How To Choose The Right Chainsaw And Which Chain Saw Is Better To Choose

2023 Author: Philip Bishop | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-08-25 07:54

• Popular brands
• STIHL
• HUSQVARNA
• SHINDAIWA
• Choosing a gasoline chain saw
• Chainsaw maintenance is an important selection criterion
• conclusions

The modern chainsaw successfully combining such qualities as mobility, safety and convenience at work, durability, has become a valuable assistant on the personal plot. In this article, we will give advice on choosing the right chainsaw and teach you how to use it productively for your own purposes, while ensuring your own safety.

Popular brands

The modern market offers a wide selection of various tools, but it cannot be said that their quality is always at the proper level.

Low prices for Chinese-made tools are the reason for their popularity among buyers, ensuring high demand. However, you should always remember that a chainsaw is a source of increased danger. And the problem is not only, or more precisely, not so much that it can fail in the process of work, injury to people can become a much more serious consequence of such a failure.

We hope that a reasonable consumer understands the absurdity of the situation when the price of such a complex tool is equivalent to the price of several kilograms of sausage. Therefore, we will not even discuss models of chainsaws of a low price category, but we will recommend popular models.

There are widely known brands that produce tools for both professional and household use:

• SOLO;
• STIHL;
• MAKITA;
• HUSQVARNA;
• DOLMAR;
• SHINDAIWA;
• ZENOAH;
• JONSERED;
• HITACHI;
• OLEO MAC.

Of these, you can choose a good chainsaw for giving and at home. The well-known brands STIHL, HUSQVARNA and JONSERED can rightfully be called the leaders in this list. The latter is a division of the HUSQVARNA company, specializing in the production of professional chainsaws.

All of these companies have a long history and many years of experience in the production of high quality chainsaws.

STIHL

The founder of STIHL, German engineer Andreas Stihl, for the first time in 1929 created a two-handed chainsaw with a 6 horsepower engine, which was in great demand at that time.

Since then, the enterprise has carried out numerous developments, the results of which have been introduced into production (saw chains, automatic saw lubrication system, centrifugal clutch, etc.).

In addition, the company owns the invention of a hand-held chain saw powered by a gasoline engine.

HUSQVARNA

The Swedish gasoline tool company HUSQVARNA, the closest competitor to STIHL, is now a recognized manufacturer of gasoline powered tools, including chainsaws.

An interesting fact from the history of the company: it was founded in 1689 and at that time was known as a manufacturer of weapons. Now professionals, when choosing gasoline-powered tools, prefer HUSQVARNA products.

We also note another Swedish manufacturer - JONSERED, which has been producing high-quality gas powered tools for more than half a century.

SHINDAIWA

The products of the Japanese company SHINDAIWA are little known to our consumers, because they do not have such a long history as STIHL and HUSQVARNA. However, professionals respect this brand for the high quality, reliability, practicality and durability of the tools it produces.

Faced with such a variety of firms and having ample opportunity to choose, often a potential buyer is lost. And even if, before making a purchase, he received information from books, magazines, the Internet, or simply by listening to the advice of friends, then once in a modern supermarket, he usually hears only praise. How to choose the right instrument in such conditions?

Choosing a gasoline chain saw

Choosing an instrument of the upper price segment of the market, we can quite afford to detach ourselves from the names of brands, focusing on the functions and advantages of specific models.

First you need to decide for what purpose the saw is needed. The amount of work to be performed is very important:

1. If you need a saw for household use and you will use it no more than once a week (for example, to prepare firewood for a sauna or to cut branches in the garden), then you should choose among small saws.
2. If you use such a saw often and intensively, then the result may be a spoiled impression of the manufacturer, although, in fact, the wrong choice of the saw model was simply made. These saws have a limited resource and are not designed to handle large volumes of work.

When choosing a saw, be sure to hold it in your hands. You should not make a purchase based only on the manufacturer's advertisements and standard product specifications. Perhaps you are familiar with the expression “it fell into the hand”. It comes in handy when choosing a saw.

With the same power characteristics, the ergonomics of each saw model can be different. And people differ in their anatomical structure. Therefore, it is necessary to choose the right saw that is convenient for you to use, paying attention to the location and shape of the control levers.

A very important part of the chainsaw is the chain inertia brake handle. With the overrun brake, even a high-speed chain saw can be stopped almost instantly, preventing injury to the operator in the event of an emergency.

All chainsaws, regardless of the model and manufacturer, have the inertial brake lever located in one place - in front of the front handle, but the shape and size of the lever, the force at which the brake is applied, are different. Therefore, it is worth choosing a saw that will suit your anatomical features.

Indeed, not only the quality and speed of work, but also your safety depends on how correctly the tool is selected and configured.

Let's say that we have chosen several models of saws that not only meet all our technical requirements, but are also comfortable to work with and have a high quality workmanship:

• STIHL MS 180 C;
• ZENOAH GZ 400;
• JONSERED CS 2137.

