Yesteryear Saws

[davidwyby]

Curious about what the more experienced pros like @gf beranek thought/think of the saws from a few years ago. Mostly the 288 cuz that's the bug I have now. How about it's contemporaries from Stihl or vs. the newer saws? I don't feel the 288 gives up much.

 

[Burnham]

Stihl equivalent would have been the 064, I think. I have one in basically unadulterated form, and it is a lovely beast. Plenty of torque, loads. Pulls 32-36" bars without complaint. Put a 25 inch bar on it and you have a tiger by the tail. Less AV than modern saws offer, for sure.

I love mine, but I don't have to make a living falling timber with it. If I did, I'd probably have something different. Firewooding, or as needed use for an arb...be a great saw still.

 

[Mick!]

Got a 288 myself. Very nice saw.

 

[Burnham]

 

[stikine]

Sweating with the oldies B!

 

[Altissimus]

The old 288's were great , well balanced and powerful , only down was the habit they had of stripping the Oiler Gear ... which was a cheap repair when we ran them

 

[gf beranek]

That's a real nice fir, B. EZ split and seasoned ta boot. Great!

I was running 044, which superseded the 046.

They were really good saws. never lost a days work because of a breakdown.

 

[Burnham]

I am a devoted fan of the 044, as anyone paying attention knows. Between the 044 and the 064 in my shed to this day, I have full-on old fart sawyer cred.

 

[Nutball]

I ran a stock 046 with dual port muffler and 28" bar in dense red oak, and it did very well. I'm not a huge fan of stihl, but I wouldn't mind having a 046. I don't like the super squishy AV springs in the new Husqy and Stihls, but I've always preferred the stiffer springs of the 200 and 300 series Husqy.

 

[davidwyby]

Something I like about 288s is you can use springs (softer) or rubber (stiffer) if you like, or combinations.

 

[Mick!]

Makes the idea of ‘inbuilt obsolescence’ in saws a bit daft.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Since our government is going to be taking the option of buying new gas saws in CA starting next year, I have held on to a lot of my older saws.,.
044, 046, 440, 066 etc. I have at least a couple of each and some 200t and rear handle I can rebuild. Same with some brush cutters. They will be far from obsolete when you cant buy a replacement saw.

 

[gf beranek]

You're on to something, Stephen. Junkers are going to be worth gold! Well, here in Cali, anyway.

We are in the midst of the transition to electric, and California leads the way.

So timber fallers will have to be packing batteries instead of gas.

But they will still need to pack oil for the chain. Probably canola I'd imagine.

I'm not sure how much of all this is going to make the work any easier on the timber faller, but it's going to be good for the environment. Right?

They use to cut trees with crosscuts and axes, too. Not that long ago, really.

 

[lxskllr]

A lot of this work can be done electric as far as arborists/homeowners go, but I don't know how you fall big timber with a battery saw. It would be interesting if someone knocked together a falling saw, to see what it looked like/weighed.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Exactly. No replacement for displacement in the big saws. Little saws for topping and limbing, no worries. But I guess I'll mount a genny on the truck to charge the batteries. Idiots

 

[Burnham]

Or retire .

 

[gf beranek]

Resistance is futile.

In the meantime remember what Stephen says, "There's no replacement for displacement..."

 

[Czed]

Curious about what the more experienced pros like @gf beranek thought/think of the saws from a few years ago. Mostly the 288 cuz that's the bug I have now. How about it's contemporaries from Stihl or vs. the newer saws? I don't feel the 288 gives up much.

What happened to the dolmar 7900 being king?

 

[davidwyby]

What happened to the dolmar 7900 being king?

10cc smaller. Faster than stock 288 but not nearly the grunt. Odd ergos too. For me bucking saw not felling saw.

 

[Al Smith]

You're on to something, Stephen. Junkers are going to be worth gold! Well, here in Cali, anyway.

It isn't just California .They are trying to get a kings ransom out of them just about every where . Anymore unless they are reasonably priced and have potential I pass them up .My labor is worth something .It might take me several years to find all the parts but they all run well after I'm done with them.--then many of them become shelf queens which is kind of silly depending on how you look at it ..

 

[stig]

Exactly. No replacement for displacement in the big saws. Little saws for topping and limbing, no worries. But I guess I'll mount a genny on the truck to charge the batteries. Idiots

Since we are going to be married to brush cutters for at least the next 3 summers, I have ordered an electric one, to try if it will work for us.
We already have the battery system, which is what really costs.
Got a stack of batteries from when we were doing hedges.
Haven't run anything but electric hedge trimmers for years, beat the shit out of gas powered on ALL fronts.

The brush cutter alone w/o battery is only about $500.

So I figured, why not.
Get rid of the noise and vibrations. Listen to the birds while weeding around the 140000 trees, we'll be planting this fall.
( Not that I can hear birds any more, without hearing aids)

Going to a trade show on wednesday.
Last time we were there, a company was selling roll on, adhesive solar panels for on top of the truck.
I have about 4 square meters of flat surface on top of mine.
Might be enough to keep a couple of batteries charged.

We'll see.

 

[lxskllr]

I don't think an electric brushcutter would work for me. I use it as a human propelled bush hog. Pretty much anything ≤3" is fair game. It would be nice not dealing with fumes though. You get in some spots where the air just hangs around you, and my eyes especially can hardly take it. I'm good for about 4 hours running the cutter, and then I'm beat, and my back is screaming. That's about 1G of fuel.

 

[Burnham]

I got M a battery powered electric string cutter for her around the house lawn maintenance use. @stig...it is just as loud as the old Echo gas model it replaced, or close enough as to take away what I expected to be one benefit. Still have to wear hearing protection.

It's not a top manufacture brand, so maybe higher quality could give different results, I dunno.

 

[lxskllr]

That's been my experience with electric tools I hear. While absolute decibels may be lower, they're somehow more annoying to listen to, and it's in a higher pitch range which does more hearing damage. I'd be interested in reading a whitepaper that analyses the comparative hearing damage between electric and gas tools.

 

[stig]

My Stihl leaf blower makes about as much noise as a vacuum cleaner and far as I can tell, blows as hard as my gas powered back pack model.
Love that thing.

We'll see about the brush cutter.
Like anything else, it is on back order, so I won't get it till september sometime.
If it doesn't work for us, I'll give it to the mail order bride to use on the property.
She loves electric tools.