tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87966104870719436232024-03-29T17:45:41.217+10:00Bruce Teakle's PagesTechnologies for the resilient household economyBruce Teaklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00911602199839526224noreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796610487071943623.post-32012969882346848102020-04-26T09:38:00.004+10:002021-05-09T14:26:27.074+10:00Nickel-Iron Battery Review<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>I recently converted our house to nickel-iron batteries. I’m happy with them - but it took a while to learn how to make them work well. </i></span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-keTFhWq2pH4/XqS8O8bCGPI/AAAAAAAACAA/f46_jkd7D1IC6IdpUdvA7RjDMMzTST1LQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_0002.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-keTFhWq2pH4/XqS8O8bCGPI/AAAAAAAACAA/f46_jkd7D1IC6IdpUdvA7RjDMMzTST1LQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_0002.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here are our nickel-iron house batteries, on our verandah</td></tr>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Introduction</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"></span></h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">This post is about using nickel-iron batteries in a household solar power supply. I start with some theory about batteries and why nickel-iron might be good in some situations, and then describe my practical experience of depending on them in our home. <br />Nickel-iron batteries (often called NiFe batteries - using the chemical symbols for nickel and iron) are rare in off-grid houses (at least in Australia). I have heaps of friends and family living off-grid, and until recently every one of them and us used lead-acid batteries. <br />I found it difficult to find good, practical information about nickel-iron batteries while considering getting some. Actually I’ve found it difficult to find good information about all sorts of batteries - rechargeable batteries seem to be a mystery vulnerable to all sorts of misunderstandings. <br />This post is my little attempt to collect some useful information together. Before I describe my practical experience with my nickel-iron battery, I outline my understanding of the usual types of off-grid solar house batteries, and how they compare. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Batteries: a major energy cost</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Storing energy in batteries takes a lot of energy. Most of this energy is “embodied” in the batteries in the thousands of processes required to get them working: mining, refining and shaping metals, manufacturing plastics from oil, providing the economic needs of the many different people who design, make, sell, transport, or install them. The best way we have of measuring this energy - and its associated CO2 emissions - is the money we spend on batteries (see <a href="https://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/2019/07/getting-cool-with-getting-poor.html" target="_blank">my blog post on how money is energy</a>). <br />How much energy - or money - a solar house battery uses is very variable. A small (low cost) battery that lasts a long time will use less money and energy per year than a big battery that dies young. <br />Battery cost is greatly affected by how you use your solar energy. If you mostly use electricity when the sun is shining, you can get by with a small battery, with shallow discharging, that lasts a long time. If you want to do electric cooking at night after a cloudy day, you’ll need a big battery that gets deeply discharged and may not last so long. <br />To get a feel for the cost of battery storage, consider a traditional lead-acid solar battery just like I’ve had in some of my off-grid solar systems: 12 volts (V), 1000 Amp hours (Ah), costing about $4000 and lasting maybe 10 years. Note that this doesn’t include the cost of transporting or installing them, or building a suitable enclosure, all of which are real energy and money costs. <br />The daily discharge cycle of lead acid batteries should be only about 10% from full, to get a long life, so each day this battery could comfortably cycle 100Ah at 12V, which is 1.2 kilowatt-hours (kWh). Doing this every day for 10 years gives 3650 cycles, which would total 4380kWh. $4000 divided by 4380kWh gives nearly $1 per kWh of energy stored for a few hours. <br />Generating this energy from solar PV panels is much cheaper than storing it. If you install 1kW of panels for $2000, that generate maybe 4kWh per day and last for 20 years, their energy costs around 10c/kWh - 1/10th the cost of storing this energy in batteries (I recognise I’m ignoring various real costs such as regulators and inverters - I’m trying to get the principle here). <br />To summarise: storing energy in batteries costs way more than generating it. If you can reduce your battery size and increase its life - mostly by using less energy and using it when it’s being generated by your PV - you will greatly reduce the energy and money cost of your home energy system. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Why nickel iron?