There are many times when cutting at the tip is necessary or preferable. There are times when cutting with the top of the bar is preferable as well. There are times when boring with the saw is necessary. I often walk with the saw running, and probably should not. It's easy enough to shut it off and restart. GD
Damn! Forty seasons of running saws for my annual firewood supply. Maybe 3 to 4 days a year and sometimes more if neighbors need help.
Actually doing a run tomorrow and will be an hour+ away from civilization with no cell service either. Never pack a phone anyway. Those aspects always keep me safety conscious. No issues to date, but I once had a bounced axe head deal out 5 stitches on the back of one hand.
OHSA would have a fit if they monitored my practices. I use every portion of my bars to get the job done. Up, down, and plunge.
My only hard rule is: a chain is NEVER allowed to touch the ground. I detest stopping to switch chains or sharpen once the machine is running. A chisel chain is toast if it even sees the shadow of a stone.
When saws bite though, I hear they're quick about it. Safety is important and the world seems to think we are all idiots. Regardless of the implement, one has to go through 5 pages of crap before they'll reveal the location of an on/off switch. I'm amazed knives and forks can still be sold here. If OSHA had their way, we'd be limited solely to spoons.
I cut timber for a living for about 10 years on and off. I've cut big trees that you wouldn't climb over the log when felled. I've cut timber where a tornado went through. That was the most dangerous I ever worked. I've had some close scrapes but never got seriously hurt. I had the saw kick back once and cut the crotch out of my pants and only have briar size scratches on my legs. Dead trees and limbs are some of the most dangerous considerations, and anything under pressure, like one tree on top of another or cutting bent limbs.
Think about this. It has been my observation that nearly every accident happened because the victim overestimated himself.
Have you actually done the jobs that you did safety for or were you just a safety fudd?
There's a big difference between the two types.
I hired my own crews and did contract work for large corporations that had teams of safety fudds monitoring our every move when at their facilities.
Fudds do nothing but make things worse as folks know their full of schit and try to find ways around them, often times making poor choices.
Tell me about it,
We were installing and operation power generation in remote locations in Alaska.
Some of our power plants were generating upto 14 MW, the corporate safety teams observing my guys hadn't a clue as to what our safety risks truly were.
But that never stopped them from having all kinds of irrelevant input.
Safety fudds hate me, Lol, I ask questions they don't have answers for or give irrelevant drivel as an answer.
One day we had ladder safety training, I asked our safety fudd if could use an A frame ladder leaned up against the wall if there wasn't enough room to open it. the unequivocal answer of "Under no circumstances is an A frame ladder to be used by leaning it against a wall"
I asked even if it was designed to do so? The answer of "there are no step ladders designed to lean against the wall, it's unsafe period!"
I pulled up Home depot's site and showed her that what she stated wasn't true. Later she told me she wasn't happy with me for doing that in front of everyone, I told her it was to damn bad and that she should know her job before she starts spewing it as the gospel.
She does now tends to research answers if she doesn't know but she still doesn't know a damn thing except what she reads in a book.
Paul
"I'd rather see a sermon than hear a sermon".... D.A.D.
Trump Won!, Sandmann Won!, Rittenhouse Won!, Suck it Liberal Fuuktards.
There are many times when cutting at the tip is necessary or preferable. There are times when cutting with the top of the bar is preferable as well. There are times when boring with the saw is necessary. I often walk with the saw running, and probably should not. It's easy enough to shut it off and restart. GD
Plunge cutting with a saw is safe if done properly, using the right chain is one of the steps.
Paul
"I'd rather see a sermon than hear a sermon".... D.A.D.
Trump Won!, Sandmann Won!, Rittenhouse Won!, Suck it Liberal Fuuktards.
There are some men who shouldn't be able to operate a pair of safety scissors much less a chainsaw. Common sense goes a long way when you have a saw in your hands.
My neighbor and friend was killed last year cutting firewood for camp. Wasn't the saw that got him, it was a large branch on the tree....
A dead branch fell?
