Buying a chainsaw-advice

Anyone got any experience of chainsaw purchaces?
Got a couple of trees in the garden that need removal. Buying a B&Q chainsaw is cheaper than a tree surgeon or renting, and “will come in” for other occasions I’m sure.
Thoughts on chainsaws welcome. Thoughts on safety not really.

Yep. The one i used was a brand new Ryobi. The chain went blunt in minutes chopping up an 8 inch diameter tree trunk. I didn’t give the saw any stick (groan) so was a bit disappointed. I bought a 3mm round file and re-sharpened it, but it just kept going blunt.

My mate eventually bought a new chain after he re-sharpened it several times. The shop where he got it told him that the chains fitted to a lot of cheap chainsaws are rubbish. They fit them to keep the price down. This seems to accord with our experience.

I believe the new chain has fared much better.

I’d go for a Stihl, they seem to be a reputable brand .

I don’t think you will get far trying to rent one, it’s impossible – health and safety.

Stihl or husqvana and dont even think of buying one without the safety kit – trousers, boots, eye and ear protection as a minimum. Preferably a full visor and helmet. They are dangerous beasts. Budget £500 at least for a decent saw and the kit.

Google images for chainsaw injuries – they are nasty I have seen them

How big are the trees if they are a decent size and you haven’t a clue how to use one you might end up in more trouble than what it’s worth.

good question about the trees how big are they and how close are they to the house?

Spongebob, thanks for that will budget for extra chains.
TJ, was waiting for your opinion! One of the reasons that I didn’t want views on H&S is I have seen many injuries firsthand (though often not all the hand), and had considered all those aspects.

You don’t say how big the trees are. We did a couple of 20ft conifers with a cheap ryobi saw which was a bit rubbish. We sold the saw on ebay for almost what what we’d paid. If I had to buy another saw I’d get a huski and some protective gear. Alternatively you could easily chop down something with a trunk under 1ft diameter with a bow saw for a tenner. If it’s an 80ft beech tree than think again.

How big are the trees if they are a decent size and you haven’t a clue how to use one you might end up in more trouble than what it’s worth.

Precisely my thought when I saw yor post. I have helped a gardener/handyman in the past which included lopping off a few branches/tree removals etc. It isn’t easy and can be dangerous. If they are big enough to need a chainsaw, they are too big to do without professional help.

If they are small enough to do yourself, you are better off buying a saw. We regularly removed trees (including root balls) of up to 20/30ft tall with no more than saws, rope, spades and crowbars.

Oh and you don’t cut your hands with a chainsaw, you tend to slice your upper thighs and bleed out very quickly.

Shitl MS171 with the longer Bar. Shop around I got mine for £155. Got mine to cut a few trees down and have used it loads. Cut up about 40 railway sleepers for the garden with it. Nice and light easy to use, but cuts through trees like butter.

Not as intimidating to use as I thought it would be, but get all the safety equipment and think about what you’re going to cut before you do it and what will happen to it when you’ve cut it, i.e. where it will fall and what/who it will fall on.

Oh ye, it will keep your neighbors quite for months once they see you with it. 😆

My safety kit comprised of a pair of work glasses, but then I was working at ground level. I should be a bit more safety conscious!

Practice a bit at ground level and think about how a branch will fall before cutting. You have to cut the right side and right angle too.

It’s true what the other chap says; it’s easy to get hurt so be very careful.

Remember do not try to stop chain with your hands 😉

I recently got the Flymo Woodshark from B&Q. It’s well built. I use it only for firewood logs on a sawhorse. I have never cut down a tree. I got a helmet with metal faceguard and kevlar gloves, but not the kevlar trousers (££).
Get plenty of chainsaw oil.

Read all the stuff you can find and do watch the Youtube videos of chainsaw accidents for some reality checks.

The Flymo Woodshark is scarily easy to use, very smooth and loads of power. Superficially it’s extremely easy to handle, and that’s the worrying thing really. It’ll go through a 12″ log like a hot knife through butter. I keep trying to remember that could be my leg or my face, which helps keep me standing in the right place and treating it with some care.

Lots of fun though.

If the trunk is thicker than your waist fair enough but anything smaller and an axe is much more fun. Worst case scenario a big bow saw.

Unless you have money to burn or want to make fire wood or something. Tru you’ll do it in a couple of hours instead of a couple of days but sounds to me you just want something noisy!

btw – where are you and can I have your logs if you are close?

