Vid: Nick's Skeered to remove the Arrestor Screen!!!

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Oh yeah...that company existed no longer afterwards. I heard liability insurance and bonding paid the lion's share of the bill, but they were never able to get coverage thereafter. Crash and burn over a spark arrestor screen with a hole punched in it with a chain file.
 
That plate with the holes in it is also a baffle plate as well as the screen .If I'm not mistaken the US and Canadian versions have 5 holes where the Europian has 4 .It's not so much the screen ,it's the baffle that chokes down the exhaust .That plus the little tiny exit hole for the exhaust .

I've never done so but I would bet if somebody was good at metal working a plate could be either modified or made with the screens in place but with a larger surface free of the baffle holes and get just about the same response as pulling said plate .If that were done and the regular exit hole enlarged it might solve the problem of a restricted exhaust but with the fire safety of the screens .When you pull the baffles you leave an additional hole that's about as large as the normal exit hole .

Actually on the noise,even with the plate pulled they aren't that much louder .They do however pep right up .

As it is I live in an area where fire is of no concern because it's nearly imposible to set these woods afire short of a napalm strike ,so I never gave a thought to it .
 
Pretty much the same way out here, Al; too freakin' wet 90 percent of the time.
 
I've got a few plates I've pulled if I can find them .Should I ever find the time I'll see if I can modify one a little just to see if my theory is correct .Might lead to something ,might not .You never know unless you give it a shot .:)
 
Hi Nick, I am crawling out from under the bridge just to put my 2 cents in. Although we do not do a lot of residential, I dont take the chance of removing the spark screen. The power difference is not noticeable if it is clean. Try this, put in a new one or clean one and look at it after (depending on use) in a week or two. That residue starts fires and makes for poor saw performance. That screen caught it. A clean screen makes your saw scream,
no apostrophes.
 
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  • #36
Interesting perspective that I think most people here would say is overboard. But most people don't work in the almost desert-like conditions that you and are and a few others are lucky to have.

This thread has got my wheels turning- that's for sure.
 
To a point .That little saw hit the ground running as a racer just by it's very design .For its' size it has the largest area of transfer ports of any design I've ever seen .The only reason for huge transfers is for high speed operation which this little gem excells at .

In order for things to work at the optimum it has to run with a fairly unrestricted exhaust .Granted even as a stocker they do great but a finely tuned modified machine is a joy to behold in such a tiny package .

So rambling on ,there has to be a way to get that less restictive exhaust plus maintain fire safety .
 
Yup. But I'm curious... is there any evidence of this actually happening? Any cases to cite?

I have started two fires before. One where I was cutting up a ton of logs into rounds for a customer and set the pile of saw chips on fire and the other was the bark of an ash I was stumping. The bark fire was just caused by the hot exhaust gas and the chip fire was from a muff modded 385 with no screen. They were both very small fires but a fire none the less.
 
Nobody would ever call the west side of the north Cascades dry country, everybody knows that...but when a fire does get going, you have fuel out the ying-yang. Can you say conflagration?

Except for a very few isolated deep, wet, north-facing creek bottoms, there isn't a tree over 350 years old on the entire 1.25 million acres of the Mt. Hood NF. Species that make 800-1000 years if given the optimal conditions. That translates into solid evidence of an absolutely monsterous fire of epic proportions about early 1500's. It could happen again, I suppose...but there were no air tankers, helicopter buckets, Smokejumpers, Hotshot crews, or heli-rappelers back then.

Maybe we'll dodge the bullet. Maybe we'd be better off in the long run if we didn't.
 
IMO I would say let it burn if it goes that is just natures way. Now if it was man made fight it tooth and nail.
 
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  • #48
Or just limit the conversation to the matter at hand. Here's the current summarization:

If nick removes the arrestor screen, he will get more power pretty easily. Then he will start a grass fire and be responsible for the destruction of many acres of land and the loss of millions of dollars.

That about wraps it up, right?
 
You know you work environment better than any of us.

FWIW, I pull the screens on my little saws, the 200T and 200 rear handled. It serves them best, and they run in less than risky environments in my mind...aerially, and/or right on the road. The bigger saws, the 460, 066, 084...none of them suffer significant losses due to the screens imo (not to say there will be no differing opinions on that :)) and I tend to run them more often off road, on the ground, longer cuts in big wood, that adds up to more likely to toss a hot chunk of carbon than the killer bee saws. The screens for the 200's are on the truck with the saws, so I could easily re-mount them in an instance that raises my hackles.

BTW, I operate on the wrong side of FS policy by pulling those screens :D. Such is the life of a risk-taker :lol:.
 
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