</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Most of my life I’ve lived here at Mt Glorious, off grid, depending on photovoltaic (PV) electricity and battery storage for our electricity supply. My family and I have learnt to live with the limitations of off-grid PV power, limiting our daily consumption through frugality and efficiency, using power when the sun shines and carefully limiting electricity use when it’s cloudy. <br />For nearly all this time we’ve depended on lead-acid batteries for electricity storage: starting with an old car battery from the kerbside rubbish collection, then old Telecom batteries, and finally a few sets of big, brand new batteries costing 1000$ of dollars. I’ve become comfortable with the mysteries of lead-acid batteries: the need to cycle them from the top (keep them nearly full), the importance of having enough PV current to give them a good, bubbling equalisation and de-stratification every few weeks, and the lurking dangers of sulphation if they get discharged too low for too long. Lead-acid batteries are like chainsaw chains: they’re never as good as when they’re new, and time gradually fritters them away. If you get 10 years out of them, you should be grateful - 15 years is exceptional, 5 years is not unusual. <br />As part of our ongoing efforts to create a resilient household, I’m now trying nickel-iron batteries. This is for 2 main reasons: durability and deep-cycle ability (which are sort of the same thing). By all accounts, nickel-iron batteries have a long life expectancy - supposedly several decades. Closely related to this is a nickel-iron cell’s ability to be deeply discharged, and left at a discharged state for a long time, without causing long-term damage. This is in contrast to lead-acid batteries that are damaged by deep discharges and time spent discharged. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Amp-hour capacity</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">The capacity of a battery in Amp-hours (Ah) is one of its most important characteristics, but Ah means very different things in different types of battery. The ability to tolerate deep discharge without damage has a huge effect on the meaning of a battery’s amp-hour capacity. <br />For clarity: Ah is a measure of battery energy storage, calculated by measuring the current in amps (A) from a battery, for how long in hours (h) it can provide current, until considered to be discharged. The amount of Amps multiplied by the number of hours gives amp-hours (Ah) - e.g. if you draw 10A for 5 hours, you’ve used 50Ah. <br />Batteries are sold with an Ah rating: for example our last lead-acid house batteries were 1300Ah cells, meaning you could theoretically discharge them at 13A for 100h and then they’d be flat (but you’d never do this!). An important thing to know is that you get more Ah from a battery if you discharge it slowly (Wikipedia’s entry on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peukert%27s_law" target="_blank"><i>Peukert's law</i></a> describes this relationship and explains how most of the energy isn’t actually lost if the battery is given time to compose itself). Batteries are given their Ah rating based on discharging in a particular number of hours, e.g. my old batteries were rated at 1300Ah if discharged over 100h, but only around half that if you discharged them in 10h. This is shortened to saying the battery has a C100 rating of 1300Ah and a C10 rating of 650Ah. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Lead-acid: the dangers of sulphation!</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"></span></h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">If you want them to last a long time, lead acid batteries should be kept above 90% full in daily cycling, and never discharged below 70% when you have a long cloudy period (70% full is often described as 70% SOC - state of charge). This is because lead-acid batteries gradually sulphate according to how long and deeply they are discharged - insoluble lead sulphate crystals grow on the lead plates and stop the charge-discharge reaction. <br />When our lead-acid house batteries got below 80% SOC due to heavy cloud, we’d start worrying. We’d plan to run a backup generator and charge the batteries up. We weren’t running the backup because the lights were about to go out - our lead-acid batteries were still 70% or 80% SOC with enough storage to run our house for days. We were running the backup because we were worried about shortening our battery life due to sulphation. <br />So in reality, when you buy 1000Ah of lead-acid batteries, you’re getting maybe max 250Ah of useable storage if you want to get a long life from them, less than 250Ah if you are discharging at high currents. This doesn’t mean that lead-acid batteries are bad - their popularity is because they are relatively cheap, deliver high currents easily, and last a reasonable time if looked after well. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Deep discharging</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"></span></h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Most other battery chemistries don’t have the problem of being damaged by deep discharge in the way lead-acid batteries do (though they all have their own problems). For example Lithium batteries can deliver their full Ah capacity repeatedly, though I understand they can be more durable if cycled through a smaller capacity - e.g. between 10% and 90% full. Nickel-iron batteries, I am assured, do not suffer harm from deep discharge, nor from being left in a discharged state for a long time. In practical terms, this means that 200Ah of nickel-iron (or lithium) batteries will provide the same daily cycling ability as 800Ah or more of lead-acid. Nickel-iron solar batteries also tend to be given an Ah rating based on a 5 hour discharge, while lead-acid solar batteries tend to be rated on a 100h discharge. This artificially inflates the Ah capacity rating of the lead-acid battery. <br />Overall, this means you can’t usefully compare batteries directly on cost per Ah, because some batteries can be cycled deeply while others can’t, a battery delivers different Ah depending on what current you draw from it and batteries have very different life expectancies which greatly affects cost per year of service. