Need advice on a larger chainsaw for an older guy.

MossRoad · Dec 30, 2021

I used to split a lot of wood with wedges and maul as a character builder, according to my father. Now that I heat our home with wood, I have a splitter. There's no way I could keep up with the splitter with wedges and a maul for more than a few minutes, let alone an afternoon.

kenmbz · Dec 30, 2021

Same here, an 8 pound maul did me fine, even with my arm having a titanium rod in it from a mountain biking accident.
Now with the gas splitter, I can do the 20-30" rounds real easy.
Maul is only used in the woods if I don't feel like noodling the rounds to move them.

MossRoad · Dec 30, 2021

kenmbz said:
Same here, an 8 pound maul did me fine, even with my arm having a titanium rod in it from a mountain biking accident.
Now with the gas splitter, I can do the 20-30" rounds real easy.
Maul is only used in the woods if I don't feel like noodling the rounds to move them.

I've resolved to only cutting telephone pole-sized trees on our place. I can't handle the rounds very efficiently. Too much work. We have thousands of black locust trees (the ones without the huge thorns) that size and they work great.

However, I did take a large Oak this year from a friend as a favor (it fell on his neighbor's house, yikes!). The 16" rounds are probably close to 600# each, as my machine can lift 800# at the quick attach, and it was tipping the machine on it's nose. Had to rip the rounds in half in order to pick them up.

ericm979 · Dec 30, 2021

If you are deadlifting 300 lb chunks of wood onto the splitter I salute you. I quarter the big rounds.

If I can carry the log to my processing area with the tractor I lift each split five times before it goes into the stove. For my usual 2.5 cords of hardwood per winter that's something over 30 tons lifted.

Jstpssng · Dec 30, 2021

I enjoy using a maul. Swinging an axe for too many years took a toll on my arms though. Now I use my splitter to get pieces more manageable to stack, then split to size as I bring the wood from shed to woodbox.

N80 · Jan 5, 2022

Update on full chisel chain. There is certainly a difference but it isn't much. Which means that a brand new full chisel performed only a little bit better than my old semi-chisel chains which were sharpened by me.

I also did not notice appreciably worse kickback tendencies either. Seems like a wash to me. Although, someone mentioned in this thread that the sharpening on new chains isn't always perfect so I'll give the new full chisel chain a diligent sharpening and see if that makes any difference.

ericm979 · Jan 6, 2022

Semi vs full chisel has only seemed a small difference to me as well. But when cutting larger wood it adds up.

Skeans1 · Jan 6, 2022

N80 said:
Update on full chisel chain. There is certainly a difference but it isn't much. Which means that a brand new full chisel performed only a little bit better than my old semi-chisel chains which were sharpened by me. I also did not notice appreciably worse kickback tendencies either. Seems like a wash to me. Although, someone mentioned in this thread that the sharpening on new chains isn't always perfect so I'll give the new full chisel chain a diligent sharpening and see if that makes any difference.

ericm979 said:
Semi vs full chisel has only seemed a small difference to me as well. But when cutting larger wood it adds up.

There’s also two kind of chisel, round is slow, vibrates more, and is more for dirty uses. Then there’s square chisel when I said I sharpen a new chain it’s to make the chain cut like they should with my expectations of how I need that chain to act in the wood I’m falling. Semi chisel is a much slower cutting chain it’s not as efficient of a cutter design it works really well in a harvester application because it can take more abuse since it doesn’t have a single working corner.

m7040 · Jan 7, 2022

I use a Stihl MS 362 with 20 inch bar and Pole saw HT 131. I am 80 years old and I use them regularly on our tree farm. I try to not extend the pole saw too much but other than that I don't have any problems operating them