When we moved here I “inherited” a heft Stihl 08S chainsaw. It was a bit of an animal when it came to cutting up logs, having a 21″ bar, but really too heavy to use comfortably for a long time and doesn’t have a chain-brake, so I decided I’d get something more convenient.
In the end I went for another Stihl. An MS210 this time with a 14″ bar, which duly arrived from the unreassuringly-named company “Easy Rider Europe”. It was initially a bit of a pig to get to start although now it just needs a few pulls from cold and it’s away. A couple of weeks back I was using it to cut up a load of scrap wood I’d been given by a friend who’d pulled down his garage. Needless to say it was full of nails and whilst I was pretty careful I managed to catch a couple with the saw, damaging a couple of teeth and ending up with a blade that would only cut around corners.
I looked up the saw details on the net and ordered a couple of chains (from Amazon, of all places) which arrived within a couple of days, but when I tried to fit one I found it was too tight in the groove in the chain bar and on closer inspection the teeth on the new chain were clearly larger than the old ones. A little investigation of part numbers revealed that the original bar and chain were not the intended fitting for my saw, but from smaller models such as the MS170. I’ve had the saw for a few years now so the easiest and quickest solution was to get another bar of the correct size. That arrived this morning from CNS Powertools and I now have everything refitted and I’m ready to cut more logs this weekend, assuming the weather improves. I’ll also get to play with my other new toy for this week, a log-splitting maul.