I wasn't there but he apparently cut a branch that was under a lot of tension and it snapped back and crushed him. They had to use a bulldozer to get the branch off of him and his best friend (retired fire chief) said there was just nothing there to even try CPR. He was immediately crushed. I am still a little touchy about it to this day. I was the one who always cut the trees and bucked them into logs for firewood. I didn't go that day because I had a falling out with his brother and didn't want to deal with his BS all day. Jimmy was no idiot with a chainsaw but I imagine he worked his butt off all day and got tired and made a bad decision. Unfortunately it cost us all one of the better human beings I have ever known.
I cut trees in my home town for a few years. Mostly in town around houses. A logger lost his cutter and asked me to fill in until he got someone new. Cutting down trees for lumber in a forest is not joke. Trees were never on flat ground, getting hung up in other trees, just hard dangerous work. I think my tree cutting in town helped me understand how trees are going to move when you start knocking limbs off of them. I never had any close calls with a saw but I dang near rolled logs over myself before I learned to read the tree and always cut from the uphill side. I will say that if you get exhausted, walk away. Most accidents I have seen came from exhausted men trying to finish up a cut or a tree. They try to cut corners or just not thinking about what they are doing.
The other hard lesson was splitting a tree on the cut came out of my pocket. Preventing the split made me stay at the base and race the cut as the tree fell. Stupid and dangerous as hell. I always groomed a running path before I notched because I would stay a little longer to prevent a split. Smarter people have come up with better and safer ways to do business these days.
I cut timber for a living for about 10 years on and off. I've cut big trees that you wouldn't climb over the log when felled. I've cut timber where a tornado went through. That was the most dangerous I ever worked. I've had some close scrapes but never got seriously hurt. I had the saw kick back once and cut the crotch out of my pants and only have briar size scratches on my legs. Dead trees and limbs are some of the most dangerous considerations, and anything under pressure, like one tree on top of another or cutting bent limbs.
Think about this. It has been my observation that nearly every accident happened because the victim overestimated himself.
Cleaning up after a tornado was by far one of the worst jobs I ever took. It is just a mess everywhere you look and nowhere for anything to fall down. That is a young mans game.
I cut timber for a living for about 10 years on and off. I've cut big trees that you wouldn't climb over the log when felled. I've cut timber where a tornado went through. That was the most dangerous I ever worked. I've had some close scrapes but never got seriously hurt. I had the saw kick back once and cut the crotch out of my pants and only have briar size scratches on my legs. Dead trees and limbs are some of the most dangerous considerations, and anything under pressure, like one tree on top of another or cutting bent limbs.
Think about this. It has been my observation that nearly every accident happened because the victim overestimated himself.
Cleaning up after a tornado was by far one of the worst jobs I ever took. It is just a mess everywhere you look and nowhere for anything to fall down. That is a young mans game.
Me and the skidder driver worked together. He would get in there and try to straighten them up - release pressure when he could, and I cut off a bunch of under pressure trees about 3/4 through and he broke them off with the skidder. That was the biggest mess I ever tried to work. The boss bought another tornado tract after that, and I quit. This was back before the fancy cutter machines. You got good at reading which way anything under pressure was going and how to stay out of the way real quick or it would retire you fast. I knew of several local cutters killed during that time period.
There are many times when cutting at the tip is necessary or preferable. There are times when cutting with the top of the bar is preferable as well. There are times when boring with the saw is necessary. I often walk with the saw running, and probably should not. It's easy enough to shut it off and restart. GD
Plunge cutting with a saw is safe if done properly, using the right chain is one of the steps.
When I was a kid I was walking with a running saw and one boot felt squishy inside. Looked down and my jeans were ripped open over one knee. Never felt a thing Strip of skin cut off but didn't get deep enough to cut anything important. What it did do educate me on using a saw safely.
Seems a lot of 60 to 70 year olds around here still think they are as agile as they were at 35, it's just to give them sumtin to think about.
Horse feathers! LOL! At 73 and several orthopedic surgeries, didn't take me long to figure out I wasn't "29" anymore! 😳
Found out a LONG time ago, I can no longer do what I "usta do"! So, I figure out a work around to do what I usta! Sometimes it takes a bit longer, or I have to call a friend.
