Chainsaw advice

jonny2mad · Post by **jonny2mad** » 23 Oct 2007, 11:48

MacG wrote:
jonny2mad wrote:Im suprised how many of you have chainsaws or are getting them isnt this a bit like getting ready for a oil shortage by buying a car
Nops. Rather like buying a moped. I have spent weekends the last year clearing a completely (and I mean *completely*) overgrown bronze age burial mound. It was impossible to walk trough any part of it. Semi-dead conifers mixed with 80 year old firs. All in all about 3000 square meters. Apart from the pleasing view of the mound and increased grazing for the sheep, we got some 15 cubic meters of firewood, which will last for at least two winters. The entire venture has cost some 16 liters of petrol and 5 liters of chain oil this far. The last oil will probably be burnt in a chainsaw. Even at ?20 per liter, it would give a good EROEI to run a chainsaw on petrol.

well a moped wont get you as fit as a bike or walking will it , neither will using a chainsaw get you as fit as a crosscut saw or axe it is lots more hard work and its slower but you can build up a level of fitness doing things by hand that you seldom see these days .

if you take my old grandfather who was a miner most of his life even as a old man he had a terrific body and could work all day without hardly ever stopping , if you took todays miners who use power drills and are more like mecanics than miners and got them to do physical work they would be pretty hopeless even at a third his age .

They may think thats their fit or that they are doing a physical job and I suppose its better than working behind a desk so their fitter than the majority ,but their a pale shadow of the generation that did stuff by hand .

Im in my early fortys and this year Ive spent the summer working at pop festivals and I was amazed at what poor shape the average young person is, really I ought to have filmed them they could hardly carry a small rucksack a lot of them.

Being around them made me feel a bit like superman , I just kept saying "poor fellow" all the time and feeling really sorry for them .

I saw one big young fellow who had on a tiny girly rucksack and was dragging a beautiful army bergan by a rope there was nothing wrong with the bergan he just looked like he couldnt bear to wear or lift it ,so every few steps he would stop and pull the bergan closer to him take a few steps and repeat .

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 23 Oct 2007, 14:15

The business about un-fit-ness is scary. I'm about the same age as you and am amazed by how out-of-breath yer 20-somethings sometimes get, now someone who's been looking at Diabetes Blood-Pressure etc is saying this might be the first generation in history where life expectancy falls rather than rises (not counting things like WWI or Russian WWII).

Back to the chainsaws: I think the important word here is Transition. Mike et al are saving their energy for other jobs they need to do as a 1-off (e.g. plant trees, build house) by the (transitional) use of a chainsaw. I expect, for example, to carry on using a gas cooker long after I cease to use gas to heat the house: 'cause the gas will be too costly for the latter, but cheaper than having to pile wood on the stove for the former.

MisterE · Post by **MisterE** » 23 Oct 2007, 14:27

I come from a hard mining village, one of the most famous in fact and I'm a tradesman. Yes your right about most men and youths - unfit. But having a chainsaw is nothing to do with it, and trust me on this modern ways of working are harder than older ones "HARDER" been there, done both methods and modern tools enable you to do more hence you have to move so much more gear in and out to do the work.

Lets take an example hanging fire doors, old methods with hand tools you'd be awesome to do 2-3 a day. Now with routers and electric planes, I seen a good chippy do 22 now hump them up and down 6 flights of stairs. Or how about 5 Brickys laying 4800 bricks a day and all the compo which that needs, unheard of back in the day! Or get a load of old miners to have a crack at concreting 300m, their not the only ones to have a daily life of being on the pick n shovel as many ground workers would vouch for. Likewise with plastering, dry lining, concreting, painting, roofing, and my trade bricklaying. As bricky and I can assure you I would blow all the old guys out of the water if I went back to their day. They were rough, semi skilled and slow, oh and did I say rough! On the rare occasion you may find a master mason who was more often than not a good stone mason. Times today still show rough people in the game, but on ratio there are still way more skilled tradesmen than the crap of yesteryear claiming to be skilled tradesmen.

People like to glorify the past - its like comparing a sprinter today to that of 1950 - there is no comparison its a totally different class of human that wipes the floor with the other.

Don?t get me wrong I do agree with you and I can imagine what those ?next? shopping sweet smelling girly men are like trying to work at those festivals. Plus yes in comparison to the old guys they are nothing and the men from the past annihilate them, you are spot on! Likewise the real workers of today, imho who have been schooled in old methods and now use modern but can revert back ? would destroy these people. The modern man would be the talk of the working mans club should he be transport back and become stuff of legends. Its just not true that having power tools makes the job easier ? it does on a one for one basis ? but when things can be done at speed they bring their own new efforts and problems that simply were never faced by the old guys. If anything on a daily basis it just moves the pain to another area of your body lol!

