Cuttinstuff
Treehouser
This fall I was helping cut firewood in an area that contains hard maple (no hard maple around my property) and ran into problems.
I was cutting with my little Echo CS-352 and found that it was really chattering in the cut and then it would just stop the chain dead. It seems like the teeth of the chain had embedded themselves into the wood and just stuck there! It didn't just bog down and stop cutting - it was like a dead stop. I had to jerk around pretty hard just to get the bar out of the cut. This happened time after time to the point where it was almost impossible to continue.
I thought that maybe I just needed more power so I tried my Husky 345 - this saw has a modded muffler and normally cuts very well. Same exact problem - except with the added power, I REALLY had problems pulling it out after it stuck itself into the wood.
The chains were both very sharp and properly tensioned and neither one had yet had the rakers lowered from stock. I found that the problem was not quite as bad if I cut with the top of the bar but it was still not good - but that was the only way I was able to finish the cut at all.
As soon as I moved to - say an oak - no problems at all with either saw.
What was going on there and how to I avoid it?
Thanks,
Paul
I was cutting with my little Echo CS-352 and found that it was really chattering in the cut and then it would just stop the chain dead. It seems like the teeth of the chain had embedded themselves into the wood and just stuck there! It didn't just bog down and stop cutting - it was like a dead stop. I had to jerk around pretty hard just to get the bar out of the cut. This happened time after time to the point where it was almost impossible to continue.
I thought that maybe I just needed more power so I tried my Husky 345 - this saw has a modded muffler and normally cuts very well. Same exact problem - except with the added power, I REALLY had problems pulling it out after it stuck itself into the wood.
The chains were both very sharp and properly tensioned and neither one had yet had the rakers lowered from stock. I found that the problem was not quite as bad if I cut with the top of the bar but it was still not good - but that was the only way I was able to finish the cut at all.
As soon as I moved to - say an oak - no problems at all with either saw.
What was going on there and how to I avoid it?
Thanks,
Paul