How'd it go today?

Made a 4K instructional video about the Beasthorn retrievable redirect, which is nothing short of ingenious and exceptionally simple and easy to use. Just finished rendering it, but I haven't inspected it yet.

I'm having a bit of a weird day. I think all of the sleep loss is getting to me. I have yet to achieve a single solid night of slumber since arriving in Massachusetts. So I apologize if I've been weird on here lately; those are not my intentions.

Anyways, Christmas should hopefully incite betterment in mood and mind, but I reserve the right to wait and see for myself. Not sure where I'm going with this. I'll shut up now. Thanks.
 
Exchanged a couple little gifts around the neighborhood (mostly the kids exchanging with each other). Evening at my aunts house with about 25 family/friends present. Lots to eat and I brought Indian food as is my new tradition. Santa just put lots of gifts under our tree for the 3 little ones. Daddy will be busy tomorrow dealing with paper and box recycling/trash as well as assembly and battery duty.
 
I just used all of the money I received for Christmas (I asked everyone in my family to give me either cash or an Amazon gift card) to buy the latest GoPro, the Hero 12 Black. I also bought two extra batteries, a 256GB high fidelity SD Card, a light weight selfie stick which seconds as an adjustable-height tripod, an adapter which will allow me to mount the GoPro onto one of my two professional tripods, and an assortment of adhesive mounts for my helmet and anything else whatsoever that I might need a permanent mount on.

I'm stoked. The GoPro is such a solid investment for my YouTube channel and it takes such good video that I can use it not just for first person POV shots from helmet mount while up in the canopy, but I can use it to film second angles on the ground while my phone films another. This will allow me to make jump cuts between angles and make my videos a lot more interesting and fun to watch. I'm also looking forward to using all of the many amazing features, such as time lapse and to film with as many as 120 FPS with quality as high as 4K, and as high as 5.8k for 30-60FPS video!

Should be a game changer! =-D
 
I like real old saws for appearance; Stuff from the 50s-60s. Industrial design from that era(and below for other products) was beautiful. For stuff I actually use, I like new stuff. I might use a saw from the 80s that was dropped in my lap, or had sentimental value, but otherwise, new is better, and computer controls are fantastic. Pull the cord and it works. No twiddling carb jets or micromanaging the system.
 
Loved my 288, gonna build some more and sell my 2188. I don’t go much more than one or two models/generations older. 3120, 395s, 372s. 272s are ok if you don’t mind the vibes. 266s are underpowered IMO. All these I’m saying rebuilt and maybe ported, not just running old junk. I like my tugboat 461, had a 261 that was pretty good. Not much exp with other steehls.

A 500i is impressive power to weight and convenience. If I was doing this for a living I’d probably just have two of them. As it is, I have a saw (and usually a backup) for every tree or size of wood. 😬😁😆
 
I don't get the American love for old saws.
At all.
If y'all love old shit so much, get an axe and a misery whip.:D
For this boy, new is better.
Hence my love for the 500i.
Somewhere, buried under a mountain of my wife's "things" I should still own a crosscut felling saw, can't remember the brand. I also have a tooth set and sharpening jig, or at least I did... haven't looked in almost a decade or so...

I have a kink for the old Macs, mostly because of the additional manual oiler. The shagbark cedar we've discussed is incredibly hard on saws. The bark traps dust and rocks as it grows, and with our winds, those can be sizable pebbles. Another issue with that fibrous bark is that it creates a huge amount of friction, which will lead to rapid chain stretch and a loss of temper in said chain. Akin to redwoods, the bark begins expanding along the length of the grain, intruding into the kerf and causing binding, adding yet more friction. Oh yeah, it can also be super flammable, so you really don't want a hot bar, or your exhaust up against the wood, at all! Additional oil helps to mitigate the heat issue to some extent, by both lubrication and by carrying away some of the waste heat. This is also why I, myself, use such a long bar on such small wood, all the extra chain and bar takes longer to heat up, sheds it more quickly, distributes abuse across more teeth, holds onto more oil, etc. Also, it makes it much easier to reach into these bushy bastards...
 
@Kaveman a lot of that sounds familiar. Desert wood challenges. Fibrous messquite, dirty salt cedar and dry hard dirty euc. I gotta start wearing a dust mask.

Aussies run short bars with .404 in dry hard euc and move the saw around a lot to have fewer teeth cutting and making heat. Also, it's difficult to get a chain with a durable grind to feed with a long bar in hard wood.
 
yep, here, just busy with family etc.

