Long story, I bought an 026 last year off an online estate sale. It looked nice but it's hard to tell by pics. I picked it up and wasn't real impressed, it came with the original bill of sale, case and owners manual. I got it home and cleaned it up, it had pine sap all over it. It cleaned up nicely and to my surprise it was like new, the bar showed some use but not too much. I put a brand new bar and chain on it and then it looked showroom new, so nice I didn't want to use it. So I still wanted an 026 and found one on CL It was decent looking but needed a chain and a muffler but it runs, cuts and oils as it should. It's my go to saw, it's comfortable, has adequate power and light enough to use for limbing. So recently I decided I need another 026 so I can take 2 in the woods with me in case I have a problem with 1. I found one on ebay and won the bid for way less than I expected. The saw arrived today and it had a couple flaws that were described in the ad. I cleaned the bar and behind the clutch cover, filed the chain, it had a good stihl bar and an Oregon chain with lots of life. I added gas and oil. After about 5 pulls it started and sounded good. I took it to the woods and it cut flawlessly for about 30 minutes. I couldn't be happier because I'm usually not lucky on good deals. Sorry I can't put up photos from my phone for some reason but I'm trying to work that out.
3 saws all the same model and make and from 3 different sources. Sounds like you did ok on them. I bought a saw one time from ebay and the clutch had no springs and was welded right to the drum. I did not pay much for the saw so I did not expect much. Congrats on your new to you cutting tools.
My 026 and 260 are my favorite saws, light enough to limb and handle all day and powerful enough to buck some small stuff. The only thing I don't like is that I don't need to run my bigger saws very much when the 026 can do most of the work!
I have 16" bars on all three and most of my cutting this year will be tops so I probably won't need anything bigger.
I run 18" because I cut to 18" so I can use the bar to measure. If I didn't measure with the bar I would switch to 16" I'm sure the 026 would pull it a little better.
Fwiw, the above post was in response to a couple posts by a troll that have now been removed. A friendly reminder: don't call the mods, members, or owner of the site names.
You can call me all the names you want just don't start chit with other members and we are all good... it's amazing how much tolerance we can have... Back to regular programming.
I cut mine to 16" to accommodate my shop stove. I spent a little more time cutting and the CL saw cuts quicker. They both have safety chain but the CL saw has a muff mod, I'll get some yellow chain and see how it does.
