anyone use one of these, I think it would be handy for trimming some hedge, I doubt if it would be used often maybe every couple of years for approx an hour. I did read though that some dont require chain oil which made me think chain wear could be rapid. I do have an electric 40cm mains one but thought the smaller portable could be useful.
When buying novelty chainsaws, remember to check and see if replacement chains are available for it. It's possible that reputable sources of chains, won't make a chain for that small of a unit. Leaving only Chineseum.
My mains powered chainsaw, the replacement chain is lasting longer than the original. The original chain was not as good quality.
And my mains chainsaw, has an oiler. There is summer and winter-weight oil for it. The winter-weight oil is thinner for work in cold cold conditions. I had to clean up a tree after an ice storm once, and that's when you need a chainsaw at low temperatures. Otherwise, I would not recommend cutting work at low temps.
Keep any chainsaw out of dirt, as dirt in the chain is bad for it, and makes it wear out fast. Even if you dig the dirt around a tree, exposing the lower trunk, the dirt mixed into the bark of the tree, is an impediment to the chain. The smaller the chain is, the more sensitive to dirt it will be.
There also might be more than one kind of novelty chainsaw. One kind would be the hand-held kind. But I think they make a small chainsaw that optionally connects on the end of a pole, and this allows (yikes!) work overhead. The connector on the end of the pole, allows modifying the angle of the chainsaw with respect to the pole.
Any time you work with a chainsaw, you always have to be aware of the mass of the object being cut, and whether it can snag, or fall the wrong way, and injure you. This is why putting a chainsaw on the end of a pole, scares me, because it encourages cutting things with much-to-much mass, headed straight for you. Many times, I've made safe cuts off to the side of falling material, only to find later when trying to lift the cut piece, that the item really weighed too much for safety.
If you're helping a friend, and have tied a rope to a tree to "steady it" during fall, DO NOT wrap the rope around your wrist. Hand grip on the rope only. If the load is too great, open your hand and let the rope fly away. If your wrist is involved, you can be "pulled bodily through the woods at high speed".
Paul
I've bought a Ryobi one, goes with my other Ryobi +one tools. It doesn't have an oil reservoir, but came with a bottle of oil. I dribble some over the chain before each use. Works very well on small branches.
Battery chain saws can be very good these days - I have a Makita DUC306Z (36V, 12", top handle) which is excellent. However some caveats...
For very infrequent use you will need to remember to maintain the batteries - charging them every 6 months or so, otherwise you may find if you leave it too long they will discharge to the point where they can't be recharged.
(alternatively, if you already have a number of cordless tools that share a battery platform, then see if you can get a pruning saw from the same range - that way the batteries are likely to be used for other things between pruning sessions)
Check that spares like chains and bars are available from several sources.
I've a couple of similar ~£25 saws. They're very good. Not as long a bar as advertised, but definitely a serious saw.
Getting a spare chain might be an issue - but these saws are so cheap, that if you don't want to sharpen the chain yourself (and it is a conventional chain), just buy a new saw.
The ones I have do need to be hand-oiled. Dribble some oil onto the bar then finger-work the oil into the bar-chain interface. Twenty seconds?
Criticisms?
The butt - if that is the right name - doesn't do much. It is at more than 90° to the bar and is all plastic - albeit slightly grooved plastic. Cutting by pivoting the bar down into the trunk/branch you are trying to cut isn't that effective. The cut is primarily made by pressing the entire saw into the work.
The switch mechanism doesn't like chain jams. I've had to scrape crud off the switch contacts that formed when I tried to restart out of a jam. The spark erosion of the switch contacts resulting will eventually kill the switch - so wiggle a jammed chain/bar out of a jam rather than try to gun the chain!
Also, depends what you mean by "trimming". The saw doesn't like cutting stuff less than about 7mm diameter - but what chain-saws do?
PA
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