Had a buddy help install on tractor. He has decades of fabrication experience from aircraft, nuclear, to mining. Nice to have the experience critique.
The good:
Weight 235#.
Saw bar 20”.
Easy to adjust oil rate to one drop every 4 seconds at no load speed. After cutting today seems about right. The metering valve knob has a scale and a set screw to lock adjustment.
Top of bar to ground 24.5’ max.
Cuts fast! Maybe too fast.
3-4” limbs 1-2 seconds. 10” dead oak 10-15 including stopping to lower.
Like the slight angle on the saw arm. Aides in cutting from the top.
Really like the saw bar on the left. Better visual.
Have loader soft ride system. Left it valved in. It does allow some saw give and forgiveness.
HST best for maneuvering.
Very low noise. Nice!
No real issues of bar binding in the cut. Sure beats a polesaw.
Face sore from stupid grin.
Improvements:
Saw arm is too heavy causing too much pressure down on saw blade in some of the 10” thick Oak. Enough to stop the chain at idle. Need to find a fish scale to quantify the saw blade weight. Guess 40-50#??? now. Remember the weight from saw arm hinge, not the hydraulics, push the bar thru the cut. Increasing to 1400rpm helped. Took the motor cover off, 18# and help even more.
It works as is. But think I can NASCAR it up by trimming and skeletonizing the covers some. Also some HD bungees to counterbalance with the strap. Need to reduce weight needed to move the saw bar up to 20-30#. When stalled, often monetarily reverse then forward would continue the cut.
Nice having another person on thick cuts is helpful. Can see where a camera be very helpful.
Still building technique and skills. Can quickly cut down much faster than you can haul away. Like making many cuts up high than cutting manageable lengths on the ground. Safer too.
