Chainsaws

[Bill Edwards]

Stevie it hurts the ring piece a bit 'cause they ain't cheap but buy a Stihl or Husquvana and you'll get a proper saw then. The cheap ones are just not in the same game, let alone the same league.

Steve, this is your answer.
I've a husky - got it second hand - and would not trade it for anything. It has let me down on one occasion (in perhaps 10-12 years of ownership) and that was a perished fuel hose, that has literally been it. Fires up and never fails, whether used yesterday or 11 months ago.
I know a tree surgeon who makes his living with them who has one of each.

 

[Keith 66]

I have two, a Stihl which is brilliant. Plus i have a Makita electric one left to by my dad. The Makita is surprisingly powerful having no trouble chopping logs the size of telegraph poles, Girls saw it most certainly isnt.

 

[blenkie1]

I use one of these. Set it to the size you want and fire away

Was told there is a north/south divide with saws. The north/Scotland prefer huskys while the south likes sthils. Someone said some of the husky range you need a laptop to set them up.

 

[TechnicAl]

Do you have electric supply nearby? If it's just for cutting logs in the yard I'd have an electric one every day of the week - quieter, no refilling with petrol, cheap and almost nothing to go wrong with them. (Obviously if you don't have a supply nearby then none of that applies....)

I agree. Ive got a Bosch Electric its brilliant and its very light

Ive also got a petrol and thats good as well but it weighs about 10 times more than the Bosch

 

[tinman123]

Steve, this is your answer.
I've a husky - got it second hand - and would not trade it for anything. It has let me down on one occasion (in perhaps 10-12 years of ownership) and that was a perished fuel hose, that has literally been it. Fires up and never fails, whether used yesterday or 11 months ago.
I know a tree surgeon who makes his living with them who has one of each.

your husky would be a good age would it?, im not meaning to sound like im telling you its ancient or anything, what im wondering is it (probably is) made of better stuff than the new saw of today i wonder.
a few here have said their old huskys were a great saw, and so they are, but i wonder what your getting today in the big race to the bottom.
what they would say about here is if your buying small then a stihl and if your buying big then a husky.
there was a forester here last year, his van was half full of husky saws, i said joking to him would he not sell them and buy some real stihl saw's.
he was telling me that he could burn out a stihl in about 3 mths, these id be propper forestry saws.
he said he was geting 13-15 mths out of the huskys.
but im sure you could meet a stihl man and he would tell you the same about the huskys.

 

[blenkie1]

The EFI on new stihls is apparently the same deal. Only way to get the emissions down without going all vw

Nightmare then!

 

[blenkie1]

your husky would be a good age would it?, im not meaning to sound like im telling you its ancient or anything, what im wondering is it (probably is) made of better stuff than the new saw of today i wonder.
a few here have said their old huskys were a great saw, and so they are, but i wonder what your getting today in the big race to the bottom.
what they would say about here is if your buying small then a stihl and if your buying big then a husky.
there was a forester here last year, his van was half full of husky saws, i said joking to him would he not sell them and buy some real stihl saw's.
he was telling me that he could burn out a stihl in about 3 mths, these id be propper forestry saws.
he said he was geting 13-15 mths out of the huskys.
but im sure you could meet a stihl man and he would tell you the same about the huskys.

I know all the wood men that come to us use huskys and they are in the woods full time

 

[Bill Edwards]

your husky would be a good age would it?, im not meaning to sound like im telling you its ancient or anything, what im wondering is it (probably is) made of better stuff than the new saw of today i wonder.
a few here have said their old huskys were a great saw, and so they are, but i wonder what your getting today in the big race to the bottom.
what they would say about here is if your buying small then a stihl and if your buying big then a husky.
there was a forester here last year, his van was half full of husky saws, i said joking to him would he not sell them and buy some real stihl saw's.
he was telling me that he could burn out a stihl in about 3 mths, these id be propper forestry saws.
he said he was geting 13-15 mths out of the huskys.
but im sure you could meet a stihl man and he would tell you the same about the huskys.

Very, very possible. I certainly don't know what age mine is but if it were only a couple of years old when I got it (haha, which I doubt!) then you'd still be unable to call it particularly modern.
I'm not aware of Husky product quality going downhill, but I'm not up to date on these things - but it certainly could be possible, in that it often happens to formerly good brands.

I know it is normal for there to be a Husky or Stihl kind of thing, with each person loving theirs and saying the other is pants. I've no doubt that in reality they're both great and, although I'd certainly opt for another Husky personally if I were looking for another, I doubt if there is anything in them. People I know who have either always seem quite happy with them, which is why I recommend either.

 

[daleyd]

Tim the Toolman Taylor hur hur more power



I've used both and if you can't feel the difference between the 12 metres per second of an electric saw chain and 20 metres per second of a decent petrol saw then you must be doing something to the chains that I don't know about

P.S. Electric are fine by me.

Well, I've never timed them side by side but I couldn't say my petrol one is so much faster that it makes any difference to my day, that being said I cut wood for my log burner and I'm not doing it for a living so I guess that may have a bearing. That said, if you mess around for 1/2 a day trying to get a faulty petrol one to start you could have munched your way through a few logs in that time with an electric one.

I didn't really intend this to become a petrol vs electric thing, I was just offering it up as an alternative that may be the Op hadn't considered and may be useful.

I actually have nothing against petrol saws either, there are times when nothing else will do, and everyone loves an engine. But to dismiss electric out of hand is missing a trick, IMO.