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">When the sun goes away</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Having batteries that can sit in a deeply discharged state without damage is very attractive to me. When our mountain goes into the clouds for a few weeks, it would be great if we didn’t need to worry about the batteries being damaged by getting down in charge. We can stop all the big loads and just run fridge, lights and some electronics. We can leave the battery nearly flat, do some backup charging if we are really running out, and wait for the sun to charge the batteries fully again. This is the promise of nickel-iron batteries - no need for sulphation anxiety! </span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Equalisation, balance charging and regulation</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Any normal household solar power system uses some sort of regulator (also called a charge controller) between the solar panels and the battery, to control how the battery is charged. Mostly the regulator protects the battery from over-charging, but some regulators also give some information to the users about the battery state of charge. Depending on the type of battery, this charge regulation is more or less complex, largely regarding the problem of keeping each cell at the same state of charge as its sisters in the battery. <br />For clarification: a “battery” is a group of “cells” joined together, usually in series. However english language now tends to use the word battery to describe a single cell: e.g. a single AAA battery for a torch is really a single cell; a 12V car battery is made of 6 x 2V cells joined together in series. <br />Each cell in a battery is an individual, each having slight differences. As a battery cycles up and down over time, slight differences between cells can accumulate and become big differences in state of charge. One or two cells in a battery might lag behind the others, gradually becoming discharged while their sisters are full. In a lead-acid battery this could cause a cell or two to gradually sulphate and die young, wrecking the whole battery. To prevent this trouble, from time to time all the cells need to be brought up to being all completely full at the same time. This is called “equalisation”, and different battery chemistries require different solutions to achieve this. I’ll run through how different house battery types get equalised, so we can compare nickel-iron batteries to other types. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Equalising flooded lead-acid batteries</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"></span></h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Flooded lead-acid batteries (traditional cells with a liquid acid electrolyte that sloshes around in the cell case) are easy to equalise. Every few weeks, a higher than usual voltage is given to the battery, for a few hours, when it’s already full. This pushes a higher than usual (for a full battery) current through all the cells in series: in effect the battery is being over-charged. When a flooded lead-acid cell is full - the reaction of lead and sulphuric acid is complete - the electrical energy being pushed through it can no longer be stored as chemical energy. The energy has to go to waste somewhere, and in a flooded cell the energy is consumed in splitting water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen gas, that bubbles up through the electrolyte and out through the cell vent. Gassing like this happens to a lesser extent even when lead-acid cells aren’t full: the fuller they are, the less charging energy is stored and the more energy is wasted as gassing. This gas has a lot of energy in it, which can be released in an explosion if you give it a spark - that’s why you keep sparks and flames away from lead-acid (or nickel-iron) batteries. <br />While the charge current is flowing equally through all the cells in series, the full cells are losing the energy from the electric charging current as gas, and any cells that aren’t quite full can continue to store chemical energy - charge up - using the same current. Thus all the cells in the battery can gradually equalise - get full - at the same time, even though they may have started at different states of charge. <br />While this equalisation charge is happening, the flow of gas bubbles rising up between the lead plates in the flooded lead-acid cell has another important purpose: stirring up the electrolyte. The sulphuric acid in these batteries is heavier than the water it is dissolved in, and with time the acid can settle down to the bottom, making the electrolyte more acidic at the bottom of the cell and more watery at the top - this is called “stratification”. This is bad for the cells: the over-strong acid at the bottom can damage the lead; and bad for energy storage: the weak acid at the top doesn’t react as much with the lead so doesn’t store so much energy. Testing