BiggerDiggler
ArboristSite Member
I long ago admitted I have full-flown CAD in the worst way, so don't even get me started on that........
I have been cutting my year's firewood this week, so far have accumulated 8 cords, which is almost enough. Using some pretty bad-a$$ed saws, the work has gone pretty easy and I found the Lord's own firewood spot, with hundreds of very seasoned downed trees from a windstorm two years ago. I only get the ones that are suspended off the ground. Mostly red fir and about 25 percent buckskin tamarack, which when God created the fireplace on the eighth day, he decreed that Tamarack had the Lord's own blessing. I have a raised bed drop-axle dove-tailed trailer that makes the loading super easy with my heavily-modified Harbor Freight hand cart (chrome moly axle, solid wheel with oversized off-road tires, heavily reinforced and gussetted by the local fabrication shop and can now easily carry 500 pounds plus over rough terrain).
My collection of bad-azzed saws includes brand new Husky 562XP and a 357XP (both sit there on their haunches, intimidating, gleaming, like they want to cut Mike Tyson's ear off), a ported and big bored and very nasty and irate and angry Stihl 066 (it has that look about it like you could saw the lungs out of smoky the bear with it) and a completely stock but minty Stihl 031 Av. An impressive lot they are and are thirsty and hungry to make fast cuts and fill my boots with 1/4 inch square chips.
But you will NEVER, EVER believe what saw I have been impressed with the most, and I am bracing for the outcry and covering my genitals with a phone book to avoid the certain and imminent public castration.
On a whim last year, I started remembering the summer of 1983 when I won a Forest Service contract to clear 1,800 miles of back country and wilderness trails. I had never held a chainsaw in my hands until that point, and the only power shop that would "finance" a chainsaw for a poor and desperate college student had just recieved some of the first Echo Chainsaws that were imported into the United States. I got the 452 and used it all summer long, and traded it in at the end of the year for a 500 EVL (which I never much used). I walked that whole 1,800 miles with that little saw on my back and at the end of that summer, i could go into ANY bar and snap a pool cue in half and jump up on the pool table and scream out "which of you losers think they need to live forever?" Hippies, loggers, cowboys, nobody messed with me (a lot of my nastiness of course was the smell. Nobody wanted to come near).
I was browsing through ebay (which my wife has forbidden me to look at, but has no problem with with the more obvious internet temptations, which she knows I don't have much interest in anyway). To make a long story short, I ordered a brand new in-box CS450P for about 1/2 the price of the Big Box price.
I shunted away the box upon receipt, never even bothered to assemble this humble and unassuming saw until this week, when I mistakingly left the Huskies and Stihls at the firewood camp). Had some difficulties with the chain adjustor (I am clumsier than a cub bear trying to get amorous with a football) and the local dealer fixed it gratis.
I am amazed and shocked! The little thing is lightweight (at least compared to the 066!!) nimble and hungrily buzzes and slices through 3 foot rounds like magic. In fact, I will dare say personally I cannot see much difference, if any, between it and those storied saws mentioned above. It starts MUCH MUCH easier than the Husqs and especially the Stihls and I seem to be able to saw for much longer without tiring.
Okay, start kicking me and screaming and yelling obscenities since I knoweth when I have committed blasphemy in the worst degree and deserve to be banished to a faraway island with only palm trees and coconuts for firewood.
I have been cutting my year's firewood this week, so far have accumulated 8 cords, which is almost enough. Using some pretty bad-a$$ed saws, the work has gone pretty easy and I found the Lord's own firewood spot, with hundreds of very seasoned downed trees from a windstorm two years ago. I only get the ones that are suspended off the ground. Mostly red fir and about 25 percent buckskin tamarack, which when God created the fireplace on the eighth day, he decreed that Tamarack had the Lord's own blessing. I have a raised bed drop-axle dove-tailed trailer that makes the loading super easy with my heavily-modified Harbor Freight hand cart (chrome moly axle, solid wheel with oversized off-road tires, heavily reinforced and gussetted by the local fabrication shop and can now easily carry 500 pounds plus over rough terrain).
My collection of bad-azzed saws includes brand new Husky 562XP and a 357XP (both sit there on their haunches, intimidating, gleaming, like they want to cut Mike Tyson's ear off), a ported and big bored and very nasty and irate and angry Stihl 066 (it has that look about it like you could saw the lungs out of smoky the bear with it) and a completely stock but minty Stihl 031 Av. An impressive lot they are and are thirsty and hungry to make fast cuts and fill my boots with 1/4 inch square chips.
But you will NEVER, EVER believe what saw I have been impressed with the most, and I am bracing for the outcry and covering my genitals with a phone book to avoid the certain and imminent public castration.
On a whim last year, I started remembering the summer of 1983 when I won a Forest Service contract to clear 1,800 miles of back country and wilderness trails. I had never held a chainsaw in my hands until that point, and the only power shop that would "finance" a chainsaw for a poor and desperate college student had just recieved some of the first Echo Chainsaws that were imported into the United States. I got the 452 and used it all summer long, and traded it in at the end of the year for a 500 EVL (which I never much used). I walked that whole 1,800 miles with that little saw on my back and at the end of that summer, i could go into ANY bar and snap a pool cue in half and jump up on the pool table and scream out "which of you losers think they need to live forever?" Hippies, loggers, cowboys, nobody messed with me (a lot of my nastiness of course was the smell. Nobody wanted to come near).
I was browsing through ebay (which my wife has forbidden me to look at, but has no problem with with the more obvious internet temptations, which she knows I don't have much interest in anyway). To make a long story short, I ordered a brand new in-box CS450P for about 1/2 the price of the Big Box price.
I shunted away the box upon receipt, never even bothered to assemble this humble and unassuming saw until this week, when I mistakingly left the Huskies and Stihls at the firewood camp). Had some difficulties with the chain adjustor (I am clumsier than a cub bear trying to get amorous with a football) and the local dealer fixed it gratis.
I am amazed and shocked! The little thing is lightweight (at least compared to the 066!!) nimble and hungrily buzzes and slices through 3 foot rounds like magic. In fact, I will dare say personally I cannot see much difference, if any, between it and those storied saws mentioned above. It starts MUCH MUCH easier than the Husqs and especially the Stihls and I seem to be able to saw for much longer without tiring.
Okay, start kicking me and screaming and yelling obscenities since I knoweth when I have committed blasphemy in the worst degree and deserve to be banished to a faraway island with only palm trees and coconuts for firewood.
Last edited:
