I've had a 260PF 25 cc Tanaka polesaw for a couple years now. It's got hundreds of hours on it with its little OEM 10" NK b&c. After wearing out a couple chains, still runs like new, still keeping me out of various troubles.
Recently I've had need of longer b&c on some jobs. Necessity is a mother. Finding out that it has a super-standard A041 bar mount, and I've such bars from 14" to 18", why not? With a 14" & sharp chain it worked great on hickory, saving me much grief/danger.
Then we came to buck a big red oak blowdown with a couple of ~18" leaders well up in the air. What the heck, Rather than the stimulation of bucking them starting down near the butt, I put on an 18" b&c. Sharp, of course. It did surprisingly well- without pushing things, it spit a nice stream of chips, and numerous 4' rounds came down, working towards the butt. Bud did some up-there bucking with it too, and was impressed. Nice option to have available. (Note that it still has its cat muffler, for my air-quality.)
Shortly after, we let the butt assembly of that oak back over the wall into its hole as a big bird-perch.
Yep, pole saws are pretty great to have around. I've been looking for one (for years) that has a head that can rotate in both directions so I can use it kind of like those pole trimmers.
I need to see what bar fits my Stihl pole saw which is just a saw head that fits the string trimmers, and now with my combi setup and an extension shaft it reaches up about 14'. Once and awhile when felling a leaning, trickier tree I'd feel better staying farther away. It has a 10" now and a 16-18" would be nice.
Might sound good except for the fact most pole saws have barely enough power to run the short bars they come with including Stihl .All they are is a weed wacker engine .Handy tool no doubt but they aren't oak slayers .
Now you might get it done by throwing away the guard chain most come with and using non guard .043 thou pico chain which would cut better .That's just speculation on my part because I've never done it .
I have the dedicated stihl pole saw. I switched to a 050 guage 3/8" picco and a 14" bar. Mostly because i have rolls of chain in this size and i wanted to match my stihl 201t saw.
I prob wouldnt go bigger than the 14".
My Stihl Combi motor is the biggest one but I don't remember the number now, when using it with the 10" bar it is plenty powerful for cutting at a distance, not what I would use for bucking firewood.
I have a Stihl HT 75 polesaw that I run a 16" 3/8" .043 bar on. The bar came off my old 019 saw. The chain is the mini Picco 61PMN.
Does the job in heavy limbs up around 10" , even in American elm and birch. Not a speedster but gets the job done.
I suppose you could soup up a pole saw . I've just never heard of anyone doing it. That would be a novelty .
I never thought of souping it up Al, little engine runs flawless.
Just takes a sharp 5/32" round file and a little filing technique :)
Well I've worked on a couple HT 75's even tried to take the warp out of bent shafts with partial success on one .
I will admit even with the same displacement as my inexpensive Poulan they are a lot more powerfull .So with that in mind it would appear the choice of chain types would play a big part in how well they cut .
I once cut about a 12" low hanging limb I didn't feel like climbing to get .It cut it but it was a rather slow process .
Yes they are slow and darn easy to get pinched in the cut when reaching up over your head.
I bent a shaft too, managed to straighten it enough to cut but the vibration really robbed the power.
So I bought a new shaft which cost over half the value of the whole unit. Haven't used it for a few years now, last used it with a hedge trimmer attachment on it.
A couple of 8 ft fiberglass extension poles and a Japanese saw blade have basically put the HT 75 into retirement.
I was able to get the warp out and it ran smooth .Due to the fact the splined shaft got twisted it could only be shortened to about 8 feet instead of 6 or whatever it was supposed to be .
My bud the tree trimmer used it for a couple years until he left it unlocked in his bucket truck and it walked off .It got replaced by I think a 101 or whatever the newer model was .I think both models had 12" bars .