Chain Shot, It's Still a Hazard

[Gary_C]

For anyone around mechanical harvesters, this chain shot thing has not gone away. This past weekend when I was home, I had to fix some damaged saw chains as I was running short of good chains. Here is a picture of some of the leftover parts.





Right after I got over ten chains fixed, I picked up the latest copy of Loggers World magazine and there was a story from a safety conference. As the story relates, "a logger's dying this past August, while sitting comfortably in his polycarbonate glass enclosed cab, when a broken link penetrated the barrier and killing him instantly."

I know I have become complacent about this chain shot problem, mostly because I've never had a chain or parts "fly" more than a few feet and because I "only" run .404 pitch chain and not 3/4 pitch. But seeing those damaged chain parts and recognizing that machine has the power to rip apart any chain made is a good reminder to watch for the potential hazard.

And the danger zone or the "shot zone cone" is 15 degrees either side of that bar and 250 feet away. So bottom line is, do not be looking at that bar when you are cutting, even if you are sitting in your cab. Move that loaded gun (it's like a 9mm pistol) away from in line with where you are sitting. You may not know what hits you if it happens to you.

[snowstorm]

well they are about equal to a 50hp chain saw arent they.

[Bobus2003]

I have a picture some where of a Chain driver stuck in the window of a harvester.. didn't go all the way through.. pretty neat to see, but scary..

I had the 3/4" chain come off the Boom delimber top saw the other day.. made a bang like a gun went off.. Picked up the Chain prolly 100 feet away

[Jeff]

[Gary_C]

Jeff, that's a great slide show you found.

I am guilty of reusing presets but I always spin the rivets and inspect them after to make sure I have good holding material.

And I doubt that drive sprocket wear contributed to the accident as most of those drive sprockets look like that after some use. I've seen a lot worse.

All of my chain breaks have come when making the felling cut and always with a very large tree that sits down on the saw while the chain is running at full speed. And the broken chain is always found in the cut.

But perhaps I'm just lucky or have just been careful in spinning rivets. And it is vary rare that I do any cutting with the saw pointed right at the cab.

So I guess the best safety measure is to never cut when you have the bar pointed at the cab.

[redneck]

I wonder how many excavator carrier harvesters have had the glass changed over

[Ron Scott]

A good safety video and message.