Muddy42

On the theme of not 'buying twice', Id seriously consider a 120cc saw for any milling. Milling is such hard work on a saw and bigger saws are better suited. Yes you can get away with a 90cc saw, but 120 cc is so much easier. Remember for milling you don't necessarily need all the comfort or safety features like AV or chain brake. Use this to get a good price on an older saw.

Bow saw? They get a bad rep, but its often because people use a blunt blade or the wrong type of blade (there are special blades for green wood).

ive had this for a while and its really grown on me. Its great for bonfiring. Much quicker that a silky! just make sure your battery is compatible, i think there are a few types.

Or one of these in whatever brand you already have the batteries for. This makita one is excellent. I used it for a while to get used to it then I have now removed the guard so I can do undercuts and help chip clearance. Keep the other hand and body well away and use with caution, Im sure it could cause some serious flesh damage.

Is it diesel and do you do lots of short journeys? I've had the dreaded DPF fail plus all the associated sensors. Expensive.

Best practice is that people stay >5m from anyone using a chainsaw. I'm not aware of any requirement to have a physical barrier, nor should you need one if you are always 5m away. Furthermore the 5m is constantly changing as the chainsaw person moves and I see this as extending in three dimensions (like a bubble) so a physical barrier is completely unrealistic. I suggest you stop this line on enquiry fast - SSOW was fine, people just didn't follow it.

...and on the attachment point, I have never found blades as robust as a heavy duty string setup. Eventually you hit something and they are easily knocked out of alignment and you have to replace parts. I've been using 3mm Diamond edge string and a Oregon Jet fit head for three years now and its amazing. It will munch through anything. Granted I appreciate a blade can be useful to increase what a small powered machine can achieve, occasional use only.

I've always found 4-strokes to be heavy for a given power output? Ive used both of Honda's GX25 and 35cc models but not this beast. I do have a 555rxt. - Husqvarna website says their 555rxt delivers 2.8kw. And its max rpm is 9,000 - Honda says their 450XE delivers 1.47 / 7,000 kw / rpm I hope those are comparable, both machines weigh about 9kgs. Personally I find 9kgs is some weight to be carrying around - if I run a few tanks through it I need a lie down!. Id be interested to find out how you get along with the Honda.

I've had both Stihl MS162 (or actually 170) and Husqvarna 120s. I look after my saws so they were kept sharp and air filters cleaned etc. Both worked fine and were light to use, both lasted 4 years or pretty light use. However both eventually lost compression and showed piston scoring. Small saws are hard to overhaul so I sold them as not working on ebay. However for £160 you cant really go wrong - a professional saw would cost 5 or 6 times the cost.

It will be fine. Generally I think people are too precious about what firewood looks like.

I'm not familiar with the brand. When you say check the kill switch, really you need to disconnect the switch completely so you have a simple loop via the coil wire, through the spark plug and grounded by the cylinder body. Is the gap between the coil and the flywheel set correctly - not touching and the width of a business card? Is the flywheel OK - key not sheared off. Is the spark plug definitely inserted into the lead properly? Sometimes the spring cap turns around or becomes disconnected. you can check the circuit (described above) for continuity.

thanks, done. too much hot air !!

The cell structure of wood holds the water. Water is mainly held just under the bark in the sapwood. splitting the wood helps by increasing the surface area but also by breaking through the bark which can hold in the water. The way I think about drying is surface water evaporates first, then water diffuses and travels from the inside of the wood to the outside 'evening itself out' and then evaporates from the surface again, this time more slowly. High surface area and airflow aid this evaporation process. Hot low humidity air can absorb more water. Ultimately with time and patience any wood will be dry enough to burn in 1-2 years. Personally I like a bit of weathering and keeping wood outside before brining it undercover for the final stages. But I have lots of space and a loader to shift IBC crates around.

I just looked at your video again. It looks to be oiling the bar now, that must be enough to deplete the oil tank now? The only other thing I can suggest is to buy a new sprocket, bar and chain combo. Compare the dimensions of the drivers and rails. These items are consumable, so you'll need them new eventually anyway. You appear to be giving that saw a fair amount of use. Also I've had bar nose sprockets just die on me and seize up for no apparent reason.

I can see oil. This is really weird. With such a tiny bar, you dont need loads of oil, that should be fine. How old is the bar? Have you pinched the nose and bearings? Does the nose run freely? Have you tried ‘priming’ it by soaking the nose in oil and filing the bar groove with oil? Use a thin oil but not WD40 which can strip the nose of grease.

What happens if you attach bar with no chain and run, can you see oil in the groove?

If I ever have oiling issues i flush the bar oil tank as above and then squirt WD40 into whatever pipes are accessible. Then i run the saw with a special mix of bar oil - 1/2 diesel and 1/2 non bio chain oil. This has fixed both electric and petrol saws. I dont really know why it works but maybe its because the resulting mix is quite thin and it works as a solvent. if this fails then I disassemble parts further.

Scrub with hot soapy water then dry.

If you a relatively rural, just talk to local farmers or landowners. After the recent winds, most of them will have trees or branches down than need clearing up. Not everyone has vehicles and equipment, but as spring and summer progresses, you can get a 4x4 further afield.

So this is another update to this MS460. As above I was having all kinds of issues with chain oiling. I cleaned everything out and replaced faceplate, oil pump, worm gear and oil tank breather. But I still wasn't that happy with the oiling, even with the setting turned to max. Bar oil had been leaking a bit so I wanted to test the alignment of the bar to the saw. I traced the shape of the bar on a piece of cardboard and put the carboard next to the saw. Right enough the holes didn't quite match. I could tell the nose sprocket was getting worn and occasionally the nose seized up, so I had nothing to lose because I was looking at a new bar anyway. So I have opened up up the oiler holes on the bar with a drill press to 5mm and them cleaned it up with a dremel. This seems to have helped, the bar is spraying oil off the tip again. Fingers crossed - I've had lots of false dawns before!

Yes that explains the manual too - limiter caps!

Awesome! Glad it was an easy fix! I'm not sure of your knowledge level but you should only consider 1.25 out as a starting point. The saw will start at this but make sure you do actually tune from there to get the best performance. Really be careful with the H settings and high revs because this can destroy a saw very quickly. I leave the H at default or use a tachometer and keep the revs comfortably on the safe side of max.

Are you sure you mean low at 1/4 out, normally saw won't run at that? I start with both H and L out by 1.25 / 1.5 turns and a little bit of idle so its engaging the throttle. I then tune the L so its a bit richer than peak revs. Then do H with the tach. All this time the chain should be spinning because idle is screwed in a bit. Then undo the idle screw until the chain stops spinning. The idle should only just be engaging the throttle, if you know what I mean. Are you saying you get to this stage and the saw dies when the chain stops spinning? When you say fully rebuilt, I presume this means new everything - spark plug, air filter, fuel line, impulse line, carb kit? Have you performed a pressure test?

Just wait until its a bit dryer (and the hedgehogs have stopped hibernating) then you can just stick a match in and the piles will burn in situ.

It depends! As you say, stoves in modern airtight homes won't draw without this extra air. Direct Air (DA) (with a tap) gives you more control over the air. BUT modern houses and modern living (breathing, showers, boiling pasta) create a lot of moisture so this needs thinking about. Managing moisture this is often over looked in modern houses with resulting dampness and condensation. Modern houses need trickle vents, extractor fans or MVHR anyway. Older houses are less airtight so do not need DA to work, but it could still be a good idea depending on the stove. One of my modern stoves in my old house needs a window opened in order to avoid smoking into the room - presumably this little f*cker could benefit from some DA. But old houses need air changes and to manage moisture aswell, so why not aide this with a stove? Personally I think old houses just need a lot of heat - its just good for the walls, plaster and structure. I think the design of DA is critical. You don't want to just be introducing cold air to your house via the stove. Id want a tap to be able to adjust/turn off the external air flow. Any primary vents (for lighting from cold) and the rest of the stove need to be very airtight too