New Chainsaw issues

[NeoHomesteader]

For my 20th Anniversary my wife bought me a "real" chainsaw. Stihl MS311.

My previous experience has been with $100 dollar saws. Poulan, Homelite, Mcollough, Craftsman and a couple of lower end Husqs. 2stroke and Electric. Never been trained. Just did. Learned by breaking and replacing. Got a bar stuck in a tree? Run to store by another bar and chain, and a wedge. Saw cutting on an angle. Fix sharpening technique etc etc...Felled trees with them (30" pine), cut wood with them, have had issues with our stove, since the repair to the chimney.. so last year, not much got burned...


Now problems other than simple, you hit a certain point and with a nontunable carb, the repair cost starts to equal the purchase cost.. and for $25 more bucks, I get another saw. And keep all the stuff on my current saw.

Wife and son went and picked up my new saw, got a demo on starting it. (Apparently there is "thing" starting Stihls). not sure what, other than needing to pull the throttle to set full choke which took all of three seconds to figure out. Sorry, spent all night watching how to guides on you tube, only to end up watching loggers for two hours doing stuff I would NEVER do.

When I got it, the bar oil was damn near clear. Like.. Vegetable oil is darker After three minutes of cutting the chain started smoking. Made sure oiler was working. (it was) made sure tension was easy enough to spin chain by hand (it was). but whne I gassed it, the smoke came off the chain. I assumed because of hte wierd clear liquid, in it it was some low smoke point oil. (Recently got into cooking and learned abou tthat)



Cutting some pine that I had dropped on my property.

I watched these guys, go up a tree and just sideways cut straight through one handed with small saws than mine. No pushing, or teetering. Straight through. I dont know enough about chain sharpening to say that was it.

But that was it.

First I read. Stihl chains are not sharpened out of hte box. Then I find out that NO ONE carries the file size they need. And despite it being the size for 20 years. That this saw actually got this size recently, and instead of 13/64 one should use 7/32 for the first half of the cutter life. switchign the 1/64" smaller size when half of the cutter is gone.

WTF?

im so pissed. I have cut wet pine with $100 saws, for 2-3 seasons without any real maintenance other than cleaning and sharpening the blade. Maybe replacing a fuel line and primer bulb. Never even HAD to clean a carb filter other than just doing it. garrr

What am I missing

 

[pibb]

Stihl chains are not sharpened out of hte box.

Are you serious? I didn't know that. I have a Husqvarna chainsaw and new chains are always sharpened. I don't understand that.

Sorry to hear about your experience with Stihl. I think they are just an overpriced name myself. Maybe the real lumberjacks are laughing at me right now but that is only my opinion.

Take that thing back and get a Husqvarna Rancher 20" bar. I like mine.

 

[reddogmaster2]

I've been running a Stihl Chainsaw for over 10 years and other Stihl lawn and garden equipment for 20+ and my experience is that Stihl is the best.

I'd suggest you take the chain and bar off and check everything for proper fitting. Stihl chains that I have bought are always sharp but you can look closely to determine that. Also check your fuel mix to make sure you've got it right. Pre Mixed fuel might be the way to go.

Good luck

 

[NeoHomesteader]

Thanks. I read it somewhere, probably a youtube comment.

I did sharpen the chain, I removed the bar and checked for grit in the groove of the bar. I did not check to see if the bar was true because it never occurred to me until I just read it last night.

Sharpening, easing off the chain tension and lifting the bar and using bar oil that looks like oil, I did some bucking and limb trimming with it and seems to be pretty good now. Wont be for a while till I get a chance to run it through a trunk again to see if it stays cool.

Thanks for the suggestions.

 

[HomesteaderWife]

My husband has a big 3ft Echo he's been using for years and it's cut down fresh Pine for two houses and a corn crib for going on 5 years. I hate to hear you've had this issue with your Stihl. We picked up a used one online years ago before this one, and it ran like a charm until muffler kept popping off and wouldn't stay on. It was too small for cutting the big trees, but they're good for firewood and I think he used it for portable chainsaw mill even.

Have you tried to find an owners forum for Stihl products?

 

[NeoHomesteader]

Thanks.

No I haven't yet. I will try doing that when I can.

