The Forestry Forum

Sawing along at a good pace with a fresh saw when the carrige stopped a short distance into the cut, and only moved forward a few inches at a time, (each of the black lines on the cant is where it stopped in the cut the worst section was near the tire) after finishing the cut I called it lunch time and went thru everything. Rails were clean but got a fresh wipe down with ATF, chain was fine but got oiled, all bearing were turning free but got greased ant way. Motor was warm, brushes looked like new. The cut was 22 1/2 wide. I had been noticing the pot speed needing to be turned up higher to get the carriage moving then have to turn down to get it slowd down once it was in the cut. After lunch only had one time where the carriage stopped, backed up and away it went.

I have noticed this as an intermitant issue for quite sometime but not this bad.

Did loose a guide an hour later, it went Ting-Ting Sceeech and the saw started climbing. The guide and one guide bushing was found under the mill but the bolt and other bushing were found twenty five feet away behind the log truck.



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Sounds to me like the speed control pot is your feed problem, but of course there could be other issues!

I have found in the past that when I would have to adjust the pot, that shortly thereafter I would be ordering a new one!  ;)

I do wonder of the saw gullets are getting full with this 22" deep cut.  Does it ever happen with a shallow cut?  Once full, the saw will heat and wander in the cut making even more dust.  It happens especially when you hit wood that is wetter than normal (called wetwood).  Full gullets puts a lot of pressure on the guides, especially if the carriage is still trying to move forward.