – the tip 5” of the bar only. I think this is a result of the weird geometry of the chain. You have to use that top few inches, and 'saw' across the cut in bigger cuts....Shaun

Sounds like how a regular chain can be 'made' to cut if the depth gauges are too high.

 

[David (saltas)]

leave the geometry alone

use it as designed, cause it works that way

You may make an expensive lesson for your self if you get it wrong

Rep for your investment and your time to show us

 

[imagineero]

leave the geometry alone

use it as designed, cause it works that way

You may make an expensive lesson for your self if you get it wrong

Rep for your investment and your time to show us

Yeah it's true that it works as designed, but I'm not using it as it was designed. I'm not cutting through steel or armoured glass ;-) It isn't really working too well for me as it is, so I'm going to start off putting a little more top plate angle, a little more head angle and take the rakers down. Yeah it's a bit of coin to put out for a chain, but it's just a chain.

Like the above poster said, normal chain would cut about the same if it was sharpened like that. 85/15/0 is pretty steep. I think another poster somewhere else said that you can cut through steel ok with .404 sharpened to 85/20/0. I'm going to take it to 75/20/0 and see how that goes, plus take the rakers down a bit. If that doesnt do much better then I'll go a little further... maybe 70/25/0.

Worst case scenario you trash the chain. The good thing about the RDR is that the cutter is very well stuck on compared to the RD, it runs full length and you can probably use it right to the end of the cutter. It also has a much bigger piece of carbide. You could always take it back to the stock settings and lose a bit of chain. Never tries never knows ;-)

Shaun

 

[imagineero]

Well,
I thought I'd do something a little more time efficient and do a video on the next job. We did this one just before the end of the year. It was a good idea except my groundie ran the camera and he didnt really show what I was pointing at, plus he was too far away or had his finger over the mic or something so you can't hear a damn thing I'm saying. Back to typing I guess....

The job is another building site, a lot of them I get are like this. If you want to get this work and have the gear to do it, it isn't hard. Just pass your card out to builders and plumbers in your area, they'll call. I don't actively look for this sort of work but if someone calls and the price is right, I take it on.

This one was a palm right up the back of the property in a well to do area. Was originally in a raised garden bed about 2' off the ground. Someone else did the palm and cut it to ground level. The builders have then removed the retaining wall and excavated the garden bed down to ground level by hand. No access for a digger or large stump grinder and the owners wanted to keep their lawn nice. They wanted to remove the stump down to below ground for a slab to go down for a cabana or something.

The ground was all clay, sticky as you like. The overall mass of roots/clay/trunk was about 4 1/2' diameter and 4' tall. We did quite a bit of cutting before starting the video and ended up taking it out in about 15 big chunks. My grinder is only a 20hp stump humper. It's a great grinder for tight areas and self propelled but not very powerful. If I had a big grinder (or if one could get into the yard) then grinding the whole stump would have been a better option. In the pic we're down to the last 2 chunks. I cut the stump in 2 'levels', and gridded up each level into 9 then cut each chunk out. The chunks still needed 2 guys to pick up.

[video=youtube_share;vl8mJG1tPcI]http://youtu.be/vl8mJG1tPcI[/video]

The chain was on the snellerised 660, 7 pin rim. You can see how the saw bogs down easy, looks like I'm leaning on it in the vid but I'm using a very light touch. At the end I thought it was bogged, but the chain had actually skipped over the nose and jammed. As with the first job there was a lot of stretch, like needed adjusting every couple of cuts. It had been tensioned before the cut but stretched enough to jump mid cut. Stretch has been a real problem.

You can sort of making out what I'm trying to say about having to continuously plunge cut with the section near the nose of the bar, I can see how this chain would work well with the special bar cover on the rescue saws. I think the chain was sharpened from the factory to cut things 'edge on' rather than cross cut... like in the factory demo vid, they are cutting thin sheet materials like sheet metal, glass etc. A normal cutter geometry would end up chipped or ripped off cutting materials this way. I'm hoping it will become more usable with different geometry.

