Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Property Projects & Construction Suggest A Small Limbing Chainsaw

Sean, I don't think you can ever own enough chainsaws. I don't know how many I have right now, but I'm comfortable in saying it's up over 10.

As far as ones I use regularly, probably three? I have an old 038 Magnum with a 25" that I did a little work on years ago, and I get it out now and then just cause I like to hear that thumpity-thumpity idle that they produced. Just flat cool.

Al:

I think your saws will last a wee bit longer if you put a little oil in that gas.......

Ok, I had that coming. Actually, there are several gas stations around here that still think corn is for roasting only. In OK, there are bunches of them that have ethanol free gas.

Here? I have to drive about 20 miles one way to find a service station that sells ethanol free gas. Or, I can go to the local small airport and buy 100LL av gas. That smells much better too! Too bad Tony couldn't get my Echo to run on it. Something about not being able to adjust the timing.

So, I just take 2 gas premix cans with me. One for the two Dolmars with 100LL in it, the other with 93 octane no ethanol in it.

How's that second Dolmar working out? The Echo would run on the AVgas, but you wouldn't of been happy with it. The higher the octane the slower the burn, so to compensate the ignition timing needs to be advanced in order to realize max benefits.

That little Echo just didn't have that much advance built into the stock module...I could hear the engine get lazy on the avgas.

Pretty good but both need some help (or it's just operator error) in cold starting (sometimes warm starting after 10 minutes too). It's either pull a LOT of times to get it to start to sputter/pop with the choke on, or pull once too many times and it's flooded.

The 5100 is HARD to turn over when it's down around 10 degrees or so. I wish it had a compression release like the 7900.

One thing I haven't learned to do is tune a 2-stroke. Maybe one of these days......... (either that or go for a drive )

I could dial in the 500cc snowmobile, but then again I found out that I had to have Pyrometers or I'd end up with aluminum on the sparkplug if the temps changed 20 degrees..........

OK, so I got to compare the Echo CS-271T and the Stihl 192T side by side. The Echo weighs 6.6 lbs at 26ccs and the Stihl weighs 7.0 lbs at 30.1cc's. Pretty much not a noticeable difference. I think both saws would serve my purpose well so there was not a bad choice. I spoke with the store's repair guy about both saws. I ended up going with the Stihl, mainly due to their warranty. I can take my Stihl to any dealership in the country and they will honor my warranty. At least in Hawaii, Echo has been slow to respond to warranty work. I asked him about the flip tops being troublesome. He said that they were in the past but Stihl has redesigned them so they fall into place easier. They seem easy to navigate to me (bare handed of course). The repair guy was most helpful and filled the fuel and oil, discussed the starting procedures, and we fired it up. Cranked over on the 3rd pull, took off the choke and it fired right up. Either saw would have served me well, but I took some of you guys advice and bought straight from a dealer, who is there to service me after the sale. Next weekend I'll be taking down a jack fruit tree so we'll see how it performs.

Thanks for all the advice and suggestions.

Scott, if I lived within 3 hours of you or T I'd be in your shops every weekend, with CSBG in tow, asking you to teach me how to tinker with all my toys.

How can you not like a good chainsaw!!!

A husqvarna 350 a friend and I rebuilt and ported for another friend.. Went for a torque monster limbing/firewood saw.. Wish I could have kept it.. You could lean on it about as hard as you want and not slow it down..

OK, rookie question. Did you port out the intake or the exhaust? Just assuming the intake.

Congrats on the purchase!!

Now on a more serious note, what do you have for safety gear?

After using the small Echo for a long time, I jumped to an almost 80cc, 6.3 hp saw. That alone made me nervous enough to invest in some safety gear. I've seen first hand what a small saw can do to safety gear when the operator is tired and careless, so even when running the small saw (most ofthe time) I put on the gear.

I don't use safety stuff and should. I've come pretty close to getting hurt a couple of times due to stupidity and carelessness.

I bought my first saw, a Stihl about 40 years ago and have worn out 3 of them. With the exception of the flip caps, they make a good saw. I returned the latest one, before it was stolen, to the store where I bought it. They sent it to a factory repair center that claimed the caps were the old style ones and that they had replaced them with the newer models.(Why didn't they replace the ones in the stores before they were sold? Why no recall?) Anyway, it still poured oil on my leg. So, my beef is with Stihl and I refuse to do business with a company that sticks it to me like that. BTW, I called Stihl a couple of times to no avail.

I'll stick with Echo.

Most woods ports consist of widening the intake and exhaust and lengthening/blending the transfers as well as opening up the muffler...

It is actually pretty easy with the right tools, but I still take my stuff to a friend that has a lot more experience than I do...Little things like ring pin placement can cause major issues if you don't know what you are doing..

An interesting video. From Labonville.



There used to be another video on youtube showing other mfg chaps, and the ones with less layers showed that the saw actually made it thru the protective gear.

For under $100 I think it's really, really cheap insurance!!

Fast forward this to the 8 min mark.

As far as safety gear, just the helmet/face screen/hearing protection. Jeans, boots, and gloves are it. After watching the above vide, chaps makes sense.

To be totally honest, I don't wear the hard hat/face shield. I do have safety glasses/sunglasses, gloves, chaps, earplugs, steel toe leather boots. Two years ago it was hot enough out (100°+F by 11:00 a.m.) that I swapped the jeans for shorts. Still wore the chaps and the rest of the safety gear tho.

Can't argue about trying to combat the heat. Here in Hawaii we have kind of a running joke when it comes to safety equipment saying we are wearing OSHA approved steel toe slippers!