regional saw and bar size preferences

[sawguy21]

I forgot to mention the 051's were running .404 chain, we see very little of that anymore.

[HolmenTree]

I'm now living and operating my tree service out of Thompson Manitoba about 4 hrs drive NE of were I spent the last 25 years at The Pas.
Cottage country here around Paint Lake is quite hilly and steep slopes to the lake shore in some areas. By the end of my day the terrain takes alot out of me. Lot's  of tall spruce  here growing on silt and clay ground.
Night and  day working in both flat and slope terrain.

[bandmiller2]

Up here in the northeast there are few trees you can't slice and dice with a 20" bar. I use a 365 husky with a 20 for most everything. I do have a stihl 046 with a 24 and 28 for butts and clumps. 18" bars are handy and balance well for firewood. Frank C.

[Native Cutter]

Sawguy21, yeah we dont see much .404 around here either. I think it was too much of a good thing. Its just too heavy and hard on your saws for most uses.  Lot more weight for what benefit ya know. Maybe if i was runnin a 3120 with loong bar it might make more sense?  75 gauge seems plenty strong to me and I prefer 72 for most rigs. Easier for the saw to pull all those links when ya got 3 foot out there haha

Holmet Tree, sounds like you got lots of work. Good for you

Bandmiller2 thanks for weighing in. Whereabouts are ya in the NE and what species are ya cuttin over that way? 

[sawguy21]

The 3120 is built for speed, .404 on a long bar would slow it down too much. The old Stihls and other earlier saws were slow revving torque monsters that could take advantage of the more aggressive chain but few run those professionally any more, just too DanG heavy on west coast terrain.

[JohnG28]

I thought the bigger modern saws like the 3210 and 880 were the modern torquey, slow saws? I can see them being quick with a shorter bar and larger drive sprocket, but even a local shop admitted a much smaller saw would outrun it in most stuff around here. Suppose it depends on what you're cutting though.

[Native Cutter]

I was thinkin that might be true of the 3120 but hadnt run one so didnt know. Theres a few of em around here but they dont see much daylight! lol. 

I was just playing around with an old Husky L65 yesterday and ran it next to this lil stihl 390 i have. The older saw is definitely slower turning but even with a longer bar outcuts the faster saw in once wood got a certain size. Old saws are cool like that. 

Them big saws need a big bars and big wood to be really worth their weight, otherwise they get outrun by saws pounds lighter and ur still tired lol

[bandmiller2]

Native Cutter, I cut mostly pine and oak for saw logs. Fire wood oak and maple, used to like elm and ash but their both on their way out around here. I'am in Ma. not far from the RI. line. Frank C.

[Native Cutter]

Bandmiller2, thanks for the info. Im not sure Id know an elm is i walked into it. Im sure Ive seen em somewhere tho lol.

Its pretty need learnin what kinda wood gets cut for timber or firewood in various parts of the country, and what size saws are used for the job.   Anybody down Texas way? New Mexico or Arizona?  How about Montana, Idaho and such....?

[ZeroJunk]

I have spent a lot of time in Montana camped out in the wilderness with nothing to burn in the little stove but lodge pole pine and aspen. I would have given good money for a pile of hickory.

[Native Cutter]

ZeroJunk, Thats funny!!  IIve camped in the high country in places with no good firewood and it really bites! im right there with ya!

I havent been to Montana or anywhere near there but I have heard they got lots and lots of smaller pine trees. Prolly some sizes ones too Id imagine.

Is either Aspen or Birch like Alder? Anyone know?  Alder, the tree, not the brush, is one of the most dangerous trees to cut in this area. It just explodes sometimes, breaks in weird places and has hurt many an experienced cutter. Its one of times Im happy to have a bar wayyy bigger than the tree, so i can cut it from another zip code haha

[HolmenTree]

In my area aspen is referred as trembling aspen or white poplar. We also have balsam poplar otherwise called black poplar. We also have a northwest poplar which is a native cross between a cottonwood and poplar, these trees get big.
Birch is a true hardwood and is the best firwood here. Its paper bark makes excellent firestarter. These same trees bark was used to make birch bark canoes for thousands of years by our local first nation peoples.
Matter of fact British  fur traders about 300 years ago took a first nations made  birch bark canoe back to England, to show the King the engineering capability of the stoneage Canadian first nation peoples.

[Native Cutter]

Thanks for the story about the canio going to England, I had not heard that. Very cool stuff.
I have known about birch being used for canoes and for fire starting for years but had always wondered what kind of wood it was. I would not have guessed it was a hardwood, thanks. 

[HolmenTree]

Birch makes high end hardwood flooring and furniture,  made famous on the global market by the Swedes.  Birch is a common tree in Sweden as here in Canada in the Boreal Forest.
The Boreal Forest is the world's  largest forest covering the whole northern  hemisphere .
It accounts for 1/3 of the earths total forest.

http://www.borealforest.org/index.php?category=world_boreal_forest

[Native Cutter]

I was just reading the thread on the 034 and a couple things jumped out at me that relate to this thread. One gent mentioned that the 034 was a much better saw than his previous 266 and I thought about that a bit. A bit later its mentioned that a lof of those saw were run using short 16-20" bars and it clicked with me. Lightbulb moment, the 034 is a high revving engine and the 266 is not. Around here the 034 is commonly run with a 24" bar where the 266 use 28" and 32" depending on the cutter and job. The 034 is slowed considerably by those bars but the 034 Super and 036 does fine with them.

What stands out to me is what this shows in terms of regional saw preferences.

it seems that in many areas the norm is to judge a saws abilities with a bar that allows the saw to operate at the top end of its rpm range, the cc to dbh ratio is high and the bar length to cc ratio is low as a result.

In this region, my lil chunk of the PNW a saws ability too operate in the low to medium of is torque band is more valued, eg whats the longest bar that the saw cuts strong with, and thats the way theyre set up. The cc to dbh ratio is low and the bar " to cc ratio is high.

That and the notion of saw balance, there is a definite difference there as well, saws here being preferred with a lil nose weight but not nose dive heavy and in other areas a more powerhead heavy-nuetral kind of feel is sought.

A rough average around here seems that 10-11ish lb saws run a 24", 12ish lb saws average a 24&28", 13/14 lbs get a lot of 32s and ur 15/16lb saws see a lot of 36"s with some 32 and 42 thrown in depending on the wood and the mood lol

The types and sizes of wood do of course change things, as well as the bucking -no bucking, steep vs flat ground etc etc but at the same time how many people in the northeast would pick up a 266 or 372 with 32" and say it balances just right, or agree with me that my lil ms390 needs a 28" cause the 25" makes it powrhead heavy, bulky and awkward and its hard on the forearms when being used in the brush all day? 

I think its pretty neat how it worked out that way.

[HolmenTree]

That's a well written interesting thread Native Cutter.
In my regional saw differences zone I like to use a highest h.p. powerhead possible that is ergonomically and made light enough with the shortest bar possible for what d.b.h. I cut.

For my best production a 16" b/c on a 372XP Husqavarna offers me the best throttle response , felling,  limbing and bucking ergonomics. Plus the benifit of ease keeping the bar nose out of the dirt.
Here's my 372XP-16" doing powerline R.O.W. work and my 562XP doing residential  removals, as you notice I'm  avoiding damaging the trees and other property the homeowner  wants to keep.


  

  

 

[Native Cutter]

Thank ya sir
Those are some nice pictures!  And yep, you definitely layed em right smooth. I liked workin on powerline r.o.ws, the lines I worked on were the big transmission lines, 3 to 6 a span, 60,000 volts per line they said. They taught us how to ground ourselves in the event of a tree hittin a line and it hitting the ground. Was crazy hearin the stories about what happens if it does.   

I would think ur 372 would be unstoppable with that bar!  If I were to get a brushing contract today and wanted to get a new saw I think Id go with a 562 with a normal half wrap handle, 28"bar, 3/8ths 72 gauge full comp chain, after running it some i may or may not go to an 8 tooth sprocket.    Itd make a sweet firewood and light fallin saw too with the 7 tooth and maybe a full wrap.  I just realized, that model might have autotune, Idk. If so brushing would surely kill it. Non stop, tank after tank all day in hot weather would make me wanna throw it over the hill lol!   
I learned long ago to throw em UP the hill instead, and to make sure they land on a nice soft pile of lopped brush so nothin gets hurt. But in the early days, before my dads cutters could afford new saws, I saw some chainsaws fly! Crank, crank crank.......5 minutes of crankin and fiddlin later, You Son of a gun..and threw the air itd go!       hahahaha 

[ZeroJunk]

Bulk transmission lines around here are 550,000 volts. And in some areas they go higher than that. Of course, I don't think there is any way they would let a tree get anywhere close to falling on one, but if it did you would have a very bad day.