This year I won't be doing much firewood. So it has not been on the forefront and it came with a 2 year warranty. We lost our chimney last winter, and the replacement was built by the lowest bidder thanks to our insurance. Gonna box it out and see if it improves the draft.

I have just used the saw for clean up work so far, once I get a chance to spend some time with it I will look into what I need to learn/relearn.

I had not thought of making a lumber mill. Gotta be cheaper than a band blade i'm sure.. I will have to research that too thanks!

 

[HomesteaderWife]

@NeoHomesteader - I will give some experience on the chainsaw mill vs bandsaw. We've used both and by far really love our bandsaw mill and it paid for itself in the first two years.

Chainsaw mill is good and portable especially if you're out remotely needing to mill like some trapper-cabin makers use. Makes for some pretty wood but it takes its toll on chainsaws and blades.

We invested (bless my husband's heart he sold his Chevelle for it, but old body shop had ruined that car and left it in pieces)in a bandsaw mill (Norwood LM29) years back and the company has been friendly and easy to work with. It was much more expensive to have it ordered completely assembled so we literally piece by piece put the thing together after it was delivered in the back of an 18 wheeler. This was a good thing though as it helped us become familiar with it. The first year I think we cut a lumber order for a massive corn crib, built our first cabin with it, won the Norwood photo contest for credit towards orders (we used towards blades), sold outside cuts to quite a few people, turned scraps into crafts we sold, cut some other wood to sell, and built an outdoor gazebo with it. By year two the value of the lumber cut had paid for itself. It's still running 5 years later and we're cutting for second cabin with it.

 

[NeoHomesteader]

Update:

All my research saying... this does not make sense. Dropped my chainsaw off at the dealer, who said "this does not make sense"

I found two of the chain "skates" the small pieces of teflon coated "plastic" had melted and not sure if that is a cause or a symptom. Pointed it out to the dealer.

Took my freshly sharpened saw over to my BILs house to cut some bigger pieces for him. Didn't make it through one piece of wood. (30" diameter stuff) and this was partially cut already with his little husq.

Will see what the dealer says next week or so. Told me its normally 2 weeks but since its new they will expedite it. fx

 

[NeoHomesteader]

@NeoHomesteader - I will give some experience on the chainsaw mill vs bandsaw. We've used both and by far really love our bandsaw mill and it paid for itself in the first two years.

Chainsaw mill is good and portable especially if you're out remotely needing to mill like some trapper-cabin makers use. Makes for some pretty wood but it takes its toll on chainsaws and blades.

We invested (bless my husband's heart he sold his Chevelle for it, but old body shop had ruined that car and left it in pieces)in a bandsaw mill (Norwood LM29) years back and the company has been friendly and easy to work with. It was much more expensive to have it ordered completely assembled so we literally piece by piece put the thing together after it was delivered in the back of an 18 wheeler. This was a good thing though as it helped us become familiar with it. The first year I think we cut a lumber order for a massive corn crib, built our first cabin with it, won the Norwood photo contest for credit towards orders (we used towards blades), sold outside cuts to quite a few people, turned scraps into crafts we sold, cut some other wood to sell, and built an outdoor gazebo with it. By year two the value of the lumber cut had paid for itself. It's still running 5 years later and we're cutting for second cabin with it.

Super useful, thanks. I will look into it. I have had a lot of luck with cheap saws, so I might not want to push my luck on a bandsaw. JOOC, do you run a metal detector over your lumber before you run it through the bandsaw? I know a couple trees on my property had metal sticking out of them. Easy to spot then, but it would be hella find it going through the mill. :S

 

[sailtexas186548]

I run stihl saws, an MS391 and an older 440, they are bad ass. I also run a small echo and an old electric poulan, which do just fine. It’s all about a straight bar, and sharp chain. Stihl chains come sharpened in my experience

when you buy Stihl chains and bars, there are many types. IMO the yellow marked ES Bars and yellow marked chain is the best, it’s also the “most prone to kickback” aka dangerous, but they will out cut the green marked chain/bar and outlast the E series bars.

If you want to really get cutting fast you can go to a +1 tooth sprocket to get your chain speed up 15%ish, and then even further go to a skip tooth chain if you are really doing some serious bucking