New mid-range chainsaw for Christmas?

[bobo]

Funny how I started this thread and today I ended up chainsawing up a storm.

Coming home this afternoon, turns out our neighbor was cutting down a dead tree on his 4 acres, and like last year when he had some standing deadwood to cut, he was cutting them to 16" length for me to come pick up. Really cool guy. I have been neglecting to deal with a massive tree that was completely rotted out near the base and not that far from our house - figured I'd get his advice since he was out cutting today. He ended up coming up to help me take it down after dropping his tree. In about 15 minutes, it was done. He used a 24 ft ladder to put a huge rope ~20 ft. up the tree. Tree must have been at least 50 ft tall and > 20" base - I'll have to measure it before bucking it up. Routed the rope towards the ground in the direction to fall. He also has a nice pulley and strap assembly that we were able to use on another tree at ground level to anchor the fall line and then redirect the rope back to a pickup pulling on the tree to assist. Worked beautifully - tree hung a bit in the others as it came down but that was the planned direction - then used the same tow rope to drag the tree out and get it on the ground and now it's nicely laid out for processing. Actually the thick end is a couple feet off the ground to really make it easy. Last year I helped him cut up some of his trees and watched him use the same method - worked great every time on some big ash.

After he saved me many hundreds or more with this, the least I could do was go spend an hour sawing up the rest of his tree he had taken down and cleaning everything up for him!

My biggest complaint with the saw is just that it seems to really slow down easily as I get well into a cut - particularly when > 1 foot diameter. I file the chain after each tank of gas as some here suggest - this helps, but it still can be slow going at times. When I was done, I had about 2 Tacoma loads of nice hardwood dumped in my splitting area. Strong smell when cut - birch?

The Dolmar 5100S sounds like a really good candidate if I raised the budget a bit (not sure how much...) - seems like a similar class to Husky 346XP but quite a bit more HP. And if I didn't spend that much more, the Husky 350e seems good. The Dolmar 510 is listed as being a lot heavier in that class - not sure why.

Will also get in touch with sedanman - I work in East Fishkill so not far at all! Small world on Hearth.com...

-Colin

ps - really bad picture attached... didn't have much time. I tried to brighten the lower part so you can see the tree next to this guy and the woodshed for frame of reference... can also see pull line if you look carefully. The crown of the tree is still well above the top of this picture. Can also see all the rotted core about 6 ft up from the base. Never should have let it sit this long... we probably could have not even used a saw and just yanked it down with the truck.

Will have to post a picture of the "after" later.

My new out of the box 5100s will stomp the 346 that I sold to Yogi. The two used ones I just bought are dealer demo saws and to compare the three all run like scalded apes. They are worth checking out.


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[cbrodsky]

A picture of the dropped tree

 

[cbrodsky]

One more showing the rotted out base of the tree - amazing this stayed up in the recent windstorm. Glad to have it down!

 

[babalu87]

Pick a Jonsered or Husky dealer locally and buy the saw from him.

Eric nailed it.
I never brought my Jonsered back to get tuned up after the first three tanks (like the dealertold me to) and I was thinking that I could tune it myself.
I used it around the property but not for the grunt work that it does now that I am burning full time and cutting all my own firewood from standing tree to splits.
After going through another 5 gallons of fuel thinking I was getting a "little closer" every time I finally relented and brought it in, now it runs like it should.

Mmmmmmmmm Eagle Brook, I havent been there in about 6 years
Mmmm beer good

 

[Roospike]

A picture of the dropped tree

The tree on the left is torn up the side ..............

whats up with that?

 

[Eric Johnson]

Looks to me like the tree was under tension, and when he bucked out the rotten part it took off, taking part of the trunk with it.

That's one you wouldn't want to be standing on the wrong side of when bucking.

It also takes some cojones, soap, to fell a tree so close to your woodshed.

 

[cbrodsky]

The tree didn't require a whole lot of cutting... got the rope holding it barely under tension to secure things, notched it, and then applied some tension while he backcut until it started to tip on the hinge - truck took it from there.

The torn part on the left was created when it was still hung up a bit - we cut from the bottom and the weight eventually broke through tearing this section. Then we dragged it out the rest of the way with the truck and the tow line.

For a tree without a strong lean, this rig my neighbor has seems to do an outstanding job of dropping it exactly where you want - I would never trust myself to notch and wedge it to control the direction without that assist. Especially after spending a lot of time building that woodshed this spring

-Colin

 

[Roospike]

The tree didn't require a whole lot of cutting... got the rope holding it barely under tension to secure things, notched it, and then applied some tension while he backcut until it started to tip on the hinge - truck took it from there.

The torn part on the left was created when it was still hung up a bit - we cut from the bottom and the weight eventually broke through tearing this section. Then we dragged it out the rest of the way with the truck and the tow line.

For a tree without a strong lean, this rig my neighbor has seems to do an outstanding job of dropping it exactly where you want - I would never trust myself to notch and wedge it to control the direction without that assist. Especially after spending a lot of time building that woodshed this spring

-Colin

The strapping tow rig is a good thing ........... dead , rotten and or hollow trees are a real danger to notch , back cut and control , normally there is no control to a rotten tree and a wedge is not going to help on a tree that has no solid mass.

Good job Colin.

 

[Eric Johnson]

Yeah, nice. Now it all makes sense.

Trees with that much rot are really hairy to cut because you really have no idea how they're going to react. Nice wood storage.

 

[cbrodsky]

Yeah, nice. Now it all makes sense.

Trees with that much rot are really hairy to cut because you really have no idea how they're going to react. Nice wood storage.

Thanks - the woodshed was borrowed from a design I found via this site as well. In fact, the same handy tow rig from the neighbor was used to hoist up the cross beams after I attached to the two end posts with galvanized straps. That was quite a scene - amazing how heavy those tree beams were! Someday I meant to post a series of pictures of this to give ideas to others.

I roofed it with second grade cedar shingles over heavy tar paper - that was fun for about the first 40 square feet, and then gets old real quick. Learned that I will not do cedar shakes when I reside my house someday - boards go up a LOT faster But I figure it'll blend into the wood a little nicer with the cedar roof. Also have a wisteria vine started up the side and plan to train that grow out along the main cross beam - that and some morning glories, clematis vining along it will keep my wife happy with it!

-Colin