On a final note I think health for a person that also works, does not mean killing yourself everyday you will only wear your body down at today?s production rates. That is unhealthy, so in fact after my weeks work that chainsaw makes me fitter because I?m not slamming my elbow and hands that are already knackered from the weeks work. But if people want to chop wood for fun and to get fit then crack on, I?m sure many old, ill, worn down, small, or time constrained people will be rushing out to buy an axe ? but can we please all accept that there is a place for chainsaws if you got a log burner rofl we are not quite in mad max PO death to all yet.

My advice is this, go chop wood with an axe then when your pee-d off with it, tired and realise how long it takes, then make life easier and get a chainsaw

Long live the CHAINSAW mwhanahahahahahhaaaaaa

PS a good example of my argument is Frederick Winslow Taylor work on Scientific Management. But I followed up what happened to the men after he modernised their work ? they suffered like no other of that time ? their bodies fell apart! Taylor was hailed a genius and these guys suffered for his modernisation and we've been suffering ever since.

MacG · Post by **MacG** » 23 Oct 2007, 14:43

jonny2mad wrote:
MacG wrote:
jonny2mad wrote:Im suprised how many of you have chainsaws or are getting them isnt this a bit like getting ready for a oil shortage by buying a car
Nops. Rather like buying a moped. I have spent weekends the last year clearing a completely (and I mean *completely*) overgrown bronze age burial mound. It was impossible to walk trough any part of it. Semi-dead conifers mixed with 80 year old firs. All in all about 3000 square meters. Apart from the pleasing view of the mound and increased grazing for the sheep, we got some 15 cubic meters of firewood, which will last for at least two winters. The entire venture has cost some 16 liters of petrol and 5 liters of chain oil this far. The last oil will probably be burnt in a chainsaw. Even at ?20 per liter, it would give a good EROEI to run a chainsaw on petrol.
well a moped wont get you as fit as a bike or walking will it , neither will using a chainsaw get you as fit as a crosscut saw or axe it is lots more hard work and its slower but you can build up a level of fitness doing things by hand that you seldom see these days.

What IS this? Are you trying to separate me from my chainsaw? Such horrible suggestions are aimed at the core of my masculinity and require rebuttal, otherwise it can end god-knows-where. What's next? Will you try to separate me from my straight razor? Are you some kind of taliban who want everyone to be bearded? Those talibans are real sissies by the way, just afraid of the razor.

My SO is an archaeologist, and she tell the most horrible stories about the looks of the skeletons from the "good old days". Crippled, short and suffering all of them. And rarely older than 50.

SunnyJim · Post by **SunnyJim** » 23 Oct 2007, 15:07

Yeah, man. The chainsaws the last thing I'm giving up. I often think of stashing a couple of hundred litres just for chainsaw use.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 23 Oct 2007, 20:32

clv101 wrote:
jonny2mad wrote:Im suprised how many of you have chainsaws or are getting them isnt this a bit like getting ready for a oil shortage by buying a car
It supports the terrifying "burn everything" post peak scenario. The chainsaws will make short work any remaining woodland.

Some of us with chainsaws plant more trees than we cut down. Good woodland management reqires a good deal of cutting.

Post by **mikepepler** » 25 Oct 2007, 08:04

I'm on the "rest day" of my chainsaw course, so finally have a chance to write here... one more day to go. Several points:

- I'm doing NPTC units 30 and 31. I plan to do the assessment in a few weeks so that if I want to I can get insurance and work on other people's land.

- Even if I wasn't doing the assessment (not everyone on the course is), the training is invaluable. A lot of what we are learning will work just as well with hand saws as it will with chainsaws.

- Unit 30 covers maintenance and cross-cutting. A poorly maintained saw is a dangerous saw, especially if the cutters are not sharp. Sharpening requires a few special tools and some tuition to get it right. It takes a while, but you really notice the difference when you use the saw!

- Unit 31 covers felling trees up to 15" diameter, and you go through the use of several types of felling cuts, as well as using a felling lever, cant hook, turning strap, winch, etc. You also cover efficient methods of working, such as moving logs, stacking them, felling trees on top of eachother to get them of the ground. This last point is key, as it makes snedding (removing the branches) much easier. Even snedding has a special method though - there are 6 permitted cuts, and 2 not permitted. The 2 banned cuts are dangerous, and have resulted in accidents where the chainsaw trousers can be breached!

- We've studied a lot of safety, including why the back of a tree being felled is as dangerous as the front - the tree can split, and the back will kick up hard enough to knock you through the air. Our instructor knew someone who had been killed in this way. Ash is the worst for it, and is known as the "widow maker". Sycamore and chestnut do it too.

- Protective clothing: the minimum is protective boots, trousers, helmet, ear and eye protection. Gloves are useful for handling anyway, but the risk of actually having the saw hit your hand should be close to zero if you use it properly - you are meant to keep two hands on at all times, and apply the chain brake before taking a hand off! A chainsaw jacket is not really needed for work on the ground - they are for tree surgeons. Our instructor had never heard of an upper-body injury happening on the ground in decades. For eye protection goggles are OK, but prone to misting - we all used metal visors. Ear protection is vital for anyone within 5-10m. Having said all this the biggest protection is proper training...