Ok, quick reply before going back to family stuff this season.

its pretty much the norm to run 880s and 25 or 20" bars with 404 semi chisel.
first for the durability that 404 and semi brings, also the slower chain speed of the 880's or other earlier series saws that is also very helpful in cutter edge durability with the harder dead euc's.
edited to add as distracted, the torque of the larger saws is needed too.
Also, its quicker to sharpen when you need to :).

If its not self feeding as well as it should, look at the cutters edge again, some timber can be so hard it just knocks the edge off and your wondering why it wont feed.
Other times its just the timber and its odd grain orientation.

Another thing to consider is that the chain and bar rail groove can get worn, and allows the chain to cant over on an angle, the hard timber pushes the cutters away where as soft timber will just be cut. and that then makes the chain not self feed, and your wondering why its fine on one cut and move to a different part of the tree and its not self feeding.

So going further with that, you have a long bar, ie 42" + and the chain can wave not only up and down with harmonics like a wave, but also side to side, and one part of the chain cuts, other parts just passes over, eventually it starts to cut after you put a bit of pressure on it and make the cutters sit right.

Other times, the timber is just plain hard like iron, and no matter what you do, its going to be a struggle to cut thru it.

yeah chisel will cut thru it quicker, as the edge bites well, but its just not economical time wise to keep the edge of the cutter sharp with harder euc. Its great for green and felling notches as its easier to do the diagonal cutting compared to semi, but thats about it.

Keep the cutters sharp, less hook, dont worry about a large gullet, just make the top angle right, depth gauges right and smoothly rounded after setting their depth (helps with smoothness of cut), and keep the chain speed down and know that some parts of the tree where there is lots of different grain orientation, its just going to be harder/ slower, or the timber will release tension and move and you have to get the bar back out and start the cut again a few times to get thru it without it binding or canting the bar over in the cut.


but it burns like coal when its finally dry and ready to burn :).

edited to add.

dont have any pics of the 404 handy, apart from some odd chisel stihl chain being made ready to cut green wood, so its got a large amount of hook, and not that good for this convo, apart from comparison, also I had to take out the gullet a bit due to improper grinder wheel setting from prior owner, depth gauge yet to be done. its not standard RS, but an odd ball sq ground chain I was repairing with a round file.
I think its RSLF going by memory.


4chain3.jpg 4chainshrp.jpg



here is some carlton (old stuff) 3/8 semi using 5.5mm file with a husky roller guide, gives a higher file placement, thus less hook, works really well on hard stuff, cuts well, druable edge, often when a chain gets to this cutter length, you can go to a smaller file to give more hook again due to the cutters reduced height on the green or soft stuff, with hard, its better like this.
Chain has cut a bit in this picture, i use a progressive file guide for the depth gauge, and round over the leading edge.

chain1.jpg

chain3.jpg chain5.jpg
 
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Hooray! Finally another justification for semi-chisel, and from someone with CRED!!
I keep saying it and the blokes give me this 'girl chain' look.
Full chisel is the standard offer when buying chain at the saw shop. I have to ask for semi chisel RM, they usually have to find the reel and spin me a bespoke one!

Cutting down a euc last week, I was getting to the bark compression thing, had to ream with my 200 3/8picco, switched to my 260 .325 and it went much better. 462 with 3/8 was waiting in the wings if needed. It wasn't
 
Hooray! Finally another justification for semi-chisel, and from someone with CRED!!
I keep saying it and the blokes give me this 'girl chain' look.
Full chisel is the standard offer when buying chain at the saw shop. I have to ask for semi chisel RM, they usually have to find the reel and spin me a bespoke one!

Cutting down a euc last week, I was getting to the bark compression thing, had to ream with my 200 3/8picco, switched to my 260 .325 and it went much better. 462 with 3/8 was waiting in the wings if needed. It wasn't
Bermy, they are just showing their ignorance. And its a sales thing, the saw cuts faster out of the box etc etc etc.
but we both know that any factory grind is just a start, you can fine tune from there with any chain.

I get the same thing re asking for semi, and im a bloke. ;)

so I just make my own loops from 100ft reels/ rolls.
my rivets are far better spun than those from the shop anyway.

hey Hope you and yours had a great Christmas, how has the storms been down your way ? heard tassi got hit a bit in places.


edited to add, I added a few pics to my post up above.
 
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Went to Pat’s (Pigwot) house to pick up a cs590 he was selling for a friend at a good price. Couldn’t hang as he’s not feeling well :( The saws very clean and fired immediately. It’ll get put in a log tomorrow to see how she does. First Echo in the fleet but I’ve run John’s before and like em. Can’t wait for a Nutball 2511!
 

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