the electroyte in a lead-acid cell with a hydrometer (that measures the density of the acid and thus the SOC) can sometimes show low-density electrolyte (like a discharged battery) when the batteries are fully charged, just because of stratification: the batteries are full but the acid has sunk to the bottom. <br />To avoid stratification, the solar power system must deliver enough current to adequately stir the electrolyte. In my experience a battery will need PV panels that can give a charge current in Amps, of about 1/20th the Ah rating of the battery. This means a 1000Ah battery needs PV charge of at least 50A, when the midday sun is shining and the regulator is equalising, to keep its electrolyte stirred. This also means that bigger isn’t always better with flooded batteries: if your battery is too big for your PV array, you may not be able to keep the electrolyte stirred, and your battery may die young. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Key points for flooded lead-acid batteries</span></span></h4>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"></span></h4>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Here are a few key things for flooded lead-acid cells:</span></span><br />
<ul>
<li><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Flooded lead-acid batteries need to be periodically equalised to keep them equally full, by holding them at an extra-high voltage for a few hours. This is usually done automatically by the regulator, which can often be programmed to suit the particular battery type. </span></span></li>
<li><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Flooded lead-acid batteries are good at losing energy as gas when they are over-charged. Making this gas uses up water so the batteries need topping up. The regulator limits the charge voltage so that batteries don’t need topping up too frequently. </span></span></li>
<li><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Because they can lose energy so easily, a flooded lead-acid battery can be equalised by simply pushing extra current through all the cells until any lagging cells catch up with their sisters. </span></span></li>
<li><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Lead-acid cells need enough charging current to give them a good bubbling and keep the acid well-mixed. For this, they need enough PV panels charging them. </span></span></li>
</ul>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Sealed lead-acid batteries</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Sealed lead-acid (SLA) batteries, often titled valve regulated lead acid (VRLA) batteries, are common in houses. A lot of off-grid solar energy installers recommend sealed lead-acid batteries because sealed batteries don’t need regular topping up with demineralised water, and installers are fed up with customers who don’t maintain their batteries. <br />When SLA cells are working normally, the hydrogen and oxygen gas produced at their plates is re-combined to produce water and heat inside the cell. This system can only handle so much gas, so it’s very important not to over-charge sealed lead-acid batteries and overload the battery with gas. SLA cells also don’t have the problem of stratifying acid because their acid is trapped in gel or a glass mat, so they don’t need to stir their electrolyte with gas bubbles like a flooded cell. It’s very important to carefully regulate the charging of sealed lead-acid batteries, maintaining the right voltages and limiting gas production. Sealed lead-acid cells can’t handle overcharging by losing energy as vented hydrogen and oxygen gas. In a gel cell, excess gassing can cause the gel - containing the acid - to permanently lose contact with areas of the lead plates.<br />Sealed lead-acid batteries do need equalising by periodically holding them at a higher voltage for longer than their normal charge cycle, but they do this with lower voltages than flooded batteries, carefully controlled by a regulator. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">SLA key points</span></span></h4>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"></span></h4>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">The key things about sealed lead-acid batteries are:</span></span><br />
<ul>
<li><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">SLA batteries can’t lose energy by venting gas. </span></span></li>
<li><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">SLA batteries (especially gel batteries) can easily be damaged if they are charged at too high a voltage, so they need strict control of charging voltage by their regulator. </span></span></li>
<li><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">SLA batteries can lose some energy by internal gassing and recombination. This produces heat, which needs to be limited. </span></span></li>
<li><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Because SLA batteries can lose some energy internally, they can be equalised by carefully charging them all until any lagging cells catch up. </span></span></li>
<li><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">SLA batteries don’t need topping up.</span></span><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"></span><br /><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"></span></li>
