Your right. I used to work at a farm store when I got out of high school. We sold homelites and I used to get people bringing them back all the time saying they were junk. After looking at it, I'd tell them "Hey, you need to flip the bar for even wear" or "you need to file down the rackers everytime you sharpen the chain because the teeth are angled" or the best one --- "You need to mix oil with the gas, it's a two stroke"

I think that the cheaper saws get a bad rap in part from all the people who buy them but don't know the first thing about useing one. So they blame it on the saw. "I can't get it to work the way I wanted, so Homelite is just junk".

 

you get what you pay for

 

Not necessarily. Just buying the most expensive product doesn't mean that it is the best choice. Alot of factors have to be considered and when it comes to anything mechanical, the user needs to be informed of it's operation.

How long do you think a stihl would run on straight gas? Since it wouldn't for long, does this make it junk?

 

Stihl 036 Pro with some skip tooth.

 

I cast my vote for MRFIESTA Huskavarna is the only chain saw, just like the ford is the only truck to have. bigdawgkp

 

I believe the best way to determine the quality of a chainsaw is by knowing the distance a person can hurl one. For instance, I discovered that I can hurl a Homelite 340 approximately 30 feet. I can really hurl a Walmart Poulan if I don't own it. It is very important to note that there is no reason at all to hurl a Stihl or Husky chainsaw. Unless of course you're angry at yourself for not maintaining it properly.

I further submit, that unless someone does a really great job sharpening your chains, that you should do them yourself. Unable to find someone to do a fine job sharpening my chains, I purchased a bench mounted grinder to touch them up myself. Got tired of blue teeth, uneven teeth, and shops that will not touch your depth gauges/rakers (instead, they whine or look at you stupid when you ask them to file or grind the gauges correctly). Yeah, for 3 or 4 bucks each, my time to swap chains, and the poorly ground off service life of my chains, I was getting chains back that couldn't cut a stinkin bananner popsickle. And here I live in hard oak territory (Ozarks).

So for $300, I maintain my own chains now, and my friends too. Worth every penny, I say. Reckon some shops just want to sell more chain loops.

 

I vote Stihl... I have a small and a medium Stihl and I stihl have my hearing and feeling in my hands and arms at the end of a day of felling, cutting and limbing 4 to 24" trees.

I am more concerned about loosing the power from a small 2 cycle engine when the environmentalists get their wishes on us. Anybody got a 2 man cross saw and a hatchett? Maybe we can do a couple tree huggers.

Merry Christmas, a big red and green one.
RZ

 

This was the last victim of my 036. That's Grandpa standing next to it.

 

What a tree!

This Stihl MS360 Pro with a 20" bar is an excellent mid-sized saw. Cut last spring, no problemo:

 

Nice Rex, We better stop posting pictures before people find out what a Beautiful State we live in.

 

got a stihl 660 and a crappy mccoughahlot (or however you spell it).
the stihl is great for felling large trees, etc.

the lil McC 32 cc is for cuttings junk, railroad ties, roots, boards that probably have old nails in them, etc. plus with a 14inch bar it's easy to use

When I worked for another contractor we did alot of tree cutting.
we had 20 people working for us, maybe 2-3 of them had any damn sense.
the stihl is great if YOU are taking care of it, but the husky seemed to do better with the abuse of the above mentioned 20 people.

far too often I saw a husky get thrown in the back of a tool truck with 1,000lbs of junk on top of it. Guys would run them outta oil and use them for another 20minutes etc. still fired up everytime.

 

Your're right lol. We've just 3 incorporated towns on Whidbey and the county passed code that prevents sub-dividing smaller than 5 acres outside of them. Lottsa' space to stretch
-

I wanted to add i had bad luck with the Poulan 2750 Farmhand 20" saw. 2.8 cid, 3/8" bar. No power, ate through the weak aluminum sprockets every 10 hours, it never cut well. "Fixed" twice at a factory-approved dealer, they also replaced the bar and chain. Maybe just that model . . .

 

I forgot to mention ol' reliable. Pioneer 3270SC, been using that saw for 20 years, on and off, still won't die. Runs strong as ever.

 

When I first started cutting wood some 20+ years ago we used a friends Homelite Super 2 cutting downed limbs and small trees. We then graduated to a used Homelite XL, which seemed to be a godsend after laboring away on the Super 2. Since we usually went as a group of 3 or 4 we had more hands than saws so we pooled our resources and bought a Homelite 330 and a Homelite 410. The 410 could cut circles around the 330 and again we thought we were on wood pile heaven. The next season I bought a Stihl 038 Magnum, quit using the Homlites and cut my time in the timber down considerably. The 038 Mag has to be twenty years old, still starts fine, runs fine, wouldn't trade it for any other saw. I haven't run a Husqvarna so I can't comment on them. I have used a big Stihl, not sure of the exact model but it had a 1/2" chain and had a compression release to get it started, this saw could cut some timber. I had use of it for one winter and cut quite a bit of wood with it. Someday it will be mine.


RUF150