I'm VERY aware I can no longer "trip the light fantastic"! .....and yeah, it gets a bit frustrating at times!
Woody's chain saw was on his pickup tailgate. It got away from him when it started and almost "dehorned" him!
I cut timber for a living for about 10 years on and off. I've cut big trees that you wouldn't climb over the log when felled. I've cut timber where a tornado went through. That was the most dangerous I ever worked. I've had some close scrapes but never got seriously hurt. I had the saw kick back once and cut the crotch out of my pants and only have briar size scratches on my legs. Dead trees and limbs are some of the most dangerous considerations, and anything under pressure, like one tree on top of another or cutting bent limbs.
Think about this. It has been my observation that nearly every accident happened because the victim overestimated himself.
Yes^^^^ Cutting in blowdown and wind shook timber is by far the most dangerous thing to do with a saw. As mentioned, boring into (plunge cut) is sometimes necessary to prevent barber chairs and other nasty things. It is also a good idea to use a long bar so a guy can keep his head out of the swing radius of a swinging butt or similar swinging tree parts lol.
There are some men who shouldn't be able to operate a pair of safety scissors much less a chainsaw. Common sense goes a long way when you have a saw in your hands.
My neighbor and friend was killed last year cutting firewood for camp. Wasn't the saw that got him, it was a large branch on the tree....
A dead branch fell?
I have had my face driven into the snow by falling debris, and know of at least 3 guys who had their necks broken in the same way, luckily, they can walk. A small branch falling from a distance (50ft) can break you up bad, sometimes branches are broken and caught up in the canopy of the trees, they come loose when you begin to separate the trees.
I had a small branch about like a wiffleball bat fall about 25 feet and hit me on top of my thigh while dropping some dead pines. Couldn't walk for almost a week with the worst Charlie horse I've ever had. My thigh still isn't right after several months and there is a divot where some of the muscle tore. Very lucky it didn't hit my head.
I cut timber for a living for about 10 years on and off. I've cut big trees that you wouldn't climb over the log when felled. I've cut timber where a tornado went through. That was the most dangerous I ever worked. I've had some close scrapes but never got seriously hurt. I had the saw kick back once and cut the crotch out of my pants and only have briar size scratches on my legs. Dead trees and limbs are some of the most dangerous considerations, and anything under pressure, like one tree on top of another or cutting bent limbs.
Think about this. It has been my observation that nearly every accident happened because the victim overestimated himself.
Yes^^^^ Cutting in blowdown and wind shook timber is by far the most dangerous thing to do with a saw. As mentioned, boring into (plunge cut) is sometimes necessary to prevent barber chairs and other nasty things. It is also a good idea to use a long bar so a guy can keep his head out of the swing radius of a swinging butt or similar swinging tree parts lol.
I've got some big dead pines that need cutting right now at my house. I haven't done it yet because they are dead and have to fall opposite to the way they naturally want to fall. I got the last oned down by attaching a good rope about 40 feet up. I shot a line over a limb with my bow fishing rig and used it to draw a heavy rope up. Tie it off and pull it with the tractor no problems. Just cut a small amount to prevent splitting on the down side and start the cut on the opposite side. You can't cut much on the downside because I have it under tension with the rope and it will sit down on the bar if you don't know what you are doing. As soon as the tree starts moving good, get the hell out of the way farther back then you think you need to cause dead limbs might be flying from the damn vines or other trees.
Chainsaws are like firearms and motorcycles, you shouldn’t be afraid of them but you’d better respect them.
I worked for awhile as a ground man clearing power line right of ways, wasn’t much future in it for a guy who doesn’t like heights but it paid decent at the time. Worst conditions I got to deal with was after an ice storm. Trees down every which way coated in 3/4’s of an inch of ice. Specifically remember clearing one about 20” in diameter that had the power lines under tension about 4’ off the ground. When the top came off the wires launched the rest of the trunk like a slingshot. Boss was watching me pretty close and giving me advice, from a slight distance lol.
I have a Stihl 026 from when I worked that job and a MS 311 I picked up a few years ago, use both for clean up work around the house and our 115 acres. First page is good reminder not to limb stuff over head high.