</ul>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Lithium batteries</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"></span></h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">I love lithium batteries. They’re great on our electric bikes: they’re compact and light (compared to other battery types), they deliver high currents and some types last a long time. They aren’t damaged by being kept at a low SOC - as long as they’re not too flat. They make e-bikes into the marvellous transport machines they are. </span></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-j4V2T36iUbw/VOel-fGLjUI/AAAAAAAAAsM/zr-RMsOl3QUMInkK4WEB7c3UmKhCw3fYACPcBGAYYCw/s1600/IMG_0167.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-j4V2T36iUbw/VOel-fGLjUI/AAAAAAAAAsM/zr-RMsOl3QUMInkK4WEB7c3UmKhCw3fYACPcBGAYYCw/s320/IMG_0167.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's a 36V lithium iron phosphate bike battery: 12 x 3.3V cells in series, with the BMS on top, with thin wires going down to keep an eye on each cell. It also needs a special charger that gives the right current and limits to the right voltage</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">However lithium batteries are complex. This is because lithium cells are very fussy about how they’re charged. They are damaged by charging to too high a voltage, or discharging to too low a voltage. Lithium batteries need their cells balanced, like other battery types, but this can’t be done by over-charging all the cells in series like lead-acid batteries, because this risks taking some cells to a damaging voltage. Lithium cells can’t waste the surplus energy of being over-charged by gassing - like a flooded lead-acid cell - or heating - like a sealed lead-acid or nickel-metal-hydride cell. Over-charging damages them, so you can’t do it. <br />To keep lithium batteries within their safe bounds, they are managed and balanced by an electronic circuit, often called a battery management system (BMS), that is wired on to the battery. The BMS controls charging and discharging of the battery, shutting the battery’s output down if the voltage gets too low, or shutting down the charge if the voltage gets too high. The BMS also continuously measures the voltage of each cell, so it can shut down the whole battery output if one cell’s voltage gets too low. To equalise - or balance - the cells, the BMS has circuits that slowly discharge the fullest cells during charging, so the less full cells can catch up. This occurs every time the battery is charged to full, so only tiny adjustments are needed. <br />A lithium battery is very much dependent on its built-in BMS, as well as needing a solar charge regulator like any other battery type. It is a complex electronic device, as well as a chemical energy storage. If there is an electronic failure in the BMS, from component failure, lightning surge, etc., the parts and skills to repair it will be needed for the battery to provide power again. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Lithium key points</span></span></h4>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"></span></h4>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">The key points for lithium batteries are:</span></span><br />
<ul>
<li><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Lithium batteries are easily harmed by being charged at too high a voltage, because they aren’t able to lose any energy as gas, and not much by heat. </span></span></li>
<li><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Because of this, lithium batteries can’t be equalised by charging the whole set and waiting for lagging cells to catch up. </span></span></li>
<li><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Each cell needs to be individually controlled in voltage, with a BMS that gives individual lagging cells extra charging time and current.</span></span><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"></span><br /><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"></span></li>
</ul>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Charging and equalising nickel-iron batteries</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"></span></h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Each of the batteries described above - flooded lead-acid, sealed lead-acid and lithium - are more complex in their construction and require more careful and complex regulation than the previous type. Compared to all of them, nickel-iron batteries have the simplest charging needs. <br />Nickel-iron cells are flooded with electrolyte (like flooded lead-acid), so they can easily lose surplus energy as hydrogen and oxygen gas. They are so tolerant of gassing that they hardly need to be regulated. The main purposes of having a regulator on a Nife battery is not to protect the battery, it’s to reduce the amount of topping up with water required, and to avoid system voltages that are too high for the loads (especially the inverter). <br />This tolerance to over-charging means they can be equalised by simply charging the whole battery and letting any lagging cells catch up. <br />Nickel-iron cells are not damaged by being left at a low SOC, so a lagging cell won’t be harmed. However cells don’t get much change to lag, because of the over-charging nickel-iron batteries tend to get on any sunny day. </span></span><br />
<h4>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Nickel-iron key points</span></span></h4>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"></span></h4>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">To summarise:</span></span><br />
<ul>
<li><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Nickel-iron batteries easily lose energy as gas</span></span></li>