[Native Cutter]

Holy crap! Yeah im fairly certain all the trees capable of reaching those were cut long before the lines were hot. With the lines I worked around the fatality percentage was 85 if u were within a hundred feet of where it touched the ground, maybe it was 200. Anyways an 85 percent chance at death, i met a guy who lived thru it once. Its no joke.
With ur area certain death would be the case for anyone within .......i dunno, quarter mile?? Yep, they can have it lol

[Dixon700]

I personally use my ms460 magnum for everything. It has a stihl 25" bar(24"). I use it for everything from saplings to the monsters. Most trees are in the 10"-20", but there are some pines around 3' I'm gonna have to cut soon. With that bar it cuts like a light sabre through butter. It'll cut faster than I can keep up if there's a big stack of logs for firewood. I like the size bar because it's big enough to cut some of the firewood logs 2 at a time, but is still pretty balanced. My grandpa's  ms310 with a 20" bar seems to be a good cutting combination also. I also have a tin 010av with a 14" bar.

[Native Cutter]

Dixon700, thats a nice versatile combo. I could live with that if need be, personally I like a lil more weight out front and reach for that size/weight but thats just me.  And yeah i bet that saw does flat out stack up the firewood.

Do you run full comp or skip tooth on er?

[JohnG28]

I keep a 24" bar on my ms460 for when I need that size bar, trees over 20" mainly as I like to work from one side of the tree. Most the time it's my 361 with a 20" bar, saw does very well with that setup in the hardwood I cut for firewood up to 18-20". The 200t has a 14" bar for climbing or small stuff on the ground, 16" on 142 Husky for light firewood or limbing. Husky 350 has an 18" bar but I also have done some work to it, it cruises through wood 16-18" diameter. All my saws are just for firewood and some tree jobs on the side. 

[Native Cutter]

JohnG28, thats a nice lil group of saws ya got there. What species of hardwood ya cuttin for ur firewood?
N I got a lil Husky 350, neat lil saw. Pretty light and handy. Think mine has a 20" on it but I may be wrong. I loaned it to my nephew and it blew up he said, lol so I gotta get it over here and tear into it.  But Ive used it a lot to cut firewood as well as just projects on the ranch n such. So whatd you do to soup it up?

[JohnG28]

Thank you, sir.  We have a place up in the Adirondacks with some acres.  Most of what we cut is Ash, Birch, Cherry/Black Cherry with some Oak and Maple mixed in.  Usually depends on what needs to go or took a hit from a storm.  Not all that big either, 24-30" dbh is about the biggest we see with 18-20" being more normal.  Have a big dead Cherry to tackle this fall that I'm looking forward to.  ;D  Except for the Husky 142, which was my first saw years ago, and my 361, all the others were bought used.  Little fix or some parts here, don't all look pretty but they all run well and now have a saw for anything I'll ever get into.  The 350 I got cheap from a guy who I bought my Jonsereds 90 from.  Asked me if I was interested in it and was in real nice shape, so I grabbed it on the cheap as a package.  I figured it would make a good 1st timer project as it has removable transfer covers and I didn't have much into it to start.  I swapped the dished oem piston for a flat top Meteor piston from a 353.  I widened the intake and exhaust ports slightly and opened up and smoothed the transfers. Removed base gasket and used permatex for compression bump, muffler mod and removed limiters from the carb.  I think that's it.  :D  Was a fun and pretty easy project.  Saw is a little screamer now.  If you go in my photo gallery there are a bunch of pictures of the project.  The piston change alone makes the saw a 353 as they share the same cylinder, other than the plastic case on the 350.  I have a spare Meteor 353 piston with wrist pin and clips I believe, don't think I have the ring though.  If you need one when you rebuild your 350 pm me, I have no use for it.    8)

[grassfed]

I run a 16 inch bar on an old xp 262, and 20 inch bars on an xp 372 and xp 575. I probably could just run 18 inch on everything. I use the 16 as much as possible because it is so quick to sharpen. I can handle any tree around here with a 20 but I rarely cut anything more than 3 feet and once and a while cut a 4 footer. Most of the trees are between 12"- 26" at the stump. I always buy .058 3/8 oregon LGX chains and sharpen with a 7/32" file.