Haven't posted for a while as I haven't been doing much cutting for the last month. Have had a few other things on then last weekend it was over 110°f here. I put in a few hours but I was recovering from a flu and just didn't have it in me. I think I dropped about 120 trees and pulled the pin, sweating like a pig with a good headache!
Anyway, was at it again over the weekend just gone. Conditions on the Sunday were absolutely perfect for felling trees in this situation. The wind was a pretty strong SW (around 20mph) and very few trees on the Sunday had to be wedged. I dropped 196 on Saturday in 5 1/2 hours having to wedge 80% odd. On Sunday I went nuts (and completely wore myself out!) but managed to drop 532 in 10 1/2 hours. I went through exactly 20 litres of fuel, or 5.3 US gallons on the Sunday alone (I have to record every bit of fuel I use for taxation purposes). I used a 24" GB Pro Top all day (rebadged as Total II) and GB semi chisel. I hand filed all day to 30° (7/32" Vallorbe and guide) as I've found the more I pull the bar off to swap chains the greater the risk of getting chips jammed in the bar oil hole etc. The sap and crap from these Casuarinas gets everywhere. Filing also gives me a bit of a rest. I only had to file maybe 8 times all day and the GB chain (rebadged Carlton, not the new Chinese crap) held up well.
Probably 40% of the trees I felled on Sunday were between 24" and 42" so it was one of the harder lot of trees I've done. I did have one small run of trees that averaged around the 16" mark and I dropped 64 in 20 minutes - impossible to average that all day but with the strong wind is easy to do on shorter runs.
I ran an 8 tooth sprocket on the modded 7900 (thanks Brad, still running like a clock!) and Saturday arvo leaned her out a bit as it had been progressively running richer over the last few outings despite cleaning filters regularly. This made a massive difference to power and smoothness in the cut and although highly subjective I feel like it gained about 10% more grunt after leaning it out - it went from 4 stroking nearly non stop to only 4 stroking a tiny amount in the cut. I'm no 2 stroke guru but pulled the plug to check colour after WOT and it looked perfect. Tough call but the power increase when I leaned it out a bit was very noticable! This saw just keeps getting better. The HD filter kit(s) also continue to impress (I have one fitted to my stock 7900 as well).
I've been running nothing but BP Ultimate fuel (98 RON) and Jakmax branded Full Synthetic 2 stroke oil (made in the US by ALCO). This is excellent oil, way way better than the price would suggest and as far as I'm concerned every bit as good as the Castrol TTS I was using - in fact probably better, the fumes from the Jakmax oil aren't as hard on the eyes, nose, and sinuses!
There is also a patch of largish Polonia trees on the property that the company wants dropped. I dropped a couple (see photos and vid) and the wood was as soft as butter. Softer than any other wood I've cut and it stank too - hard to describe but quite pungent. Good fun though and good practice too. I may leave the rest of the Polonias there so that the local chainsaw guy can use them when he holds the next large tree felling course (>6m height). He is having a hard time finding larger trees to run his course on. The wood looks to be useless although I have cut a couple of logs to leave to see how it fares in regard to splitting etc.
Anyway...
Polonia Patch...
Dropped Polonia (one of the larger ones)...
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