<li><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Equalisation is not usually an issue when Nife batteries are charged generously</span></span></li>
<li><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Nickel-iron batteries are tolerant of charging without a regulator (if currents aren’t too high) but a regulator reduces the need to add water and avoids voltages too high for the loads</span></span></li>
</ul>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Battery voltage</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Different battery chemistries produce different voltages. Lead acid cells - of all types - produce about 2V. Lithium cells in solar house systems (usually lithium iron phosphate) produce about 3.3V, but the chemistry in </span></span><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">lithium </span></span>18650 cells (like torches and many bike batteries use) produces about 3.7V. Nickel-iron cells produce about 1.2V each - so you need lots of them. </span></span></p><p><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Remember the voltage of a rechargeable cell varies a lot as it does its work each day: it rises when the cells are being charged, rises even more as they get full, and falls when being discharged. </span></span></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Energy density</span></span></h3><p><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Different battery types take more or less volume to hold an amount of energy. Lithium batteries have a very high energy density, being very small for the amount of energy they hold (and very light as well). That's why they're so good in electric bikes. Lead acid take more space per unit energy, and nickel-iron batteries have a low energy density and take a lot of space. Energy density isn't a major issue for a house designed to be off-grid (you just design a space for the batteries), but it can be relevant in a retrofit. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Efficiency of off-grid batteries</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Nickel-iron batteries gas a lot, even more than flooded lead-acid. This indicates a potentially low efficiency for these batteries - a lot of electric charge goes into them that is lost as gas, and won’t be coming back as electricity. This lack of efficiency could be a problem in some situations, where energy supply is very limited or expensive, but I don’t think it’s a big issue for most off-grid houses. <br />Battery charge efficiency is not usually a significant concern for off-grid household solar power systems. Normal off-grid solar systems are tremendously wasteful of the potential energy output of their PV panels. This is because enough panel power is installed for the house to survive normal times of less sunlight, like cloudy weather. That means that on sunny days, a typical off-grid house has filled its batteries before noon, and the PV panels are mostly switched off (by the regulator) for the rest of the day, except for loads that directly use the power. Batteries that are more efficient, such as sealed lead-acid or lithium, tend to reduce (taper) their charging current earlier in the day, so the energy they don’t waste inside their cells through gassing, is instead wasted by the regulator turning off the power of the PV panels. <br />For another way of looking at off-grid efficiency: if you add an extra PV panel to help address a power shortage during your few annual cloudy weeks, that panel’s power will be wasted for the sunny rest of the year. </span></span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">I recognise that battery efficiency can be very useful sometimes: in cloudy weather when the batteries are low and there is limited sunlight for a few days, efficient batteries can help you make the most of what you can harvest. <br />I argue that we should be cautious about the pursuit of technical efficiency energy- producing and using devices. More efficient panels, batteries or loads need to be looked at in the big picture. The real question for me is what technology and what behaviour results in the lowest total, long-term money and energy cost? This is our best indication of damage to the environment and how much of our life’s effort will need to be spent earning money. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">What if the regulator breaks down?</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">I seem to spend half of my life fixing things that have broken down: I know this is how things are so I plan for everything to break down and need fixing. I haven’t had a solar regulator break down in this house in decades, but I know this could change today - or more likely in the next thunderstorm. So I think it’s worth thinking ahead about how your solar battery would cope with a failed regulator. <br />The most vulnerable battery to breakdown would be lithium. A lithium battery uses a solar regulator to control the voltage from the PV panels, then has its internal BMS to regulate charge to each cell - there are lots of vulnerable components that could break down. To some extent the PV regulator and the BMS back eachother up: if either fails, the other will protect the lithium cells to a large extent, until the system is repaired. However, failure of either the PV regulator or any part of the BMS would probably put the battery out of action until a fairly major repair is done. <br />The next most vulnerable