Chainsaw purchase

[T i m]

Or a suitable generator? Daughter used my electric saw at an Arb show (to try to do some carving) via her 2kW genny and whilst it actually 'worked', it was nowhere near as useable as her 'dime tip' carving saw (even if she had a suitable carving bar for the electric saw it was much heavier and bulky than her Stihl carving saw and the cable *did* keep getting in the way and hung up on stuff, potentially leading to some very dangerous situations).

I'd probably agree with that, however, if it went wrong (oil pump etc), I'm not sure how easy it would be to fix / get spares for (if you were bothered to etc).

Daughter has looked at some the latest battery powered kit and if money wasn't an option, might have a small battery saw and possibly a battery strimmer, for 'tidying up' rather than all day use.

Cheers, T i m

p.s. You can do some axe felling practice here: ;-)

[Huge]

Good point. I meant to say that.

[Rob Morley]

Before you start chopping them down have a go at pulling them out - I've found a few smaller conifers I've removed have had underdeveloped root systems and toppled with relatively little force. As yours are medium sized you could try hitching a hand winch between a couple. Then you'd only have to tidy them up for removal, for which a cheap electric chainsaw would probably be adequate.

[Bazza]

If you just cut them you are left with all the stumps. I had a similar issue with 30 Leylandii a couple of years ago so I invested in an ex-army Tirfor winch (cable puller). A magic device! Attach cable about 7 feet up on the tree you want to take out and use another tree at ground level as the anchor. As the roots appear out of the ground, chop them with a HD spring steel fencing spear with a 2" blade. You can sell the Tirfor later for the same money.

[T i m]

They are indeed. ;-)

If the anchor tree is one you are keeping then a webbing type 'strop' around it to protect the cambium, or a few turns of a reasonably heavy rope might be a good idea, with a shackle going round the anchor line to the Tirfor (depending on how sharp the Tirfor 'hook' is).

I have a Tirfor 'Jockey' and even with that (it's only small) I was able to break out the tap root of a fairly large tree (about 2' diameter') we had cut down to about 8'.

Or keep if for all the things you can now use it for (lifting, pulling, recovering, felling ...). ;-)

Cheers, T i m

p.s. I think you are supposed to lay / hand a sack or something over the steel wire to stop it whipping back if it should break?

[harry]

A lot of hire shops won't touch them. I assume they're afraid of getting sued if some idiot cuts a leg off. Plus they'd have to provide all the safety gear.

[harry]

The chips are far too useful to let them be taken away. Compost or mulch.

[T i m]

If a conifer I think you are supposed to leave the chips to stand for a while to allow the sap to go away before using them for anything that is supposed to promote growth or protection for other plants?

Cheers, T i m

[news]

I buy from the same firm and this ruse is because of Stihl's policy of not allowing mail order for power tools.

I would look as a Dolmar 420 as an easy to start and use semi professional saw.

Having said that, and despite having a stable of older Husqvarna and Stihl products, I have been using an Einhell 50cc saw which could be had for £80 in costco, I was given it for disposal in mint condition but no chain. I have put about 4 gallons of fuel through it and am half way through a chain and it's still running, it's light and for the price basically disposable should anything go wrong.

It has nowhere near the power of a Husqvarna 550 but unless you're doing production work so what.

AJH

[rick]

On 28/11/2017 17:28, harry wrote: ce may be too high for this make)

See 2200W versions for good price - Screwfix has a very good deal

[Mark Allread]

"safer"? in use? I don't think so. Perhaps harry means because they don't use petrol. "more convenient" - possibly - if you have a mains supply accessible.