Finally got out there and did a little "trial" run to see how things are workin'..... Started off yesterday with splitting 6 rounds of black locust, a mystery round, and 2 rounds of beech. I had sitting on the driveway. No pain, kind of held back a little bit but felt great. The green center kind of reminded me poplar but the exterior meat was super dense like japanese maple. Very hard and a very faint smell of herbs. Not pungent at all. This is the beech below. We're getting to the stupid part now. Today I answered a FB MP ad. This guy is clearing a small lot to build a house and took down a few trees. He wasn't sure what he had but when I got there I found myself some nicely dried out black locust along with some red maple. Some of the black locust was still in logs around 6'-8' long....and so I eagerly whipped out the Stihl 028, started right up and then I went to rev it and it wouldn't budge. I thought the nose sprocket of the bar was stuck (as has happened a few times now) but when I took off the chain the nose sprocket was fine. Instead the main sprocket attached to the motor would NOT budge. I think some of you know where this is going. Me, being so excited to get going, forgot that I had enabled the goshdarn chain brake..... But of course I didn't figure that out until I got home. I put the chainsaw away and just loaded up the logs that would fit into the bed and then cherry picked a bunch of nice rounds to fill the rest of the bed. They did a pretty nice job of bucking everything to 16". The guy was so excited I answered the FB ad - he was like "Man I just want that stuff GONE!" and I said "I can help you with that!" Then I went and dropped off a bunch of undesirables for a neighbor in the next town. She has a raised garden bed (20" high) 8' x 8' that would cost an arm, a leg, and maybe a foot to fill with compost and soil....so she did the hugelkultur method of filling with organic material....except she didn't have enough. So I gave her a bunch of crotches, knotties, and some branches that my other neighbor just trimmed from his pine tree this morning. After that I stopped by the dump but they were closed so I headed home and took down a diseased Japanese maple on my property. It wasn't that big so I wasn't too worried but she fell backwards because my finish cut was probably a tad too high and she was leaning that way too.....But no accidents, garlic wasn't damaged in my garden and nobody was injured so I take that as a win. Bucked up the bigger pieces and set them aside for another neighbor who is coming tomorrow to take it.....and the branches I then loaded into the pickup for the dump tomorrow. That was taking it nice and easy. Lmfao. Here's the neighbor's raised bed. I forgot to take a pic of after dumping in the organic matter. Oops.
Mystery wood splits look like poplar in the way they came apart. Did the hoa complaint get cleared up?
I am soo glad I live in farm country. My neighbor/farmer drops bedding and manure mix 1/2 mile from house!!
Thanks, excited to go back for more now that the chainsaw was miraculously.... "fixed"! Hahahahaha 'Tis not fun getting old and senile. Sheesh! The pathetic part is it's not even a HOA. It's just the village. There are no "rules" like you would think an HOA would have. So the entire thing is ridiculous. And so far, after 3 epic emails with video, police reports, background, dates, and descriptions.....I have heard nothing back from the village. Fingers crossed. I am considering it! Although close by we have a very well known farm-to-table restaurant....where they have a legit farm with cows, sheep, chickens, and all sorts of vegetables. There's also a horse ranch about 15 minutes away if manure is your thing! What I really want is a tractor
Just went back to the neighbor's and dropped off 2 bags of pine needles from my neighbor across the street. On the way there I found another 2 bags of boxwood trimmings and grabbed those. Remembered to take a pic of the raised bed. They are going to take some of the nicer stuff out to use for their firepit so that will leave plenty of room to fill with topsoil and compost. And a blast to operate!!!
Yeah that's what I thought.....but it felt a lot heavier than poplar and was a lot harder to split than I remember my other poplar being. I used the Picture This app and it said..... "Chinese Red Pine" pinus massoniana but I'm 99% sure that's incorrect.
Standard operating procedure here to always have the brake set before starting or walking more than a few steps. But this reminds me of the night beside the road, shooting a neighbor’s steer, for a trooper, that had been hit by a car. Marlin 30-30 just went ‘click’. Hmmm. Very puzzled. Tried a couple more times. Hmmm. Ohhhh. This isn’t the old Marlin I had always hunted with - it was a newer model with the safety...
Hi Stupid, im Brad! Pleased to meet you! All kidding aside, i did that once with my 028 back when i was a teen. Fell out of the trailer while i was going cutting. Started okay but chain wouldnt go. Took it back to my uncle who just disengages the brake while laughing! I felt like a dummy. This was the mid 1980's when chain brakes were a new feature on saws. Occasionally while cutting i forget to release the brake. Good habit i have of engaging it when moving with the saw running. Great score BTW! You are going back for more i hope?
More times than I should have, which is more than once, I can't get the splitter started....its always turned off.
Yes, of course I'm going back! I can't be leaving all those perfectly beautiful logs of black locust just sitting there! Now that I've "fixed" my chainsaw, I'm good to go!!! Hahahahaha. Feeling like a dummy really sums it up lmfao. I do engage the brake the minute I'm done using the saw. I just had one of them brain farts. Hahahaha I've done the same - keep pulling and pulling and then after 6 times I start cursing and then I realize who the dummy is. That reminds me of a video where a young mechanic bought a Mini Cooper that had a "seized engine, will not start". He did all the normal checks - battery, starter, spark plugs, etc., tried jumping - but nothing worked. So an old timer in the back said to him "Hey kid, take off the drive belt and see if it starts." Sure enough, vrooooooom! Started right up....and it turns out that guy's alternator pulley was 100% seized due to a cracked housing. Turns out that was exactly the same problem I had and is related to the fact that there is almost 0 travel in the front suspension causing the shocks to bottom out all the time....causing them to fail earlier than most cars....causing crazy vibrations and impacts on stuff that happens to be bolted to the oil pan......namely the alternator!!!
