Need advice on a larger chainsaw for an older guy.

[N80]

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.

My new chain is the square chisel type. I’ll correct myself though. Today I was cutting the ragged ends off of a couple of large white oak logs so I could put Anchor Seal on them and I felt like the performance was better than I’m used to with my original semi chisel chains. It can be subjective I suppose.

 

[N80]

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

Wow! I hope I can still be doing that sort of thing when I’m 80. Heck, I’d be happy if I could do that sort of thing when I’m 70.

 

[mwemaxxowner]

As far as splitting goes -
I bought one of those 10 Ton Hydraulic Log Splitters from HF, my fireplace of use was in the walkout basement.View attachment 728229

Used it sort of like a Nordic Track to exercise my arms while watching TV.

I have one of those. It works really well. It's not necessarily faster than splitting with a maul, but it sure is easy!

 

[newbury]

I have one of those. It works really well. It's not necessarily faster than splitting with a maul, but it sure is easy!

For me it was a LOT faster. I was splitting inside our "rec room" in the basement. Kept hitting the basement ceiling with the maul

 

[ericm979]

Square ground (or filed) looks like this:

Round filed/ground looks like:

Chisel/semi chisel is the shape of the corner of the tooth where it bends from vertical to horizontal. Chisel has a sharp crease so the filed edge of the tooth is a point. Semi is rounded over. The corner of the tooth is what cuts. Both pics above are chisel.

This one is round ground semi chisel.

Theoretically you could square grind semi chisel chain. Square ground cuts even faster than full chisel round ground but wears faster too. Square ground semi chisel would kind of be a waste but it's possible. This article shows how to square file chain and shows the file that's used: How To File Square Chisel Chain

 

[N80]

Okay, so mine is round ground full chisel. Just an off-the-shelf chain. Nothing special and I haven’t sharpened it yet.

 

[Skeans1]

Okay, so mine is round ground full chisel. Just an off-the-shelf chain. Nothing special and I haven’t sharpened it yet.

Fresh off the grinder with a small gullet and the depth gauges dropped it’s not as aggressive as what I’d run normally it was a guy’s first set of square chains I setup for him.

 

[arrow]

Sqare cut tends to cut faster. They also seem to dull faster.
Sq cut is advantageous in softer wood.
If we were cutting a stand of pine or fir or spruce and such, I'd bring sq cut to the job.
Most of our work in deciduous forests dealt with hard woods here in the North east so most of the time I used semi-chisel or round ground chain

 

[Skeans1]

Sqare cut tends to cut faster. They also seem to dull faster.
Sq cut is advantageous in softer wood.
If we were cutting a stand of pine or fir or spruce and such, I'd bring sq cut to the job.
Most of our work in deciduous forests dealt with hard woods here in the North east so most of the time I used semi-chisel or round ground chain

I’ve sent quite a few chains back to the East coast to cut hardwoods I’ve never had a complaint about life with them. A square that doesn’t have a beak with the good angles will fast and not dull very quickly, the biggest issue is guys getting beak on the corner saying it dull fast. We use square in both hard as well as “soft” woods as I said above it comes down to how it’s setup for the application.

 

[m7040]

Wow! I hope I can still be doing that sort of thing when I’m 80. Heck, I’d be happy if I could do that sort of thing when I’m 70.

George

Working out with weights daily helps me to stay in shape as I get older. Only use a half an hour or so and it makes a big difference and helps not to get strains and injuries