[video=youtube;YlBsfVOvKMY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlBsfVOvKMY[/video]

In the end we got 'er done, no noticeable wear on the chain. Grinding the rest of the stump turned out pretty awful, haven't really done much stumping in clay before. Palm is so soft it's usually just a quick buzz out but the chip kept jamming into the clay and rolling into balls. The clay also bogged the machine down fast, and clogged the wheel cover up so the wheel couldn't travel. Had to stop and clean it out a few times. All up the job took about 3 hours. The saw work was about 15 min and saved a lot of time.

I took the chain and bar off the saw and gave it a clean off, the side plate has no sharpness to it out of the box which might be part of the problem. It ends up ripping fibres rather than severing them. I had it on a standard 20" stihl E roller nose bar and it has pretty much mashed the hell out of the underside of the nose in short order. I've ran the chain for about 3 or 4 tanks of fuel and this is the result;

it wore a deep groove in the rails, deeper than it looks. The wear is all in the nose which is a difficult area to true up due to the sprocket being there you cant use a file in the normal way. you can run a file lengthwise, or a dremel but the results are less than ideal. I had a dig round through my bars because I remembered having a tsumura solid bar with a hard nose but it turned out to be 25". I've put the chain on a solid oregon bar with a sprocket nose which I think is a bit harder than the stihl. Will see on the next job.

This kind of cutting is hard on saws and bars.

Shaun

 

[imagineero]

I lucked into a bucketfull of damaged RD chains a while back that a fire dept. was throwing out after they were quoted a price on repairing the chains. They were all 60-link and I found enough good teeth to transplant to make a dozen or so 72-link chains. I grind them (with diamond wheel or dremel bit) a little less aggressive than RM and they cut much slower than sharp RM or RD, but I have lost very few tooth inserts. The inserts come off more readily when they have been ground back a lot, as there is less surface area for the joint. The inserts will stand up to a lot of dirt and sand, but they peel off if snagged on hard steel, such as high-tensile small diameter fence wire. They will cut limestone, but not silica-bearing stone.

Nice score on the chains! Does it take long to do them with the dremel diamonds? I had a go at doing a normal chain with a dremel once but I couldnt get the hang of it. Do you know your approximate sharpening measurements? A pic of a sharpened cutter would be greatly appreciated.

What are you using your chains to cut and how has the experience been for you?

Thanks,
Shaun

 

[zogger]

proly a dumb question

Well, with a short gap between christmas and new years I've managed to find an hour to sit down, pull some pics off the camera and do a bit of typing.

The first job for the chain was a pretty awful stump. I get maybe 3 or 4 jobs a year like this and I dont look forward to them. Big stumps I refer to guys with big stump grinders. My machine is just a 20hp stump humper – self propelled and great for stumps up to 2', but not a big machine by anyones standards.

You know the site is going to be bad news when there's a 25 foot ladder involved. This particular site had a stump about 20' down from ground level next to a house. The photo doesn't really show that the stump is on a small ledge which then drops off sharply and becomes a slope that goes all the way down to the river. The ledge is bedrock. The owner had tried a lot of companies to get them to remove the stump so he could do a building extension, everybody had said no. There was no access for a crane, and even if there was the ledge was too precarious to drop a stump grinder down there. Everything would have to be taken away. Tree companies had looked at it and said no. In the end, the owner spent 6 weeks excavating it by hand down to the bedrock (dug out about 3' of sandy rock filled soil) and bucketed it down to the slope below, then hired a chainsaw for a few days and blunted a lot of chains and got nowhere. The entire stump shown in the photo was originally underground to the height of the retaining wall beside it.



The only good news for us was that he'd spent all those weeks excavating by hand. The sandy rock filled soil sitting on top of bedrock was bad news, and the stump itself was full of sand and rocks. It's hard to put a figure on a removal like this, but it's pretty easy to start at $1,000 and work up from there. In the past I've used upwards of 20 chains trying to cut out stumps like this.



We put the chain on an 044 with a fresh engine and plenty of pulling power and set to work. Started making cuts in the roots, some as little as 2”, the bigger ones about 18”x14”. Some were submerged in sand, some had grown over rocks. Most were sitting on top of the bedrock, and I ended up digging a few trenches right through the rock with the chain.

