I haven't noodled much. Today I was working a 30 inch DBH red oak that has been down, wind blown, for probably five years. Trunk off the ground. Only the bark is rotten, the meat is awesome. Rounds are just too heavy, I can't lift onto my truck. First I got my x27 axe and tried. I hit that thing probably 20 times and it hardly dented it! So, I noodled them. Mission accomplished. I may have to do more of this now I figured out I gotta cut in a proper orientation. I guess it's with the grain of the wood. Wrong way, it's powder, right way, it's noodles. Does anyone noodle a lot? Lastly... is it ok to run a saw flat out for a couple minutes? I assume it is, surely it is. If one is milling, that takes even longer. Doing a noodle might take couple of minutes. Using a ported Stihl ms362. Do you slow/stop and change the throttle a bit during the cut or just gas it till done, lol? I haven't noticed any problem, just curious. And do you sharpen any differently or use anything differently when noodling? Any special saw or such? My back suffers from heavy rounds; I might even do some quarter round noodles to make pieces even more manageable.
Let it rip wide open throttle as long as it’s under load. You should have no problem noodling 18”-20” with your 362. Try to keep your spikes from digging in so the noodles have some space to exit the clutch cover. Noodles might occasionally clog up under the clutch cover so you might have to remove and clear out occasionally. A good sharpe chain is good for any cutting In really big rounds that I can’t get to split I like to make 2 noodles about 6”-8” apart then flip and split. Makes for easy splitting and nice even shaped splits. Happy
I noodle a lot. No difference in sharpening chains. And sometimes while milling the saw has been wide open for maybe an entire tank of gas! No chit, let er rip! Just make sure it’s properly tuned.
I noodle mostly rounds that are too gnarly or knotty. Lay the round on bark edge and cut away. Noodles will sometimes clog and or/jam. If you stop and idle clear them away in the back where they hit the ground. jo191145 had a thread about noodling horizontally to avoid the clogging problem. Ive tried it a couple times with success. Ive also noodled 3/4 through and hit the kerf with the Isocore and bam split. Saves some noodle time. Same angle and depth gauges for noodling. Sharp is key as always. I was noodled some knotty hickory today with my Stihl MS261(50CC) pro model saw using 20" bar. Your 362 should tear through straight grained red oak. I was using the 460 (77CC) on Sunday to noodle some real gnarly ash into 4x6 "splits" for the customer i did the work for. If i get a knotty section of a round im hand splitting i will put it aside and when i accumulate a few ill go to town and noodle them all.
That was the coolest thing to see you noodle that behemoth oak last Summer. Did you noodle first then buck???
Yeah, I noodle mostly gnarly ones. If they are just big ones, I work around the outside, slabbing off chunks until the round is small enough for me to halve and pick up.
Yep. If I can, I noodle first so the wood is being held firm. Those rounds were massive and would have been wayyyy too heavy to move full size. Some rounds are just too big and heavy so the quickest method (that's easiest on my body) is to noodle 'em up.