🙂

Real good work horse saw is Stihl MS260 capable of an 18″ bar (preferred 16″ on mine) small enough to take up a tree but big enough to fell a decent medium sized tree. Shame we have to Husky at work now 🙁

I use a £40 electric one from Aldi for chopping up firewood. If it’s occasional use round a garden then that’s probably all you need.

On a safety note the electric cable makes them really awkward to juggle with.

TJ, was waiting for your opinion! One of the reasons that I didn’t want views on H&S is I have seen many injuries firsthand (though often not all the hand), and had considered all those aspects.

Fair enough – your original post sounded like you were ignoring it.

Get a real mans chainsaw! I have used a husky with a 36″ guidebar and an 80cc engine – forget these winmpy electic things :-).

Dont go anywhere near a dead Elm with one. I watched a pro cut down one on our driveway. He tried to fell it between the telephone wires on one side and a 24 000v lecy wire on the other. He made a primary cut about 12 inches in and it fell in completely the wrong direction, through the power lines. There was a huge lightening thing going on in the sky with hot plasma stuff and lots of noise.
The inside of the tree was pulp and standing up by a thread.

Damn I’d cut down the others myself. Luckily there werent any power lines nearby, but having seen how badly it could go wrong I’d always leave suspect trees well alone.

now that would be a bad day at work.

asked a similar thing myself a while back…

http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/chainsaws

have a chap doing some building for me at the moment, who does a sideline in logs. he does rate husqvarna etc but reckons that the best for casual use is to buy a 78quid spear and jackson from argos and pay 13quid extra for the 3yr replacement warranty (would’nt be hard to have the saw ‘breakdown’ just before the warranty expires).

Stihl or Husqvarna – we run almost a full Husqy rack (254XP’s, 357 XP’s, 368XP), but know that is an expensive option, only really viable if you’re felling everyday like ourselves, we have one Stihl, bought cheap to occasionally run the big bar (36″)but is not so reliable.

For cheap garden saw I would get a basic stihl as they tend to be less than Husqvarna – don’t bother with any ryobi, flymo, mc culloch tat, they are our dealers pain in the arse, limited spares, bendy metal heaps of junk that can’t handle the abuse of an inexperienced user

Regarding chains – most amateur saws will have “safety” chains, all rakers and no teeth, what teeth it does have will be gentle round profile – commercial choice is a hard edged chisel chain and more of them in the biggest gauge your saw can power – these will kick back more though, so hold on tight

sorry to trump you TJ, but I’ve been let loose on a Husqvarna 1113 42″ bar and let rip all 113cc of it, had to refuel part way through the cut

Oh, the only other pro failure I saw was when the Hydro Board subcontractors came to fell a couple of trees that were overhanging a transformer.

They cut both opposing cuts and the tree just wouldn’t go down. They slung a rope up as high as they could and pulled it down with a Lada Niva mounted winch. It struggled for a minute, pulling the Niva towards the tree, and then pulled the tree up by its roots. The felling cut held solid.

As for a saw recommendation, I’ve had two biggish Stihls with shortish bars. Stihl two stroke stuff is brilliant.

As TJ and others have said, get protective gear.

did hear a story about a Land Rover and winch being used to winch a big tree resulting in rather more of a trebuchet effect

you’ll never really pull more than your anchor vehicle, I have to give up when the tractor gets 3 wheels off the ground

My dad tried to get us hold onto a rope when we were kids to pull a tree while he cut it. My dad had a Phd in engineering and said it would be safe. We were having none of it. So we swapped places. My dad experienced a near human Trebouchet effect. Had he wrapped the rope around himself he’d have been cut in half.

This was the same Dr who tried to pull grass from a cylinder mower while choked with the engine running. He came close to loosing his hand that time.

so who else has googled chainsaw injuries?

so who else has googled chainsaw injuries?

I have now, and wish I hadn’t bothered.

What ever you spend on the saw spend the same on tuition. A f%^& up using a hammer gives you a sore finger a f£$% up with a chainsaw could see the blood drain from a major artery very quickly.

Crack on then fella – ignore safety and training advice and slice and dice yourself and the trees. My brother is a tree surgeon and pays stupid big money for insurance and safety kit. It costs for a reason – but you came to a bike site for advice you can ignore – NHS will be there for you.

With too tall if you dont know enough about chainsaws to buy your own and dont want any H & S advice then good luck you are going to need it…

Tree surgeon’s often tackle big and dangerous jobs so have to be highly trained and adequately insured for doing this day in day out. For the ocassional small jobs people do with cheap small chainsaws, the risks are far less.

E.G. Lopping and felling 10-15ft high Leylandii, working at ground level, is not the same as climbing 40ft in the air and severing a 1 tonne branch whilst dangling from a harness.

Learning the safety basics is enough for the little job, but at all times you have to be thinking about the risks and consequences of what you are doing. Like; Don’t work when you are tired, take breaks, work in a tidy environment free of children and pets, run through a checklist in your mind and work out what you plan to do before you start the machinery up. Stop the tool if a rethink is needed, or someone interrupts, take your time and don’t let a deadline compromise safety, concentrate. There’s other things but this is all common sense stuff to someone who stops and thinks before they act. I do a bit of homework before I begin so I can pick up on stuff that isn’t so obvious.

I’d hazard a guess (groan) that, like most accidents with machinery, bad preparation, a momentary lapse in concentration, or sheer carelessness are to blame.

I have used all manner of power tools since the age of 7 and have never been injured. The percieved danger of power tools means that i treat them with respect. The times that i have hurt myself a hammer, a screwdriver or some other hand tool has invariably been in my hands. I once lost my balance and fell off a chair whilst painting a ceiling. I landed on the chair which was duly obliterated and it really hurt! It suprised me how dangerous and painful it can be falling such a short distance. I was not paying enough attention and didn’t perceive the risk.

The only other time I came close to serious injury was when I was at school. I went into the metalwork store to get a length of angle iron off a high shelf, took it and went to leave. Then then 30-40 lengths of angle iron sequentially fell off the shelf missing me by millimeters and making the most almighty racket. It went on for about 30 seconds and the teacher’s face went white – no joke. The shelf had no upright brackets to stop these lengths of metal falling off which was stupidly dangerous, but why had the teacher allowed me, a 14 yr old kid, in there in the first place? I had no perceieved threat of danger and was being a clumsy teenager. Conversely, when operating drills, lathes and saws, we were all on our guard.

I think health and safety people should try working with tools for a living. They are full of good advice, but with little practical experience. Taking precautions against a very low threats my view is daft, whereas it’s the hidden dangers that will bite you on the bum.

Does anyone else get that “wish I’d never opened my mouth” feeling when they post on here? 😕

Mcmoonter Was the winch fitted to make the tree fall a particular way? Was the felling cut actually done right and was the back cut in the right place and the hinge done right? It’s surprisng with wedges and a felling bar what size of tree you can actually move.

Makita stuff from Screwfix is OK (used to be Johnsered and built by Husqvarna). Stihl 171-181 and Husqvarna 137 – 142 are reasonable for the money. I wouldn’t even bother with anything else from DIY stores unless it was realy small stuff being dealt with. The best uprade for cheap diy saws is a decent Oregon or Stihl chain from your locl chainsaw/mower dealer.

As an arborist for over 15 years the best advise I could give is not to be brave with what you are doing, move anything valuable that could be hit by the trees and to fill the saw with fuel and oil before starting any felling cuts 😉 I could go on..

it all depends on the task in hand and whether you’re a natural doer with a sense of self preservation – training is without a doubt expensive, a fortune has been invested in mine and entirely worth it in kit maintenance, efficient working and knowing the full risks of what I am going into and when to back off

however, we all start somewhere
how tall?
what base and breast diameter?
bear in mind a cubic metre equates to 1 ton
what can they hit?
multiply this range by 2?
what is above and below ground?
the saw WILL kick and fly.
avoid using the tip of the saw as a novice – seriously.

I would rather you know these things than go in blind if your mind is made up. They are hirable, as is the kit, fairly sure HSS provide all. Trousers are amazing, possibly my most valuable bit of kit.

thought Makita = Dolmar
and Jonsered is old Husqy bits

Gotta get back in the padded cell now

I think your right

Does anyone else get that “wish I’d never opened my mouth” feeling when they post on here?

haha! all the time mate, anyway i’ve never chopped a big tree down so shall not pretend to be a specialist, it’s amazing how many IT workers are also tree surgeons at weekends.

Whilst looking for injuries on you tube I found this nice guide from a real tree surgeon.

All ways said I never worked in IT 😉