The chain cuts in a very different way from normal chain. It doesn't throw chip, it grinds. The biggest surprise is that you cant dross cut with it in the normal sense. If you lay it across a log and try to start cutting it will just start smoking and throw nothing, not even dust. If you lean on the digs it grabs and stalls. I thought the 044 might have been not enough saw, so we put it onto a snellerised 660 with a 7 pin rim. Same story. You have to use the chain pretty much the way they do in the rescue vids – the tip 5” of the bar only. I think this is a result of the weird geometry of the chain. You have to use that top few inches, and 'saw' across the cut in bigger cuts. When you use it this way, it's very aggressive! It really wants to pull the saw right out of your hands. And it does cut reasonably fast. It's more like trying to cut through a log with a grinding disk on an angle grinder than a normal chainsaw chain though....



I got used to the technique after a while though it's a bit disconcerting. We ended up making 25-30 cuts through roots, in the sand, and cutting through rocks as well. Then we had to rip the barrel up. The carbide chain was tedious here, so we used it to cut through all the rock/sand encrusted outer layers of the barrel then switched to another saw with a normal chain. It saved a lot of chains and time that way.



The we ran out of camera battery because I forgot to charge the camera the night before. The whole job took 4 hours including setup, cleanup, and getting all the gear up and down the ladder. Total saw time was about 45 minutes. The truck could not be parked close to the cliff. We ripped the stump into about 10 pieces. The whole stump and roots were lifted up with ropes by hand, there was nothing to rig mechanical advantage off. For reference, the stump/roots weight in at 950kg (about 200lbs) when dumped. Very dense hard awful wood. My initial impressions of the chain were a bit disappointing. I was really surprised that you couldnt cross cut with it at all but had to use a sort of continuous bore cut technique. Will look at changing the cutter geometry. The toughness of the chain was impressive though....



No discernable wear. We cut through lots of sand and rock impregnated wood as well as cutting sand and cutting rocks. The chain stretched quite a lot during use. I guess I adjusted it 8-10 times. Each time it was hanging about 1/2” off the bar. That's a lot of stretch! If it keeps up I might have to take a link out of it. It's already beyond the half way point of the adjuster on the saw on the first use.

Shaun

I'll ask it anyway though. In a situation like that, why not use a gas cut off saw? Just keep cross cutting it every which way as deep as you can, then pry/bust the chunks out with a six foot pry bar and a pick, then go at it again. Those things cut concrete and cast iron pipe, seems like they could be used for that sort of dirty and rocky job.

 

[David (saltas)]

I see what you mean Shaun

that chain is going to be the wrong pitch before you wear the cutters out

I can see you with a chain beaker and spinner making two skip tooth chains out of that one before this is over

 

[galde]

Nice score on the chains! Does it take long to do them with the dremel diamonds? I had a go at doing a normal chain with a dremel once but I couldnt get the hang of it. Do you know your approximate sharpening measurements? A pic of a sharpened cutter would be greatly appreciated.

What are you using your chains to cut and how has the experience been for you?

Thanks,
Shaun

I had to climb a pretty long learning curve before I liked using the Dremel-type tools. I will list a few observations for whatever they are worth. The Dremel models need to be the variable-speed type with ball bearings. They need to be slowed to about 12K or 15K RPM. If the Dremel is fixed-speed, Harbor Freight sells a nice speed control that can handle up to 15 amps. Use a foot switch so both hands can be dedicated to grinder placement and control. The Dremel saw chain guide (like the Granberg or Stihl guides on their 12V units) is worthless since it doesn't straddle the bit, and it is impossible to keep a uniform hook. The best guides are the ones on the 12V grinders sold by Oregon and many others, since they rest on both the tooth and the depth gauge. I plan to re-engineer the Dremels to use the Oregon-style guides. I use only the diamond bits, whether for carbide or steel teeth. They run much cooler and keep their size and shape. My chain vise (for both filing and Dremel grinding) is an old Stihl wide nose sprocket without the sprocket. A bolt through the end-most rivet hole tightens the rails to clamp the chain. An illuminated magnifier (another HF item) with a 100 watt compact fluorescent lamp is mounted above. Wear a good dust mask. A carbide resharpen takes a little less than twice the time for steel teeth. I never put a stone or a file to a tooth until it is squeaky clean. I now have a USC so that is easier and quicker. I like the carbide chains for stumps and wood that has spent some time on the ground. I find that my stump technique makes for less work than the cleanup usually required after the stump grinder leaves. I dig down a few inches all the way around the stump and clean away dirt. If the stump is 2 ft or larger, I make 2 vertical noodle cuts like an X. I then horizontal plunge cut from my dug line toward the center with a downward slant and pivot the bar until it approaches the dug line, and next make a fresh plunge to the center,.etc... When finished There is a dished-out area that I fill with dirt and move on.
One of these days I will see if my camera still works and I will post some pics...

 

[imagineero]

I'll ask it anyway though. In a situation like that, why not use a gas cut off saw? Just keep cross cutting it every which way as deep as you can, then pry/bust the chunks out with a six foot pry bar and a pick, then go at it again. Those things cut concrete and cast iron pipe, seems like they could be used for that sort of dirty and rocky job.

It's an idea that has been tried before, but I havent personally tried it. I dont have a gas cut off saw, but you can hire them in aus for $100~$150/day depending on the size of the saw. They measure the blade before hire and charge you for wear on top of the hire. From what I've read the standard diamond blade doesnt do much good in wood, but there is a heavier duty blade available that has big chunks of carbide in it. The blade was $400 last time I checked. You could pick up a good used demo saw for about $800 in aus, new I think they're about $2500. If i had a gas demo saw I might be tempted to buy one of the expensive blades to give it a go but probably not.

The other problem with the demo saws is that the usable amount of blade ends up only being about 4 or 5 inches depending on the size of balde you've got. You can hack and slash away, knock some out with an axe and keep going, but that's starting to sound like a lot of work. The other problem is the overall size of the cutting head of the saw can be as big as 20" depending on which model you have. That means no tight access, and you wont be able to get in under roots to undercut, or between roots etc. I've tried using circular saws with mixed success for similar reasons. You obviously wont be able to use this tool for ripping logs/stumps either, it's roots only.

I've looked at these a few times;
The arbortech petrol allsaw

[video=youtube;aIzjQXk-Veo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIzjQXk-Veo[/video]
[video=youtube;WOdNkncR9i0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOdNkncR9i0[/video]

It's an australian company, their website is here;

Arbortech

I figured if you got one you could probably make good money on it doing stumps, roots and some demo work. Even the biggest demo saws cant cut all the way through a double brick wall from one side. I could never get pricing on one because I dont think they made it to production but I'd expect pricing to be somewhere around $5k including the saw. No idea on blade life/price but I'd be expecting 'high, and not a lot'. They did go into production with a much smaller electric version of this saw that retails for $950. It doesnt come with the masonary type blade from memory, only a wood blade.

An interesting looking tool that could have some application, bu will obviously never be even half as good as a chainsaw. Looking at the mechanism I'd guess they had a lot of reliability issues.

As an aside, it's surprising how often I get a call from someone asking me to cut a root out of a tree that's still standing so they can put a path in or whatever. I'm talking major roots on large tree, right next to the tree. Of course I say no which surprises them. What do they think is holding the tree up? They usually end up going ahead anyway with axes or whatever.

I try to explain it each time, that the tree might not fall over today but with the right combination of wind/rain/time that tree will fall over and destroy their fence/house/kill their kids etc. They try to say they will accept all responsibility and I should just cut the root. I tell them that would never stand up in court, and that as an expert I would be liable for the consequences of all my work since they are obviously not competent to decide what is safe or not. Oh well.

Shaun

 

[galde]

Shaun I see from your pic of the RDR chain that it has the humped bumper link with the extended tail. I am curious about how far the bumper tail extends relative to the top plate edge when the chain goes around the nose of the bar. Before I try to bore cut with RM safety chain, I grind off enough of the bumper tail to match it with the depth gauge as it goes around the bar nose. This makes for a smooth bore cut that feeds easily. I got onto this while modifying various chains for carving with dime tip and quarter tip carving bars. You can use a depth measuring gauge on the bar nose to compare the distance from tail tip to nose rail with distance from top plate edge to nose rail. My ultimate smooth boring chain is the triple hump safety chain with the bumper tail contour-ground to the same height as the depth gauge. I do this with the chain mounted on the bar. I manually advance the chain past a grinder positioned at the tip of the bar. I use this method to optimize tooth geometry for carving.

 

[zogger]

It's an idea that has been tried before, but I havent personally tried it. I dont have a gas cut off saw, but you can hire them in aus for $100~$150/day depending on the size of the saw. They measure the blade before hire and charge you for wear on top of the hire. From what I've read the standard diamond blade doesnt do much good in wood, but there is a heavier duty blade available that has big chunks of carbide in it. The blade was $400 last time I checked. You could pick up a good used demo saw for about $800 in aus, new I think they're about $2500. If i had a gas demo saw I might be tempted to buy one of the expensive blades to give it a go but probably not.

The other problem with the demo saws is that the usable amount of blade ends up only being about 4 or 5 inches depending on the size of balde you've got. You can hack and slash away, knock some out with an axe and keep going, but that's starting to sound like a lot of work. The other problem is the overall size of the cutting head of the saw can be as big as 20" depending on which model you have. That means no tight access, and you wont be able to get in under roots to undercut, or between roots etc. I've tried using circular saws with mixed success for similar reasons. You obviously wont be able to use this tool for ripping logs/stumps either, it's roots only.

I've looked at these a few times;
The arbortech petrol allsaw

[video=youtube;aIzjQXk-Veo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIzjQXk-Veo[/video]
[video=youtube;WOdNkncR9i0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOdNkncR9i0[/video]

It's an australian company, their website is here;

Arbortech

I figured if you got one you could probably make good money on it doing stumps, roots and some demo work. Even the biggest demo saws cant cut all the way through a double brick wall from one side. I could never get pricing on one because I dont think they made it to production but I'd expect pricing to be somewhere around $5k including the saw. No idea on blade life/price but I'd be expecting 'high, and not a lot'. They did go into production with a much smaller electric version of this saw that retails for $950. It doesnt come with the masonary type blade from memory, only a wood blade.

An interesting looking tool that could have some application, bu will obviously never be even half as good as a chainsaw. Looking at the mechanism I'd guess they had a lot of reliability issues.

As an aside, it's surprising how often I get a call from someone asking me to cut a root out of a tree that's still standing so they can put a path in or whatever. I'm talking major roots on large tree, right next to the tree. Of course I say no which surprises them. What do they think is holding the tree up? They usually end up going ahead anyway with axes or whatever.

I try to explain it each time, that the tree might not fall over today but with the right combination of wind/rain/time that tree will fall over and destroy their fence/house/kill their kids etc. They try to say they will accept all responsibility and I should just cut the root. I tell them that would never stand up in court, and that as an expert I would be liable for the consequences of all my work since they are obviously not competent to decide what is safe or not. Oh well.

Shaun

Ya, it was just a thought. I have no idea how many styles of circular saw blade there are, just thought there might be one that would fit the bill. Renting it, no, but if you owned one and could figure in the cost of blades to the job quote..just a thought, one more tool to maybe use, maybe not on the entire stump, but a good chunk or chunks of it.

Makes ya appreciate the olden days when all they had was oxen, picks, prybars and dude power. They got a heckuva lot done back then without burning any gasoline or diesel...



That saw you linked to is pretty interesting.

 

[imagineero]

Shaun I see from your pic of the RDR chain that it has the humped bumper link with the extended tail. I am curious about how far the bumper tail extends relative to the top plate edge when the chain goes around the nose of the bar. Before I try to bore cut with RM safety chain, I grind off enough of the bumper tail to match it with the depth gauge as it goes around the bar nose. This makes for a smooth bore cut that feeds easily. I got onto this while modifying various chains for carving with dime tip and quarter tip carving bars. You can use a depth measuring gauge on the bar nose to compare the distance from tail tip to nose rail with distance from top plate edge to nose rail. My ultimate smooth boring chain is the triple hump safety chain with the bumper tail contour-ground to the same height as the depth gauge. I do this with the chain mounted on the bar. I manually advance the chain past a grinder positioned at the tip of the bar. I use this method to optimize tooth geometry for carving.

This is the first chain I've ever owned with this super ultra safety bumper. Sure does look weird. The only chain I've bought that had a safety bumper on it was the new 3/8LP full chisel stuff for the 200t's, but like most other guys out there I ground the safety bumper completely off with a dremel.

Shown below is a pic of the bumper on the nose

As you can see it's pretty full on safety. It still bores ok, but I'd rather use it for cross cutting.

I drew the pic below to represent cutting a bit of thin sheet material like sheet glass or sheetmetal. You can see how the material (drawn with a black line) drops right into the gullet. With this sort of material I think you'd be smashing/tearing it apart rather than cutting it. I guess thats the reason for the very steep cutter geometry and shallow rakers. The big fully filled in safety bumper makes sense in an application like that too. I might think about completely removing the fully filled bumper and trying to use this as a regular chain. Or at least grinding it down quite a lot. Maybe I'd have less drag/stretch that way.

Finally, a pic representing how things work with the whole 'angled saw cut' that I've had to use to get the chain cutting at all. If you take a look at the pic you can see I've drawn a semi circle representing a log/root. You can see that at the angle I'm using the saw only 2 teeth are cutting at a time, and that really each tooth is cutting its own 'ledge'. Cutting at an angle like this creates an unusually large fake raker depth, as you can see from the steps I drew in. The more angle you put on it, the bigger the 'fake raker' depth becomes. The arrow represents the direction you are dragging the saw to make the cut.

Considering the intended design of the chain I think it's well designed. This is the sort of angle you'd be seeing on the rescue saws with the 3/4 length adjustable chain cover. With much lower rakers and reduced/removed safety bumper and a more standard cutter geometry this chain could probably cut more like a normal chain. Being able to cross cut with it would put a lot less stress on the bar and hopefully less chain stretch too. I'm going to take it in small steps and see if I can find the sweet spot. You still want it as steep as possible so the chain is durable.

Shaun

 

[imagineero]

I see what you mean Shaun

that chain is going to be the wrong pitch before you wear the cutters out

I can see you with a chain beaker and spinner making two skip tooth chains out of that one before this is over

I totally agree. At the rate of stretch I've seen from the first two jobs, I'd say with one or two more uses my adjuster will be completely out of room to move. It's already about 2/3 out, and one long cut is enough to take the chain from adjusted to flapping in the breeze. I can take a link out, but as you say the mismatch between chain pitch and bar tip/saw sprocket will be a problem pretty soon.

Would be a lot of work to take that whole chain apart and make another chain manually putting the cutters onto a fresh chassis, I dont even have a breaker/spinner or the parts to do it. I dont know which chain parts are compatible with what I have, or what chassis this chain is built on. Sounds like something to look into though.

The only good news is that I priced the chain into the first job I did with it, so its paid for itself. I still add a couple hundred into each job I do with it to cover wear and tear. I do the same with my grinder, I price about $40/hour for wear on the machine into the job and put that money into an account so that when the engine gives up there's money to rebuild/replace. A lot of guys dont factor their gear into their rate, or they do but they put the cash in their pocket and blow it. Then they end up not having enough funds to replace gear over time.

Shaun

 

[derwoodii]

Great work good reports imagineero as you know I used RD carbide on root n stumps for about 6 years now and have a pretty good feel on when and where it best suits. Not used the RDR rescue stuff so its been interesting to read your thoughts.
Notes,
My RD rapid duro cost $180 plus a 18 inch bar loop so I can get 2 for 1 RDR at $400plus
Hard nose bar needed
Yup the chain flogs out and you run out of adjustment soon so a link removal required over the chain life span.
How do you resharpen? I've got a local saw chap with a diamond wheel and he cost only about $20 per 18 inch loop.
The work kills saw bars power heads clutch n sprockets so build that $ into your costs.
I see a reasonable market for utility company's needing your skills when they come up against roots stumps in tight or tree protection tasks.
If ya need $ to pay for the chain it will go though bullet proof glass.

I run on MS 310 18 inch hard nose bar it does whats needed. Reckon I get great $ value per chain loop way better than axe sweat and wrecking my back.

 

[derwoodii]

Oh forgot to mention I got me one of these some months back, very handy tool for stubborn roots n splitin stumps.

The Slammer - Kiwi Super Tool. Made in New Zealand

Was about $250 per unit landed in OZ as I got 2 with same purchase the other helps tree planting chaps who are very happy with it in hard clays etc.

 

[flashhole]

Slammerman is my new hero. Thanks for sharing. It looks like a useful tool.