water cooling a chainsaw bar

[offgridchris]

my recent problems with milling lawson cypress on a logosol has thrown up the suggestion of using water to cool the chainsaw bar and that it will improve cutting speed. it was simply a water bottle and a drip feed onto the chain at the tip. common practice in sweden with soft wood.

 

i need to run a few more tests but i cant see why i can mill a 3 foot hard wood slab and find it the same speed as a 1 foot soft wood log?? is Lawson a pain to mill? maybe it has something to do with what Rob has suggested about chain size and keeping the chain sharper with a larger pitch?

[Logan]

interesting idea. would this cut down the dust and help keep it out of the filter too?!

 

the small spray nozzle fitted to cut-off saws (for cutting concrete etc), if you had a hose connection would this spray angled at the chain do any good?

 

anything to speed the cut and keep things cool. will have a go myself...

[agrimog]

cut a fair amount of spalted beech and spalted elm today,tried water cooling for the first time in a serious way, didnt notice to much of a difference in the beech, only 16"dia logs. but what a difference in the elm, 22" dia, it was almost like cutting someting half the size, and the finish, 1 pass through the planer, done, only a 1/32" cut, going to try it on larch and sitka tomorrow trees have been down about 2 months now so should be interesting as i normally mill the same week as felling.

[difflock]

I suspect it would be the "furryness" of the grain fibre in the Lawson causing drag, wheras most hardwood cuts clean?

From my own un-educated observations of the finish left on chain saw cut wood of different specis.

As always

Signed

Gibber, mutter & twitch

[jhonnyjigsaw]

69 botanical names freddy finger splint fist

[offgridchris]

i managed a quick test run yesterday. fitting an alaskan auxillary oiler to a new .404 bar for the 880. didnt realy notice to much difference apart from the bar is cooler after a cut. only used some offcuts so i will try with some more lawson next week. it would figure that different wood changes the effect. the real test is to try is on some old lawson and ash.