 

[tinman123]

I know all the wood men that come to us use huskys and they are in the woods full time

youd want to be laying down some amount of timber to splash out on either of these tow ladies.
i see the specs are fairly similar, i wonder who's the chicken and who's the egg..

http://www.husqvarna.com/uk/products/chainsaws/3120-xp/965960436/
http://www.stihl.co.uk/STIHL-Produc...-chainsaws-for-forestry/29301-130/MS-880.aspx

 

[CornishPete]

I wouldn't listen to the hype and hearsay if I were the op, there arent any generalisations that separate all stihls and all husqvarnas, its like comparing ford to vauxhall, they both make essentially the same cars aimed at the same people but different people have different opinions and can be vehemently one way or the other.
buy a good pro saw from either and you'll have a cracking saw that should last an occasional user for years. I think the unreliability comments refer to the latest electronically controlled carb models. If you're getting an older saw its not an issue and they're easy to fix even if they do go wrong.

 

[tinman123]

Very, very possible. I certainly don't know what age mine is but if it were only a couple of years old when I got it (haha, which I doubt!) then you'd still be unable to call it particularly modern.
I'm not aware of Husky product quality going downhill, but I'm not up to date on these things - but it certainly could be possible, in that it often happens to formerly good brands.

I know it is normal for there to be a Husky or Stihl kind of thing, with each person loving theirs and saying the other is pants. I've no doubt that in reality they're both great and, although I'd certainly opt for another Husky personally if I were looking for another, I doubt if there is anything in them. People I know who have either always seem quite happy with them, which is why I recommend either.

a fair point, im not saying that there is any flaws in the two mentioned brands, none that i know of anyways.
but as you say, id be basing it more on the fact i see so many quality brands taking the easy route and cheapening their product to keep the sales there while selling it on the back of what once was a quality name, britool immediately comes to mind but there is a long enough list and for that reason i cant see how we would be geting the same quality product that we once were id be all.
as they say, the older the fiddle, the sweeter the tune....

 

[blenkie1]

Cannot go wrong with either brand, both makes are good.

 

[pedrobedro]

The EFI on new stihls is apparently the same deal. Only way to get the emissions down without going all vw

New Husqvarna 550 and 560xp have auto carb set up and the new Stihl CM range have as well. They are self regulating and have to be run in big wood to set themselves up and some teething troubles have come up but they are getting sorted with software updates at the dealer done via a computer hook up. There's no fuel injection just constant carb metering and adjusting to ambient conditions and workload. 550xp and 560 have what is called rev boost and they are really on pick up and cut really fast.

 

[pedrobedro]

Is it some of their other equipment that has EFI then?

I don't know if any has efi but the term air injection is used for the new x-torq engined saws, it keeps the intake cleaner. They have a carb and electronic module for what is called software auto tune.

 

[Tinbasherdan]

I have a crappy little b&q special, it's about 10 year old and honestly it's had some abuse. dad got it off a mate, it lived in his wagon being used for firewood and cutting up some bloody big drift wood, and now it's arrived at mine. Can't fault it, not the most powerful of things but I'm just waiting for a mate to drop a Stihl forestry saw off when he gets 5 mins for heavier stuff. Little one goes with me on laning trips for a bit of gardening on overgrown stuff

 

[Turbo]

I used to work for a business that sold & serviced all makes of garden equipment including chainsaws. My boss was a Stihl trained service engineer and he rated the Shindaiwa equipment as good or better that the modern Stihl stuff on a £ for £ basis.
Most saw manufacturers produce a hobby range and a professional range. But you could buy a Shindaiwa professional saw for very little more than a Stihl hobby one! A lot of our professional customers started using Shindaiwa equipment & had high praises for it. Particularly popular was the multi tool that had a basic engine & shaft that you could mount various heads to like a brush cutter, high reach hedge trimmer and a pruning saw.

 

[Shox Dr]

If you need a cheap reliable saw, the Sanli CS45, I bought a few yrs ago is worth looking at. Paid £115 delivered (rrp £185), it has a stihl carb apparently.

I run it at 40:1 starts 2-3pull, first when hot. Cuts well. Ive lost it off the back of the truck, with onlt a few scars.

Not a bad machine, for 4-5 hours constant use once a month in winter

 

[pedrobedro]

Not to detract from it, but that's a bit like saying kia use ford bulbs... I've got a stihl that uses the same carb as an echo I have, only it has 'stihl' cast on one of the parts and is triple the price to replace

Carbs are mostly Walbro or Zama on both makes of saw. Stihl bought out Zama in 2009 so in theory Husqvarna do use a Stihl carb but not really. You can get the serial number off any of the carbs and buy a Chinese made one on ebay for £6 upwards if you are willing to wait for delivery. Sanli and Mitox saws are made a bit better than the cheaper Chinese saws but they are not up to European quality yet although they are getting better built with quality control and spares availability through a dealer network not ebay chancers selling Husqvarna and Stihl "copies" with the 52cc engine they seem to fit in everything.

 

[Shox Dr]

Not to detract from it, but that's a bit like saying kia use ford bulbs... I've got a stihl that uses the same carb as an echo I have, only it has 'stihl' cast on one of the parts and is triple the price to replace

I hear what you are saying but as one component that needs to stay in tune on a saw it's the carb, the fact it uses the same carb as better makes would hopefully help it run better, and for longer before problems arise.

Ive always run stihl saws, at the time money was short, it had twos warranty, so if it played up it was going back...I would have then cone to my senses and bought a Stihl or husky, from the local agri.

So far its done what its needed to. I've cut a lot of wood with it, both fed on a horse and bundled together in stillages where the nose is buried deep, and it's never let me down.