Over the years, I’ve spent hundreds of hours on the end of a chainsaw – chopping firewood, felling trees, pruning large hedges while balancing in the hedge, tree ‘surgery’ using ropes and cherry picker.

The vast majority of it done in shorts/ trackie bottoms and normal work boots or trainers. 😯

Those days are in the past and I consider myself fortunate never to have had any incidents. Used to love the saw, now I rarely use mine and have a healthy respect for it.
I’d quite happily never use it again, although I do enjoy felling as long as some other mug clears up the branches.

Many years ago my cousin fell off a hedge onto a chainsaw, 90+ stiches around the crotch area. 😡

I think you need to rephrase from “professional” to “someone who uses a chainsaw in their line of work and was forced to go on a course where they slept”.

Very welcome to shadow me for a day. And research the word professional. And I think the troll party is next door, best not miss it. First close call in 7 years in business!

Don’t worry about the detractors, Dan. Threads like this are useful in a learning from other people’s mistakes might prevent you making similar mistakes way.

I was cutting logs and had my left foot on the log, deciding to trim off some twigs, which caused the saw to jump across to the side of my Timberland boots and slice right through them. Was fortunate not to get cut and having seen the OP’s boot, will be more careful in future! 😮

I have electric chainsaw. It scares the crap out of me. Big circular saws are the same. Im so careful when I do use them.

I think the OP knows where he went wrong and that PPE is only the last defence.

Whilst proper boots are ideal, they still wouldn’t have protected that part of the foot as the protection runs down the tongue. Type A trousers possibly would and Type C would, providing they hadn’t ridden up.
Ultimately, driving to work is more dangerous, believe a contractor put this to FISA when they were making a fuss over the safety record of forestry.

Must admit that familiarity leads to complacency. Fully aware that smashing up the brash piles at the end of a job is the sketchiest thing we do, swinging the saw everywhere quickly, often once the chain has got to it’s slackest, but just 5 min to finish, you see the chain sparking the bar and have that brief ‘that was close’ moment as you smash everything up.

esselgruntfuttock – Member
I knew a farmer who was adept at chainsaw useage who managed to cut his left hand almost clean off. He was left handed but was using the saw with his right hand

If you mean he had his right hand on the trigger that is the correct hand to use. The left goes on the front bar and if the saw should ever kick hopefully the inertia chain brake should kick in but if not the back of the left hand should hit the chain brake and if standing correctly the saw will miss your head.

I need some chainsaw boots, any recommendations? I Want to avoid the wellies at all cost but not break the bank? Was looking at the STIHL DYNAMIC S3 .

driving to work is more dangerous

Sounds very unlikely to me. What is the basis for that claim?

Smaller saws can be used one handed, Kuco, it’s only electrics that require both hands on to start.

tod456 – Husqvarna Technical 24 boots are what we have mostly been using recently, really impressed with them, we’re both on 2nd or 3rd sets now, admittedly my last ones could have been resoled, but we live in them for about 9 months of the year and get a couple of years out them. Lace quite high which feels unusual at first, but loads of support.

Not had very good experiences with a variety of Arbortec boots, 3-6 months before catastrophic failure.

A top handle saw is not designed to be used on the ground and other than a tree surgeon using it in a tree anyone else using a chainsaw one handed on the ground is a complete **** and deserve what they get.

I use Arbourtec waterproof boots and can’t fault them.

Husqvarna Technical 24

These are on sale at the moment at FR Jones…

https://www.frjonesandson.co.uk/products-page/ppe-safety-and-workwear/footwear-accessories/chainsaw-protective-footwear/husqvarna-technical-24-leather-chainsaw-boots-class-2/

thecaptain – driving at the start/end of the day when roads are busier and drivers are tired, often rural roads for where the industry works, lots of other people drive too which can affect your day.
Or as a section of the population how many on here have posted about a RTI and how many have posted chainsaw incidents?

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/533293/rrcgb-main-results-2015.pdf

http://www.hse.gov.uk/treework/treework-incidents.htm

admittedly different time scales, but forestry averages around 110 incidents reported a year and arb’ around 150 reported a year, each having the occasional death, whilst higher than construction, it’s a long way off driving

Can we have some good stories please 😕

It freaks me out all this “I almost lost/sliced/chopped off” talk..

I’ve had the Husky’s. Was considering the new Arbortec Fellhunter as one of the only class 3 out there and bloody good priced at FR Jones too.

I read a report from hse that stated 3.4 deaths per year in arb industry, 50% of which was falls, and I assume around 25% or less was chainsaw related. 40,000 people working in the industry. So perhaps 0.8 deaths per 40,000 official employees per year in the uk. No idea how that relates to driving but it still sounds on the high and slightly scary side.

While still a relative novice, I’ve not had a close call yet when cutting down and de-limbing small trees. 🙂 (trees cut down-able with a 13 inch saw blade).

My most upsetting thing has been somebody else’s Stihl 261 saw developing a funny noise and then going kaput while I was using it, it needed a new cylinder and clutch bearings and things. I understand there may be a certain weak point in 261 saws which caused it, but I’m sketchy on the details. A friend’s 261 got sorted out free of charge by Stihl when out of warranty which makes him think they realise there’s something they could have done differently with the 261…

Vague friend of mine also sliced his arm open with a chainsaw (think he hit a nail in a tree), middle of nowhere in Canada, had to drive himself some way to hospital one-handed.

Timber, depends whether you are making the comparison on a public health perspective (far more road deaths/injuries in the UK in total I’m sure) or a personal risk basis (is a chainsaw user more likely to cut themselves vs crash). Using your argument, would you say playing russian roulette is safer than both driving and using a chainsaw (not together!)?

I think I read somewhere that there are more chainsaw-related than gun-related hospital visits in the USA, though it does sound hard to believe. Having said that, I know precisely one of each personally (including the aforementioned Canadian).

I was a tree surgeon for 12 years and still wake up worrying about what a chainsaw could do ( did stick one halfway through my left foot once – but that was doing forestry work!) – glad to be out of it !

Thanks chaps I’ll take a look

Captain, you’d have to ask that on a Russian Roulette site, I don’t think HSE have stats for that.