Wrist injury from starting chainsaw

[southsoundtree]

Is the pain on the inside of the wrist?
As you said, RSI. Maybe carpel tunnel or at least tendonitis.

A neutral wrist position is important for everyone. This will have the back of the wrist bent and a straight-ish line from your inner forearm up to your finger tips, as they are wrapped around the started handle.

Warm up and stretch before starting work. Open and close your hands with a little resistance 30-40 times, wrist rotations, and stretch.

For those of us that do a lot of labor, and have strong forearm muscles, tight muscles can hold tension on the tendon pulley sheaths, always causing a bit of irritation.

Not to prescribe medication for you, but I've found that some preventative anti-inflammatory like generic advil liqui-caps does wonders for me, without stomach upset.

 

[Philbert]

How come they don't fit the EZ start system on the big saws? The smallest saws with the least need for it get the EZ system and the bad boys don't. Don't make sense to me

+1

Probably has to do with a 'real man' type of thing.

Philbert

 

[JONSEREDFAN6069]

see if u can get a starter handle from a newer arctic cat z120 or a polaris equivalent, a little smaller and less goofy lookin than the larger sled handles.

 

[Crofter]

What timberwolf mentioned really works. The advice about slowly leaking the piston past compression to TDC, then letting the recoil back in and giving it a pull then allows the flywheel to get almost a whole turn of momentum before it can fire and snap back. That works good too when you take the second to do it. I have had carpal tunnel surgery both hands and I feel the effects of a kicker.

Occasionally a decompressor valve can be faulty and kick out too soon. I have heard Lakeside mention that coils can loose their retard function and you have ignition occurring near 30 Deg before top dead center. I am sure that is a rare failure mode but possible.

 

[woodguy105]

Also, what is this business of "between-the-legs" starting? Maybe it's just a different description for something that I in fact do myself sometimes, but it just sounds dangerous. I'd like to see a picture of what is meant by this. Generally I drop-start all my saws except for the 090 since it's so bloody heavy and big that it's easier to stand on the handle and pull. That saw HAS beat me down a few times, once bruising my right knee quite badly

brmorgan=

hold the top of the handle with the left hand, pinch the rear handle just above your knees (so it's secure) and use your right hand to pull start then blip the throttle etc...of course with the CHAIN BRAKE ON! I hate ground starting and IMO this method is safer (for me) then drop starting. I believe it's shown in the Stihl catalogues.

woodguy-

 

[woodguy105]

Between the legs start is in the Stihl Manuals not catalogues -

 

[Brmorgan]

hold the top of the handle with the left hand, pinch the rear handle just above your knees (so it's secure) and use your right hand to pull start then blip the throttle etc...of course with the CHAIN BRAKE ON! I hate ground starting and IMO this method is safer (for me) then drop starting. I believe it's shown in the Stihl catalogues.

woodguy-

That sounds incredibly awkward, but maybe that's because I have rather long legs and arms... I'll have to try that sometime. Never had a problem drop-starting though.

 

[TimberMcPherson]

brmorgan=

hold the top of the handle with the left hand, pinch the rear handle just above your knees (so it's secure) and use your right hand to pull start then blip the throttle etc...of course with the CHAIN BRAKE ON! I hate ground starting and IMO this method is safer (for me) then drop starting. I believe it's shown in the Stihl catalogues.

woodguy-

This is a very good system of starting, worth trying a couple of dozen times. If you try it once you wont like it because we never like new things, but after a few times you will probably find it pretty comfortable, safe and strain free.

 

[texx]

you guys dont seem to understand the wrist injury this guy is talking about will be the same as what happened to me maybe 2 or 3 times in 15 years and quite a few thousand starts .
it has nothing to do with the starting method it is a problem with the saw the cord locks solid half way through the pull and feels like a back fire .
it is not a big problem for me just hurts when it happens i start my saws on the ground always , i worked in a saw mill for about 2 years and if i had drop started a saw then i would of got at the very least a hell of a talking to ,that is a massive no no .one of our loggers was seen drop starting in the forest by a forestry guy and was told ,once more and he would loose his saw license for use on crown land or some thing along those lines and be kicked out of the state forest

 

[OLD CHIPMONK]

Just wait til you get old & still trying to pull it ! Your fingers all arthritic ,your knees ache, backs hurtin & you can't remember where you put the saw ! Once you find it, you can't remember what you were do'in in the first place ! Oh well, just &

 

[BuddhaKat]

Check your rope

Check that your pull cord isn't tangled. They don't always rewind correctly and can get bound up. Not much likelyhood of it being a compression issue unless there's fluid in the cylinder. Something other than fuel/air would have to physically stop the piston, but if it was already spinning successfully for the first half of the pull, there's something else causing the problem. In my experience, it's been the rope.

 

[Texas Traveler]

Between the legs start is in the Stihl Manuals not catalogues -

For me it is safer then drop starting any time. have you every watched some young dumb kid showing off drop starting a saw?
When you get old & have new shoulders & 2 new knees you learned to do things the easy way.
Don't laugh either your day is coming.
You don't need a D ring on a 088 unless you want to lose some fingers.
Damn it hurts.

 

[stihl sawing]

I agree with Gary, Put it on the ground. your foot will take a lot of the shock instead of the wrist. I always drop start mine but if my wrist was bad it would be started on the ground.

 

[TKO-KID]

It seems to be common with newer stihls. Our BR550's and br 600's do it but our smaller br 340/380's don't.

you just have to pull them out a few inches till it tightens and then start it from there.

 

[KRS]

chainbrake on and start it up!

A cold saw choked with the high idle engaged wouldn't be started that way, I don't think. I wouldn't anyway.

KRS

 

[buildmyown]

I know what he is talking about. My saw has never done it but my 500cc snowmobile without a decomp has. Locked up so bad mid pull I thought I pulled my shoulder out. Not my shoulder but knocked my back out real good laid me up for alomost a week. Not really sure what caused it but I am on the look out for it now.

 

[doorstop]

I find that by wrapping cloth based friction tape on the starting handle, it make for a better grip and softens any shart edges.

 

[treevet]

I also wrap a towel around the handle sometimes. I haven't had wrist injury but have what is called "trigger finger" in the joints of 2 knuckles on right hand and 1 on the left hand (drop start 020). The D handle helps spread the pain if decomp doesn't work. Mine sometimes doesn't work when engaged on first pull. Sometimes I have the groundy do the deed when I am really hurting. We have broken 2 D (rescue saw) handles.

View attachment 83895

 

[treevet]

noticed that little insert image character is not on top in this thread and i thought it was in error. then thought about it for a bit and it makes sense. you could be surprised with some ugly $hit without expecting it. good idea!

 

[Nailgunner]

I've got a touch of sore wrist syndrome from lots of manual work over the years, it sucks a bit but it's better than no exercise.

One could try the large-handle approach by drilling a bit of broom handle and fitting it where the starter handle goes. it's a bit redneck, sure, but it would prove the concept at zero expense.