They are all roughly the same in weight and size, with the exception of the ZENOAH GZ400, which is slightly longer in length. Leaving aside the technical characteristics of these models for now, we will try to find the most convenient one. And who better than you yourself understands what exactly is convenience for you? Therefore, you will have to go through this stage of selection without our help.

All of these saws have such an undeniable advantage as low weight.

Take any of them in your hands and lift by the front handle:

1. You will feel how well balanced the saw is. When working with such a chainsaw, you will be less tired due to the correct distribution of its weight.
2. The removal of exhaust gases generated during operation, in all the listed models, is designed in such a way as to protect the operator from getting into the exhaust stream. Of course, in order to completely protect yourself from the unpleasant effects of combustion products, when working with a saw, you will have to take into account the direction of the wind.

An additional advantage of the ZENOAH GZ400 is the fact that the exhaust outlet is equipped with a protective mesh. This not only prevents the emission of sparks formed during the combustion of fuel, but also protects the muffler from foreign objects entering it.

STIHL and JONSERED chainsaws are also spark-proof, even though their saw models are equipped with mesh-less mufflers. But they are not insured against accidental ingress of foreign objects into the muffler, and this threatens to breakdown during operation.

Although such cases are quite rare, these saws should be handled with particular care to protect them from damage and yourself from injury.

All saws have fuel filling points on the side of the recoil starter. For the convenience of the consumer, they are marked with a special marking. An image of a gas station with a droplet marks the fuel tank cap, and an oil tank is marked with a chain with a droplet.

Mixing up the petrol and oil filling points is unacceptable, as the result can be serious damage. On STIHL and JONSERED chainsaws, the fueling points are positioned as follows: the fuel tank is near the rear handle and the oil tank is next to the front handle. An additional convenience of the STIHL MS 180 C saw is the presence of windows that make it possible to visually check the oil and gasoline level during operation.

On the ZENOAH chainsaw, both fueling points are located next to the rear handle. For the convenience of the consumer, they not only have standard markings, but also differ in color and size. However, if you choose this particular chainsaw, you will have to be very careful when working so as not to confuse the filling points.

A properly prepared fuel mixture is needed to operate the chainsaw, since the design of its two-stroke engine does not provide for independent mixing of oil with fuel.

Chainsaw maintenance is an important selection criterion

The most important factor when choosing a chainsaw is ease of maintenance. There are saw designs with a dense arrangement of mechanism parts in a tight case. Agree that in this case, the daily maintenance of the saw, including the removal of chips and cleaning of residues of fuels and lubricants, can become quite laborious and time-consuming process. Therefore, when choosing a chainsaw, it is worth looking inside the case.

To remove the cover from the STIHL MS 180 C chainsaw, first press the gas button and lower the throttle control lever to the lower position, otherwise the chainsaw mechanism may be damaged.

Further, by turning a special latch, the cover can be easily removed. At the same time, you get free access to the chainsaw mechanism and room for maintenance.

The convenience of this model is the ability to dismantle the carburetor without completely disassembling the saw body, which allows maintenance to be carried out as quickly as possible and does not require any specialized tools.

The cover of the ZENOAH GZ 400 chainsaw is also easy to remove. To do this, just unscrew the screw mounted in the cover.

Before starting to service the chainsaw, you should dismantle the air filter as carefully as possible. If dismantled carelessly, the consequence of this can be a clogged carburetor. The front of the housing slightly blocks free access to the spark plug, but does not impede the ability to quickly replace the spark plug if necessary.

A significant disadvantage of this model is the fact that quick dismantling of the carburetor is possible only with the use of the tool supplied with the saw.

It is possible to remove the top cover of the JONSERED CS 2137 chainsaw only with a special key. The explanation is simple: American standards require restricting access to the mechanisms of such instruments. And accidentally unscrewing three screws, and even those for which standard keys do not fit, is completely impossible.

But don't worry, the process of removing the cover is very simple, and getting free access to the saw mechanism won't take more time than we spent describing it.

A distinctive feature of this particular saw model is the ability to clean the cooling fins of the cylinder. Such work should be carried out regularly, as this ensures sufficient cooling of the engine during operation.

conclusions

We hope that the facts and recommendations given in the article gave you a basic idea of chainsaws, and you can decide which chainsaw to choose and buy better, based on the goals. Despite the fact that only the main points to which you should pay attention have been considered, we are sure that the knowledge gained will provide you with a conscious approach to choosing a chainsaw.

We deliberately did not consider the existing additional options (chain tensioner, saw soft starter, etc.), since they significantly affect the cost without changing the quality of work. Do not forget about personal protective equipment when working. Take care of your safety!

Read about the rules for working with a chainsaw and about replacing the chain and drive sprocket on various types of chain saws in our next articles.

Also watch a video about the choice and rules for operating chainsaws: