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Dear Chainsaw Gods, I’ve been lurking for a bit so now taking the plunge with my first post, hi everyone. 🙂 I foolishly acquired a kinda-sorta running 038 AVS Farm Boss Stihl, immediately gave it to an authorised Stihl repair place to take a look at, and have been returned the saw in parts in a cardboard box since in their minds it is not worth saving (I assume due to lack of OEM parts and labour cost). Their diagnosis is scored cylinder and a leaking crank case. Not great. I don’t want to throw good money after bad, but equally I’d hate to bin or flog such a reputable old saw model just because I have no clue on mechanics, so im asking the hive mind what the best approach is. Or would anyone with experience want to take this on for me? I had originally planned to convert it to a ripping saw for occasional hobbyist milling (at a tiny scale, mind) but clearly this saw is not yet ready for that challenge! Maybe a rebuild as a Magnum rather than the original Super would make the most sense? Or just bin it? many thanks for your thoughts, much appreciated! Alexander

Hi Guys, Just wondered if anyone could add their thoughts to this: I moved to the West Coast of Scotland 5 years ago and so logs are in plentiful supply. Much of the fast grown Sitka goes for pulping to make paper, but there's loads of Larch available too, ostensibly for firewood. I had 25 tonnes delivered a year ago and it was dry when I got it, so thought it too good to just burn. Looked into getting it milled locally, but this wasn't possible at reasonable cost so I decided to get into milling myself. Read a ton of stuff online and in other places and decided that I'd start small and make my mistakes on a small scale before working up to a "big rig". Having used chainsaws since I was a teenager, I felt confident in the use of them, but always thought they were underpowered for the job they had to do. Even more so with electric ones, which seemed to me to be glorified toys. So when I saw a 2400W electric one I thought that, with an equivalent power to a small to medium sized petrol saw, it should be a good choice for small scale milling of logs up to say, 9", with a small log mill attachment. The results? Brilliant! Very smooth cuts with Oregon chains and 16" bar, and made some lovely bench planks for my garden benches, with no planing required. So far, so good. I screwed it all up when I "buried" the blade in a 15" log. This was just too much and although the motor had ample power, the gearbox gave out. So the question is, has anyone out there managed to make an electrically powered chainsaw mill, can you use a direct drive off the motor shaft, what sort of rpm are you likely to need at the sprocket, etc? I went the whole hog and got a Stihl Magnum MS880, with a standard 30" bar, coupled to a PantherPro mill made by Kim in Florida, which has proved to be an awesomely powerful bit of kit. I ripped a seawater-logged very wet 18" diameter driftwood Sitka log 5m long, through the centre line, end to end in just 3 minutes with it the other day and the result was 10m of bench good enough to sit on with just the edges chamfered off. Well pleased! The chain was a standard full complement Oregon 10 degree ripper. Fuel used was less than a quarter of a tank, surprisingly. All 122cc of the engine seemed to make light work of it. So the question is, has anyone used a large saw like this with say, a 59" or 72" bar with a similar milling kit? The construction of the mill is so simple that I reckon I could simply buy some longer 1" square SHS steel and replace the 30" set with it, and presto! I have a bigger milling capacity. What think ye all? Any musings gratefully received! Thanks all... Ivan