Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Texas Poulan Massacre??

Thanks, Fred. Stihl is the #1 answer here, so I HAVE to get one.

I'm coming over when you get this thing.

I can see the headlines now:

Half of trees in quiet Gangland neighbourhood cut down to chord. Two men seen sneaking off.

How did you know?? I mean the part about the "quiet" gangland neighborhood!

Half of the trees in the 'hood are ours, so no need to sneak off, unless ours are THE eleven ones left standing!

And no lie, as I write this, my town cop neighbor (very cool guy) is Poulan-ing a 30' maple branch.

I went over in my jammies earlier to tell him that vinca or ivy are way easier to maintain for a lawn cover, though I like the feng-shui of the wispy vertical maple branches. He smiled and gave me the finger! Imagine!

I feel compelled to mention that the combining chainsaws, big trees, and being up in the air make for probably the most dangerous activity you are likely to encounter. Make sure you have appropriate protective equipment and read up on safety-related practices, and make sure you use/follow them religiously for anything but the most basic cutting. Small things falling on you stop being funny when you are holding a running chainsaw, and big things falling on you are always a Bad Thing.

Stihl and others make small "arborist saws" which are extraordinarily good for trimming branches and probably safer for that type of work than a regular chainsaw -- my brother-in-law uses one as his primary chainsaw (mostly camping-type cutting) with great success.

I don't own one but I seem to borrow one regularly and I once had a summer job in high school running a brush cutter & chainsaw. It's really a wonder I still have all my limbs.

Just wanted to echo that you need to realllly learn how to sharpen the blade well. You will need to do it surprisingly often and most people who think they know how to do it, end up ruining blades and, as others have said, making it even more dangerous than if it were sharp.

It's not difficult but there truly is a knack to it. If you are going to use it regularly, you will need to learn how to do it yourself.

On the lighter side, my eyes/brain played a funny trick on me when I read the title of this post. I though for a second there it said, "Texas Poulet Massacre" or as translated from French, "Texas Chicken Massacre."

Then I had a brief vision of Bob running around slaughtering chickens while us Canadian's ran after him trying to throw fries, gravy and cheese curds on them to make Chicken Poutine.

Why did the chicken cross the border?
To get away from BobKay.

Hmmm ... just noticed, "BobKay" is Pig Latin for "kabob" ...