JoeinTX
Platinum Member
I needed a little saw for the town place and have spent some time looking over all of the makes and models and re-mans, etc. Most of my experience is with Husqvarnas and they are good saws. We've got a couple of them for the ranch but I got tired of hauling them around and never having the right one with me when I needed it so I decided I was going to get another one for light duty.
I checked out Craftsman, Poulan, and Homelite. The Sears saws are hard to argue against considering the backing, but, they are essentially Poulans in a different color. The Poulans are easy to get and pretty cheap but, ****, they are ugly. So, I didn't go with either of them.
After reading a variety of very mixed reviews I picked up a Homelite "14 saw at Home Depot. I bought a Homelite weed-eater 6-7 years ago from them and you can't kill the darned thing. It just runs and works and keeps me from replacing it. And, I do work the **** out of it. Thus, when checking out the Homelite saws of late I had that in mind.
Got it out and fired it up......hard cranking at first but then it settled in. Filled everything and went to work. I went about trimming some trees and cutting some limbs for firewood and the saw worked liked heck. Didn't die or stutter or whimper. It has the tool-less tensioning system which is good in theory and worked but is not ideal for the long-term considering the amount of plastic used to create it. It will break, only a matter of time, so I'm already ordering the part anticipating it's failure.
Good little saw and motor, stays on bar, will do the light residential stuff. Don't push it too far, though. If you have any reasonable chainsaw experience you can handle it.
I checked out Craftsman, Poulan, and Homelite. The Sears saws are hard to argue against considering the backing, but, they are essentially Poulans in a different color. The Poulans are easy to get and pretty cheap but, ****, they are ugly. So, I didn't go with either of them.
After reading a variety of very mixed reviews I picked up a Homelite "14 saw at Home Depot. I bought a Homelite weed-eater 6-7 years ago from them and you can't kill the darned thing. It just runs and works and keeps me from replacing it. And, I do work the **** out of it. Thus, when checking out the Homelite saws of late I had that in mind.
Got it out and fired it up......hard cranking at first but then it settled in. Filled everything and went to work. I went about trimming some trees and cutting some limbs for firewood and the saw worked liked heck. Didn't die or stutter or whimper. It has the tool-less tensioning system which is good in theory and worked but is not ideal for the long-term considering the amount of plastic used to create it. It will break, only a matter of time, so I'm already ordering the part anticipating it's failure.
Good little saw and motor, stays on bar, will do the light residential stuff. Don't push it too far, though. If you have any reasonable chainsaw experience you can handle it.
