Chainsaw use - alone
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Peter 315
Super Member
16'' .........
Skeans1
Platinum Member
Ouch that makes my back hurt just thinking about it with all that bending over.
Skeans1
Platinum Member
Know a few guys that have for production cutting they either love them or hate them I haven’t had time to try one yet. I’ve always ran 32’s as the shortest bar for production work.
ericm979
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I cut stuff ranging from brush to 5' diameter so I have saws and bars to match.
Two small saws have 16" bars. A midsize saw usually has an 18" but I sometimes use a 24" The big saw runs a 24" or a 32".
BrokenTrack
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I have the dealership pull the 20 inch bars off my saws that they come with, and put 18 inchers on.
I seldom cut trees so big that I have to get on the other side of the tree to buck them up, and if I do have to, I still can cut clear through a 36 inch tree. That is a pretty big tree!
But the biggest reason is fatigue. I am so much less tired operating an 18 inch bar than I am a 20 inch. That two inches makes a world of difference. It amounts to lifting your saw almost 600 feet more per day on a good logging day.
It take about 7 trees to make a cord of wood, which is a twitch of wood behind my skidder.
I cut about 10 cords of wood per day (on a good day)
That equates to 70 trees per day
Assuming there are about 50 whorls per tree
And I have to heft my saw from the bottom of the tree to the top while limbing, that extra 2 inches of bar length equates to 7000 inches
With 12 inches to a foot, that is 583 feet
It is the equivalent of lift your saw one foot, 583 extra times in a day, just from having a 20 inch bar instead of an 18 inch bar.
And that is just limbing! The extra two inches of bar lengths equates to a lot of extra work!
I seldom cut trees so big that I have to get on the other side of the tree to buck them up, and if I do have to, I still can cut clear through a 36 inch tree. That is a pretty big tree!
But the biggest reason is fatigue. I am so much less tired operating an 18 inch bar than I am a 20 inch. That two inches makes a world of difference. It amounts to lifting your saw almost 600 feet more per day on a good logging day.
It take about 7 trees to make a cord of wood, which is a twitch of wood behind my skidder.
I cut about 10 cords of wood per day (on a good day)
That equates to 70 trees per day
Assuming there are about 50 whorls per tree
And I have to heft my saw from the bottom of the tree to the top while limbing, that extra 2 inches of bar length equates to 7000 inches
With 12 inches to a foot, that is 583 feet
It is the equivalent of lift your saw one foot, 583 extra times in a day, just from having a 20 inch bar instead of an 18 inch bar.
And that is just limbing! The extra two inches of bar lengths equates to a lot of extra work!
LD48750
Veteran Member
But the NOT bending over to do it is worth it.
shooterdon
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I have a 16 and 20
Skeans1
Platinum Member
We limb with 32’s all day without issues on a good day it’s not uncommon to fall, limb and buck around 30,000 bdft of timber. A short bar is slower to limb with, buck with, and fall with I have done plenty of stuff that’s double a 32 over the years wishing I had a longer bar to speed up the process.
BrokenTrack
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I have heard that all my life, but that does not match up with my experience. To me it seems it throws off the balance of the saw, and that makes it worse for my back...and what logger alive does not have a bad back?
There are other reasons beyond bad backs however to stick with a shorter bar, like cost, and the amount of filing a person has to do. The latter point is really compounded because with a bar sticking so far out, I found myself hitting things I normally would not. That means filing it more.
If this means anything...on the Stihl Website that is in place to help people chose the right saw for their needs, their first statement is "people buy a much longer bar than what they need." That is pretty profound because Stihl knows saws, and they benefit from selling bigger saws to drive longer bars, but they make it a point to discourage it.
But logging is like any other trade out there; when people do something a lot, they do it certain ways and justify their ways. Who am I to say what works and what does not?
A longer bar's supposed benefits just does not match up with my own logging experience.
