Anti kickback chains, legal requirment?

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

Ahh well they cant be called anti kick back then.

 

Not everyone who gets kick back is a numb nuts:sneaky2:

 

sorry mestrh that is NOT what I meant but these chains suck and i want my old ones back, and I am being told NO, and want the official word before I will swallow this, cos it sounds OTT:thumbdown:

[Treeson]

Use your saw properly and with a correctly sharpened chain how are you going to get kick-back?

 

Supplying saws to joe public are they going to be expected to have passed a cert in use of a chainsaw and correct sharpening techniques?

 

Slightly ticked off!!!

[Highland Forestry]

I believe it is a 'recommendation' and not actual legislation...

 

If it was no longer legal to use them, they would be withdraw from sale, which they are not.

 

Sounds like your bosses are over-reacting to recommendations.

 

The new stihl anti-kick chains re not too bad, but you're right, the normal chains are miles better.

[Dionysus]

are you all talking about the depth gauge and drive link guard system? we use the oregon version and ive never used anything else, but i can really notice the difference in vibes when you take the gepth gauges down completely as opposed to just setting them to the cutters.

[MattyF]

I think the most important thing is if it prevents less awakenings!its a good thing as they do stop kick back to a degree ,in some ways i think this is bad as it makes you very complacent and use sloppy or dangerous saw handling...for some reason we had them on the climbing saws for a few months ,made up a normal no kick back chains last week and had it Kick back coming out of the first cut i made with it !,but it was so much faster in the cut!....made me think about the benifits though and confused my set mind that was ready to go for a new reel of standard chain.

[tommer9]

still at least they still allow climbing trees............ i guess!

 

They are trying to get us all into MEWPs now Tony:thumbdown:. I was at a seminar a few months back, and an AA man gave a talk about AAAC, and the first thing he did was put up a slide with a pic of a cherry picker. He explained that before he started he wanted to explain that although not having a MEWP wouldnt exclude you from AAAC accreditability, they DO like to see 'all the latest equipment being used'.......Needless to say it didnt go down brilliantly with the climbers in the group...

[john dawson]

as far as i know, (which aint alot!) you can use any chain u want,

 

anti kick back chains arnt "compulsory", they may be "reccommended" or "advised" by clients, or even management, but if used proper, there isnt a lot of difference between them,

[Mesterh]

sorry mestrh that is NOT what I meant but these chains suck and i want my old ones back, and I am being told NO, and want the official word before I will swallow this, cos it sounds OTT:thumbdown:

 

Lol yeah no worries I know you didnt mean that just came a cross that way.

 

I've been using the oregon chain for the 020's since the stihl stuff was fairly poor, not sure if its improved or not lately.

 

While it may not be 'illegal' if it is recommended by the HSE etc then although not compulsory I would think that if someone has an accident due to kick back and wasnt using an anti kick back chain then they probably arent conforming to best practice a which may have consequences.

 

I only assume this as it could be seen as the same as wearing type C pants when climbing and all the other 'recommended good practice' guidelines etc.

 

Theres a huge difference between a legal requirement and a recommended guideline.

 

 

I think there are only a few legal requirements with chainsaws being the safety stickers and on/off switch mainly.(dont quote me on that though )

[AardvarkTreeServices]

I dont think they are a legal requirement, but like everything safety related you should do a risk assessment to support NOT using them.

 

The risk assessment would have to record that the slower cutting speed would lead to longer cut times giving increased exposure to HAVS and general fatigue. As others have said, if the saw is maintained and operated correctly theres no need for low kick back chains. I think they are recomended for training so they are a bit more forgiving if mistakes are made.

[treemeup]

we were being supplied with these, they are rubbish...the shop we used said they were compulsory but since then we have been getting decent chains in from another place.

If they are all you can get it takes 5-10 minutes work with a flat file to get them looking like a good chain but they still don't do the job quite as well