gf beranek
Old Schooler
" This should help relieve that tension in the crotch, correct? "
Yep. got it!
Yep. got it!
Bucking issues
- Thread starter Treeaddict
- Start date
- Replies 59
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Mellow
BCMA
And she was right. 
davidwyby
Desert Beaver
Beating the dead horse…In my relatively limited experience, cracked and twisted/tensioned wood can be real weird to cut. Like a dry palm…the fibers flex and grab the bar and chain on the upper “non cutting” direction and prevent the saw from proceeding through the wood.
Treeaddict
Treehouser
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #29
Thanks for sharing! Doesn’t hurt to beat a dead horse. The horse doesn’t care and I enjoy watching it. 😉
davidwyby
Desert Beaver
I meant to include this vid though it doesn’t show the actual event. Some of the limbs were cracked and twisted from hitting the ground. 6” limbs and my 7900 didn’t want to go through them, even after being cut loose from the tree so there wasn’t tension on them…I was nonplussed for a second. Had to cut from both sides.
CurSedVoyce
California Hillbilly
Kiln dried. Almost looked like a Monterrey.
Lodge pole is like that. Branches hard as nails dried. No wonder the ol timers built cabins out of the stuff.
Lodge pole is like that. Branches hard as nails dried. No wonder the ol timers built cabins out of the stuff.
davidwyby
Desert Beaver
Everything gets hard as nails down here in the desert once it’s dead.
These aspens in the AZ mountains are from a fire around a decade ago. They are preserved and still being cut for firewood. If not kiln dried, they rot in a year.
CurSedVoyce
California Hillbilly
We are about as dry as where you are. Ive lived in AZ and CA deserts both. We have it going on with the blue oaks at lower elevation. Years standing dead and still hard as nails.
I’ve had issues with an overly stretched chain before. It was a fairly new chain but was put through a lot of abuse real quick on a huge job. It stretched so bad that it would spin but an inch in to any wood and it wouldn’t cut any more than that. I put the chain on different bars and different saws. The only denominator was the chain and it was freshly sharpened
davidwyby
Desert Beaver
SeanKroll
Treehouser
I can't understand that.
I used to work on an invasive tamarisk sp. Tree project. Lots of sand. Chains would be like new, but would stretch so much for the NPS Exotic Plant Management Team working week after week, that they would remove a link to be able to tension them after some time.
Yea, it sounds like something else going on there. Long or short, chain doesn't really matter as long as it can be adjusted. Can't think of what it would be that affects only that chain on multiple bars though. I wonder if it's possible a chain chassis could wear so bad it mimics a sloppy bar while in the cut?
Burnham
Woods walker
John may be correct...or it could be that that chain is not the gauge it's supposed to be. I've seen that happen before.
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davidwyby
Desert Beaver
@SeanKroll that stuff can be the devil! It’s pretty when milled. Salt Cedar/Athel Tree (Tamarix Aphylla) demo fun. - https://opeforum.com/threads/salt-cedar-athel-tree-tamarix-aphylla-demo-fun.23211/
All of our saws are stihl with 50 gauge. John just helped me remember that every time we would sharpen and pretension the chain after that inch of cutting it would struggle so much the chain would instantly become incredibly loose and stop cutting. Only happened with that chain though. In my naivety I thought it was the bar or something with the sprocket. So I bought a new bar, rim sprocket, and bearing. None of that helped. Put a new chain on it and it ripped. All of this trial and error was on the same day on a white oak stump.
SeanKroll
Treehouser
Video needed
Burnham
Woods walker
Just because all your Stihl saws are 50 gauge doesn't mean a thing to what that particular chain's gauge is. I for one have been given a chain at the local Stihl shop for my 200T that was not the 50 gauge I requested but rather was 43 gauge. The box was labeled 50 gauge...but the chain was not. Mistakes happen. And this was a shop with a lot of experience and good reputation.
I only discovered the issue when I tried to cut with it, and it behaved in the cut similarly to what you describe.
I only discovered the issue when I tried to cut with it, and it behaved in the cut similarly to what you describe.
Marc-Antoine
TreeHouser
When a Husky died some years ago, I wanted to continue using its remaining 20" chains on my ms440. It worked for bucking logs with a straight grain (forget cutting the notch and at the crotches), but the chain needed to stay really sharp to not tilt in the cut. So it was more a hasle than a save. The chains stayed hung on a nail for a long while and just recently found their way to the trash can.
To verify both the wear and the association of gauges (bar/chain), put a ruler sideway, top-bottom of the bar, passing on both at the tip of a tooth. The ruler shouldn't touch the bar's side, neither at the top nor at the bottom. If the ruler touches, the wood will too (even more), and the needed clearance disapears. The bar gets stuck like a wornout handsaw, even if the chain continues to spin.
To verify both the wear and the association of gauges (bar/chain), put a ruler sideway, top-bottom of the bar, passing on both at the tip of a tooth. The ruler shouldn't touch the bar's side, neither at the top nor at the bottom. If the ruler touches, the wood will too (even more), and the needed clearance disapears. The bar gets stuck like a wornout handsaw, even if the chain continues to spin.
davidwyby
Desert Beaver
Any more problem chains come up, I’d
Like to have them.
Like to have them.
That’s a good point burnham. I wonder if that’s what was happening the whole time. The job this happened to was a crane job of like 25 trees craned over top an apartment building. Most of the trees grew into a ditch that we dug around, cut the stumps super low and had all of them ground afterwards. So there were ALOT of stump cuts in dirty wood. Cost us two bars and a few chains and a whole day but it saved my boss on the subbed out grinding. If I remember correctly that chain jumped track a few times and burred up the drivers and I filed the burrs off. It’s very possible I filed them too far and a 50 gauge chain became considerably less than that
theTreeSpyder
TreeHouser
- Joined
- Feb 12, 2016
- Messages
- 691
Our Live Oaks grows slow and heavy like other tree's ring wood, then Live Oak rings even denser yet. Slight spiral can even stall hydraulic splitter, especially at unions, thankfully not many codoms, cuz just set that gnarly rock aside if there is! Live Oak hard on rip due to density and change in grain direction. If working all Live Oak would not drop depth as far on even normal chain.
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Heavy as lead, slow burn, high and clean btu , overly strong oily-ish for smoking. Slow growing, thick bark very disease and mistletoe resistant, fewest codoms, compartmentalizes and callouses best. True premium benchmark tree, all rest (especially Oaks) rated in terms of and as lessers to.
.
Heavy as lead, slow burn, high and clean btu , overly strong oily-ish for smoking. Slow growing, thick bark very disease and mistletoe resistant, fewest codoms, compartmentalizes and callouses best. True premium benchmark tree, all rest (especially Oaks) rated in terms of and as lessers to.
davidwyby
Desert Beaver
@treespyder whereabouts?
davidwyby
Desert Beaver
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