CJM

As the title says, I was clearing out my old computer and came across these pictures that were taken by me in early 2008. At the time I worked for olivers tree services we were sent to cragside to fell 4 Douglas fir's. I remember David oliver asking me 'your not scared of big trees are you' haha. Any turned up to these 170-180 ft Douglas fir's. Easy trees to dismantle, nothing to break just slowly work your way up to the last 20-30ft and knock the top off and chog big bits off until the ranger stop 'that's the height he wanted to fell them' Fun job and if I'm honest I'll never climb a tree that high again let alone dismantle it Thought these picture might be some interest to you guys and gals. If I find more I'll put them up

Thanks Gary here's the link for those that haven't seen it http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rf-unuPGifM&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Drf-unuPGifM

I seen a program about these knock off saws once I remember what it was called I'll put it up anyway Interpol traced them back to the Italian mafia who we're buying them in very large quantities and selling them on to other smaller crime organisations who sold them on to the public. This program had a sthil expert on and tested these fake saws to the equivalent sthil ( 036 I think) to test the integrity of the chain brake they hit the ms360 chain brake handle with a mell hammer in a controlled machine operated way with the same force as kick back would produce and it knocked the chain brake on done the same test with the fake ms360 and it completely smashed the chain brake handle off, these saws have cheap inferior parts that are not up any kind of standard. The sad thing is we as in professionals will avoid these saws like the plague but the general public with have no idea, most of the general public will have no training and will have very little experience with a saw which is only going to increase the likely hood of an accident or even a death with these saftey features i.e weak chain brake handle, that aren't really safety features

Use the mewp to get yourself to the top of the tree then

Break it down £50 call out 1.5 hours @ £35 (or whatever your hourly rate is) per hour per man Out of hours charge £150 = £252.50 I think that's fair and reasonable, if it got me out of bed and would disrupt work the next day (lack of sleep) I'd make sure I'd up the out of hours charge to something that would cover me the next day

That sounds like a task out of die hard If they get it wrong does a bomb go off?

I've often wondered why fuel to oil ratios were different on different makes of 2 stroke engines, great advice and I've actually learned something for once haha

The Sthil 261 is a good saw if you want to spend an extra £100 or so the husky 550xp is better (power wize for engine size) but swings and roundabouts, if you've got a sthil set up no real need for the extra power because you can break out the 362, get your hands on them and find out, both really good saws in my opinion

I like to keep it simple Ms201t 14in Husky 560xp 18 in I'm a freelance climber so that'll do me just fine

Yes it me

Too snazzy It Chris, finally got round to reading this thread you guys were on about

So to sum this thread up either buy a husky or a sthil top handle both have positives and negatives so pick the one that looks the best and has the best price and you'll be fine

Ok so I'm guessing your mate was using this top handle with one hand on the deck because I can't see how he could of cut his hand if he wasn't using the saw correctly. I hope your mate recovers I wouldn't wish a chainsaw injury on anyone, but using any saw incorrectly is going to increase the risk of injury top hand or not

Ok this my first post I feel I need to comment on this. First of all the OP asked which is the best top handle saw (he didn't ask about tickets etc) so I'll suggest the sthil ms 200 if buying new the sthil ms 201 only because of parts and maintenance. I've got one of the first 201s (2011) it was poor but I've modded it (tons better) and comparing it to the current 201 it's about the same. Sthil I believe are improving the 201 all the time, the 540 husky is a good saw but it's not as good as people make it out to be, it's around the same as the 2012/13 sthil 201's Second of all his dad is buying this saw so I'm presuming he's only going to have one saw for a period of time, I'd recommend a top handle saw it can be used up a tree and to cut wood/trees on the floor, yes it's not allowed in the eyes of health and safety, but so what I know I'd rather ring up 8 inch diameter logs with a 201 than an 088 (which is allowed) Thirdly is only use a groundsaw up a tree when ringing the stem down, it's cumbersome for pruning and if anything slightly dangerous compared to a top handle saw All in all I think a bit common sense is needed specially for a guy that's got limited funds and is after his first saw I wasn't husky bashing I chose a 560 xp over a 441 for a decent groundsaw Also I've being doing this for around 8 years so I'm not a complete noob when it comes to this, I don't mean to be offensive but I felt the need to get this topic back on track and enforce some common sense