It's a 33cc 14" Ryobi and please don't flame me for buying Chinese; I couldn't afford a Stihl or McCulloch and I have had a Ryobi cordless drill for 8 years and it has been faultless. This little fella does a great job on firewood for a few hours work a year so it's fit for the purpose.
I keep two chains and ensure both are sharp, I have a sharpening file with a gauge and have taken care to understand how it works; I have a near neighbour who works for a chainsaw dealer and he has checked my work and says the chain is fine. I take care to ensure that the depth gauges are correctly trimmed down and the cutters properly sharp. The lubrication is healthy and the bar in good nick.
However..... I have recently had two occasions when the little saw has just given up: the first, when I was taking a laurel bush down to ground level. Cutting the trunks (fully green and up to 6" thick) was fine while I was up above ground level but once I started trying to get into the lower parts close to the solid base of the bush the saw wasn't having it; it galled, smoked and the clutch slipped no matter how I tried to keep the revs up and the pressure on the bar very light.
Second occasion was yesterday tackling a broken off ash bough, half seasoned. On the upper branches it cut fantastically but lower down the bough towards 6" to 8" thick it was again galling and smoking.
I notice that the wood chippings are fairly fine; I understand that a chainsaw gouges out of the groove rather than cuts so a sharp blade should produce fairly large chunks of wood.
Is the chain blunt or am I simply expecting too much from my saw?
I keep two chains and ensure both are sharp, I have a sharpening file with a gauge and have taken care to understand how it works; I have a near neighbour who works for a chainsaw dealer and he has checked my work and says the chain is fine. I take care to ensure that the depth gauges are correctly trimmed down and the cutters properly sharp. The lubrication is healthy and the bar in good nick.
However..... I have recently had two occasions when the little saw has just given up: the first, when I was taking a laurel bush down to ground level. Cutting the trunks (fully green and up to 6" thick) was fine while I was up above ground level but once I started trying to get into the lower parts close to the solid base of the bush the saw wasn't having it; it galled, smoked and the clutch slipped no matter how I tried to keep the revs up and the pressure on the bar very light.
Second occasion was yesterday tackling a broken off ash bough, half seasoned. On the upper branches it cut fantastically but lower down the bough towards 6" to 8" thick it was again galling and smoking.
I notice that the wood chippings are fairly fine; I understand that a chainsaw gouges out of the groove rather than cuts so a sharp blade should produce fairly large chunks of wood.
Is the chain blunt or am I simply expecting too much from my saw?
