Poulan is offering a little electric for 50.00 that’s big enough for normal householder purposes. Suits me fine. The fence job left us some fairly large branches that need dicing up; and rather than hand-saw them, the little chainsaw does nicely. Hawthorne can produce some fairly hard wood, in its larger branches.
But that’s nasty work: it’s getting through all the brushy little branches that really need the hand loppers that’s a pain in the rear.
So are Poulan’s instructions for ‘is the chain correctly tensioned?’ I took the darned thing apart step by step figuring out yes, it was. Really dim small pix with really vague pointers to what could be a bolt — or not.
Anyway, we are slowly cleaning up. And now when a limb comes down (as happens with big trees) I now have a way to dice it up to fit the garbage cans.
Just do not refresh yourself when using the chainsaw with one of those chocolate-mocha shakes from yesterday 😀
Most of the branches I have to deal with are the thickness of my wrist or thinner. I did have to get myself a 2″ anvil lopper for the satinwood hedge, which is incredibly tough. Strangely enough, my little hatchet is my go-to for larger branches (or sometimes a pruning saw), although from the response of the dead satinwood to other pruning devices, it might only bounce.
You got that one right!
I’ve used chainsaws before, larger ones, however, and this thing, outside of its horrific potential, handles a lot like a hedge-trimmer, in terms of weight and racket. I had a leftover fence post that had to be reduced to go in the trash, and it went through that like butter. A hawthorn limb is a bit tougher, even at half the diameter.
I take it when you’re cutting a horizontally oriented limb, that you do an undercut first, just a slight cut through the bark and maybe the first layer. That way, when you cut from the top, the bark doesn’t peel off from the rest of the trunk. The trick is knowing when to stop the undercut, because the weight of the limb will squeeze the bar on the saw as you go deeper into the limb. Even with that foreknowledge, I still manage to get the saw stuck more than not. No fun when you’re wrestling with a heavy limb with one hand and you have a running chainsaw in the other – mine’s a gasoline powered Stihl. The same model the electric company uses to trim trees away from their power lines. It uses a 50:1 gas/oil mix.
My chain adjustment consists of a screw at the front of the cowling next to the bar. I do have to loosen the nuts that hold the bar in place first, but that’s a minor thing. Does your saw have an automatic chain oiler, or do you have to manually oil it by pressing a little pump on the saw?
Wild women, Amazons, I tell ya. It isn’t even Halloween yet.
Yeah, but I won’t be laughing when the Zombie Apocalypse hits. Now we know why Shejicon is so important. Preparedness!
However, I have a hot wax brayer and know how to use it. Also an X-acto. Undead zombies, beware!
I was very surprised. A guy came by, offering to do tree trimming, and his rate was cheaper than I thought. So i kept his card and said i’d call him next month ot the month after. Hurray! I may be able to afford it this summer instead of waiting! Needed, too!
Lol—what I’m whacking is all on the ground, and what I wish I had was a chopping block to steady the stuff. I think I’ll swipe a cinder block for that.
It’s all lousy with little twigs, too small for the chainsaw.
Yep, Joe, mine’s similar. I haven’t used one in 10 years and took it apart to be sure I understood how it was working. And of course they couldn’t give us a small oil bottle for starters. Had to drive after that…
But it’s still far better than attacking this stuff with a hand saw. Or trying to force long pieces into the big bin.
I have ordered one of these, but haven’t tried it out yet: http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200414731_200414731
Looks like just what you need too. Cutting on the ground with your foot stuck under the branch to keep it up is for kids!
Ever heard the Arrogant Worms song “Malcolm“? 😉
Yep, it’s like that.
Actually, it’s good for those branches that fall off the trees that otherwise lie about because they’re too big to go in the city compost and the city will, yes, REJECT your garbage with a scathing note…
The city here uses the “three-can plan”: one can each for recyclables, green waste, and true garbage. They’ve been getting pickier and pickier about what they will take in which can. I’ve had them reject stuff because it stuck out of the receptacle, recyclable plastic because it wasn’t completely clean (clamshells with a few stuck spinach leaves, or peanut butter containers where the dishwasher didn’t make them pristine) and we just got a note that said fibrous food waste (corn cobs and husks, etc.) should no longer be put in the green waste bin, but should be composted. Corn cobs take forever to break down in our compost because we are so dry, and should be a prime candidate for the green waste bin.
Lol—we also have the 3 cans, which they call ‘single-stream’ recycling, because on the recyclables, they have employees at the garbage-energy plant that sort the tin from the paper, etc. Which is a lot nicer than having to break it down yourself. We’ve gone over to the smallest bin for actual garbage, and often only half fill it, the rest being recyclables, and yard waste. So the green stuff composts for the city parks, the blue stuff gets sorted out and reused, and only a sixth of the whole mass is actual garbage. We love the system…but they can sure get snippy when you give them things that jam the presses in the big trucks!
In southern Louisiana after Katrina, (and she wasn’t the big one we’re expecting, since she was only a 3 when she hit), it was aknowleged that “Every woman ought to have a chainsaw and know how to use it!” This was usually said with a meaningful look at our menfolks.
CJ, this has absolutely nothing to do with anything, but it might just be up your alley! Here’s the challenge:
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/univ–of-chicago-offers–1-000-to-whoever-can-decipher-mysterious-margin-notes-in-homer-s–odyssey-173526088.html
Lol—it’s a bit beyond me at this remove from my studies. I’m willing to bet it’s an idiosyncratic phonetic semi-cursive based on Greek letters, but in which language I’m not sure. I used to take notes that way when I was in Greek or Latin mindset, and also in Education classes simply because they were incredibly boring and I’d hate to have had my prof stumble upon my notes, which contained opinions, occasionally, of the bs level. 😉 In mixed Latin, Greek, and French…
Talk about a headline. Not much finesse with a chainsaw says Bianci.
Those margin notes look to me like a form of shorthand. Even though the book was published in 1504, the annotations may be from any time in the next few centuries. Various shorthand systems became popular from the mid 17th century onwards. The text that’s not in shorthand is in French.
Probably some expert on the shorthand systems used in France in the 17th or 18th century will be able to decipher it.
I want to see a pic of you with your chainsaw!