- An earlier post mentioned kickback. All the saws we used had a combined manual/inertial chainbrake. We saw this demonstrated by the instructor - as soon as kickback happens the brake applied itself and the chain had stopped dead before it had moved 8-10 inches. However, you obviously try and avoid kickback through proper use of the saw, simply because it is annoying and disrupts your work. Also, checking the chainbrake stops the chain at full throttle is one of the daily safety checks you must perform.

- Finally, choosing a saw... The important thing is to try some out. After the maintenance part of the course I was quite keen on the Stihl 260 as it looked easier to work with. However, having tried it in the wood I went off it, compare to a Husky 242. The Stihl stalls a lot (a common 260 problem according to our instructor), and it also kicks a ot in your hand when you rev it. The Husky ran better, didn't kick on revving, and generally was a better-handling saw. I'm going out to buy a saw today, if it's in stock - I've chosen the Husky 346XP, based on experience and the instructor's advice. It's a pro-quality 50cc saw, with a 50cc engine and variable rate oil pump. I'll be getting it with a 13" bar, which gives more power and is easier to use for most work. I'll also get a larger bar for the odd occasion when I need to tackle something bigger. The saw will cost a bit over ?400, and the various tools and clothing probably almost the same again. I've got some of the clothing off ebay though - brand new and about 25% off. I'm getting a good quality saw as I'll be using it a lot in the wood, and for jobs more complicated than simple cross-cutting.

- One other point - another post mentioned "transition" - this is exactly what it is about. As long as I'm doing my work for the Ashden Awards I simply don't have the time to work our wood by hand. Having the chainsaw will allow us to get the coppice in rotation and deal with any "problem" trees over the next few years, while still earning a decent wage from another job. If/when the value of wood fuel rises, it will become progressively more viable to work in the wood as our main job, and we'd have the time to do more of it by hand. Even now, we will still be doing a portion of the work by hand - there are a lot of jobs that you can do with the chainsaw, but it's not much quicker than a sharp billhook or loppers.

MisterE · Post by **MisterE** » 25 Oct 2007, 16:57

Cracking read Mike, your views are echoed by many of the things I went through when getting a chainsaw and more importantly by the lads I know training up to work in woods, or felling on site or on other peoples land. I was a stone throw away from getting a Husky 346XP. Dont mind me asking but how much app is the course? I only do cross cutting, mainly logs that get dropped to my home or wood from site that would be getting skipped. Mostly cls offcuts from roofs or cls 12x4 packers that timber frame panels come on, but they dont need cutting.

Again good read, and to me thats the way it should be done, safe, confident and trained.

syberberg · Post by **syberberg** » 25 Oct 2007, 17:29

mikepepler wrote: - I'm doing NPTC units 30 and 31. I plan to do the assessment in a few weeks so that if I want to I can get insurance and work on other people's land.

NTPC is the best qualification to get. I remember the first time I did my CS32 (medium fell), none of us Sparsholt students passed and only 4 (out of 6) Forestry Commission guys passed. Our assessor wasn't expecting any of us students to pass because we weren't using a 'saw every day, unlike the FC boys.

Post by **mikepepler** » 25 Oct 2007, 21:51

The course was ?500+VAT (?587.50) for 6 days, all clothing and equipment provided, though it's OK to take your own if you prefer. The 6th day is mainly for further practice, so you can also do it for 5/6 of the cost. However, my instructor finds the extra day radically improves the pass rate on assessment.

The guy I went with only runs 30+31 together, but I think some people do them separately. There's also courses running at an agricultural college near here for "domestic" chainsaw use, and they're ?50 a day, but you're in a larger group (there was only 5 in ours).

I bought my 346XP ("new edition" 2007 version) today, and am looking forward to trying it out tomorrow on the last day of the course. I've spent a lot on stuff today, but it seems to be built to last. Of course, most of the clothing and various tree felling tools are just as useful for felling by hand, for when the oil runs out...

Post by **mikepepler** » 09 Nov 2007, 17:03

Passed my exam today!

NPTC units 30 & 31. If we ever decide to burn all the wood, at least I'll be able to get a job with the forestry commission - until all the trees are gone!

MacG · Post by **MacG** » 09 Nov 2007, 17:10

mikepepler wrote:Passed my exam today! NPTC units 30 & 31. If we ever decide to burn all the wood, at least I'll be able to get a job with the forestry commission - until all the trees are gone!

Congrats. Those training courses make sissies of men. A Real Man from the Forrest have at most eight fingers, and now you are almost certainly excluded from that fine brotherhood.

MisterE · Post by **MisterE** » 09 Nov 2007, 18:16

Congrats Mike \o/

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 09 Nov 2007, 20:21

Out of sheer curiosity I have to ask, were any of the course students female??

MacG · Post by **MacG** » 09 Nov 2007, 20:49

RenewableCandy wrote:Out of sheer curiosity I have to ask, were any of the course students female??

After completing the course they are ALL females. "Safety". Bah!

Overheard a couple of guys who deemed American Football as a hopelessly feminine sport due to all the protective clothing they wear.