battery would be the sealed lead acid battery. Without a fully-working regulator, the charge from a PV array could easily kill an SLA - especially a gel battery - in one sunny day (I haven’t tried this - let me know if you prove me wrong). <br />A flooded lead-acid battery is reasonably resilient. A modestly-sized PV array could be used to charge a flooded battery without a regulator, if some attention was paid to voltage and the PV switched off at a reasonable time. Over-charging would normally simply result in extra water loss. <br />Nickel-iron easily wins the regulator resilience race. Unregulated on a sunny day, Nife batteries could create annoying high voltages and bubble a lot, but (unless they have a really oversized PV array cooking them) they won’t come to any harm. I believe some people run them without regulators on purpose. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Durability</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">I’m in no position to make my own claims about nickel-iron battery durability, because my personal experience is so short, but manufacturers’ claims and the accepted wisdom is pretty consistent: they last for decades, 30 or 40 years easily. This makes a huge difference to the energy, materials and money cost per year, or per energy delivered. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Electrolyte replacement</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Nickel-iron batteries do need major maintenance every 7 to 10 years: electrolyte replacement. I’ve never done this. <br />Their electrolyte is potassium hydroxide, a strong alkali. However the atmosphere we live in tends to make water acidic: carbon dioxide from the air dissolves in water to make carbonic acid. That’s why rainwater is quite acidic and makes stalagtites in limestone caves, and is why increasing CO2 in the atmosphere is making seawater more acidic and damaging shelled sea creatures. The battery electrolyte absorbs CO2 from the air and is gradually neutralised - gets less alkaline. When this makes the battery lose its mojo, you need to tip out the electrolyte and put in a fresh batch. This would be a significant job, I imagine taking a day or 2. The good thing is that potassium hydroxide is not toxic, and it can safely be diluted onto earth and plants. </span></span><br />
<h2>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">My experience of nickel-iron batteries</span></span></h2>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"></span></h2>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">That’s enough theory about solar house batteries. Now to my actual experience with nickel-iron. </span></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nz5NPVsDzFk/XqTGuVaad9I/AAAAAAAACA0/1983Qcz-GsAxAmh4Q5sIZXR3U-Abnq7FwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_0001.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nz5NPVsDzFk/XqTGuVaad9I/AAAAAAAACA0/1983Qcz-GsAxAmh4Q5sIZXR3U-Abnq7FwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_0001.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">All the PV electricity for our house comes from these panels on the shed - about 1.5kW of old 12V panels, mostly Kyocera. You can see a lot of wood energy is also stored in this shed. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Purchase and delivery</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"></span></h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">I bought my 24V, 200Ah nickel-iron battery from David Bartlett at <a href="http://www.ironcorebatteries.com.au/">www.ironcorebatteries.com.au</a>, in August 2019. They cost $5214, delivered to a Brisbane trucking depot, arriving less than a week after I completed payment. The 20 cells were packed in a plywood crate approx 1m x .5m x .5m, weighing about 240kg, which was forklifted onto my friend’s ute. <br />Cells were individually packed in plastic bags, each filled with electrolyte, but we had no spills. Sometimes NiFe cells are delivered dry, and the installer must mix the potassium hydroxide electrolyte and fill the cells - this takes a day or 2. The package also included 20 cell joining straps, made of nickel-plated steel, plus plastic strap covers (to reduce the risk of accidental short-circuits, e.g. by dropping a spanner onto the top of the batteries). Each cell weighed only about 12kg, so they were easy to lift out of the crate and carry into place. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Installation</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"></span></h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">To fit into my available space, I arranged the 20 x 1.2V cells in 3 rows. I was able to use the same battery box we’ve used for nearly 20 years, this being the 3rd set of batteries to live in it (and before that I had several sets of previous batteries - see why I’m thinking about battery life?). </span></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-keTFhWq2pH4/XqS8O8bCGPI/AAAAAAAACAE/Aa946KZGh8YNI9CN7emhVzOwim_o0GsAgCEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_0002.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-keTFhWq2pH4/XqS8O8bCGPI/AAAAAAAACAE/Aa946KZGh8YNI9CN7emhVzOwim_o0GsAgCEwYBhgL/s320/IMG_0002.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">20 x 200Ah 1.2V nickel-iron cells in 3 rows. This box previously held our lead-acid house batteries: 6 x 1300Ah 2V cells - that took about the same volume. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">The set came with joining straps that connected adjacent cells, but the rows on different shelves needed to be joined with heavy conductors, to carry high discharge currents without a big voltage drop. I used pieces of 1/2” copper pipe, hammered flat and with a hole punched in each end, as conductors between rows. I calculated the pipe had a cross section of about 30mm2, which gives a current density of a little over 1A/mm2 when 40A (1kW) is being drawn from the batteries (10A/mm2 is considered to be a maximum current density). If I drew 80A, for a 2kW load on a sunny day, I could expect to draw around 40A from the batteries and 40A from the PV panels. </span></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ccTT1RRsYBM/XqTDRov3VrI/AAAAAAAACAM/FuzyID20MKgP7cw8MiEPxoZoTl4BAeTBgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_0653.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ccTT1RRsYBM/XqTDRov3VrI/AAAAAAAACAM/FuzyID20MKgP7cw8MiEPxoZoTl4BAeTBgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_0653.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's a copper strap made of flattened 1/2" copper pipe, between 2 cell links, joining 2 rows of cells</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">The Ironcore 200Ah batteries have 20mm diameter, nickel plated, threaded steel studs as their positive and negative poles, so you need connectors with 20mm holes in them. This is a big hole, beyond the normal capability of backyard workshop drill presses (I don’t normally drill metal bigger than 13mm, my drill press chuck goes up to 16mm, and I don’t know if my drill press would go slow enough for 20mm if I had a 20mm drill bit that fit in it). I made some extra connectors by punching holes in flattened 1” copper pipe and drifting the holes to size - a blacksmithing process. </span></span><br />
<h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Behaviour of the new NiFe batteries</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"></span></h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">In practice, nickel-iron batteries are quite different from the lead-acid batteries I’m used to, in two main ways: they have a wide voltage range, and they have limited ability to carry current. I suspect that both of these characteristics are because the nickel-iron chemical reaction is slower than other chemistries. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Voltage range</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"></span></h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">The first obvious difference between Nife and lead-acid batteries is the wide voltage range between full and empty, and between charging and discharging. Battery voltage in our system ranges from 19V to nearly 34V (lead-acid range would be around 24V to 30V), sometimes covering this over short periods - e.g. if I switch on a 700w electric jug on a morning when the battery is deeply discharged, the voltage might drop from 29V to 19V. A normal day might range from about 25V to 33.8V. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Early challenges</span></span></h3>
<h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"></span></h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">It took me a while to learn how to use our new nickel-iron battery, especially given the lack of good information about how to set a regulator for them. <br />For the first few months, I limited the maximum voltage to 31.5V, because this was the highest our DC fridge and freezer could tolerate (with 12-24V Danfoss compressors). While the 2019 drought was on with endless blue skies, this worked alright, but when the 2020 rainy season arrived and we went into the clouds, the battery couldn’t keep things running through the first sunless day - it dropped under 19V under a small load, and got too low to run the DC fridge. I quickly realised I must have been running the battery at too low a voltage, so what I thought was a full battery was actually nearly flat. <br />One of the clues I had that I’d given the battery too low a charging voltage, was that the cells were losing so little water. I hadn’t topped them up since new, nearly 6 months, because the electrolyte levels were going down so slowly. <br />Another clue was the battery’s intolerance of high discharge currents. In the morning, before the sun was on the panels, a 700w electric jug (that’s a really low powered jug) would drop the battery under 19V and set off the inverter’s low voltage shut down - with mood-enhancing alarm sound. <br />Clue 3 was the low charging currents I noticed from the PV supply. The battery could be rather flat, but might only take 10A from panels that could supply 40A (this was because I had set the charge voltage too low on the regulator). <br />Once I worked out how to set the regulator to suitably high charging voltages (see below), our nickel-iron battery was transformed. It’s now a bundle of energy: the voltage rarely dips below 24V at night, usually staying above 25V, even at low SOC. The lowest I’ve seen the SOC since upping the charge voltage was 17% (according to the regulator). At this SOC, the battery still keeps everything running fine (although we are very electricity frugal in cloudy weather when the SOC gets that low), and the low SOC causes no harm to the battery at all. The morning electric jug is no problem at all (but we only use it if we expect a sunny day!). <br />At the higher voltage settings, the cells gas more, and I need to top them up more frequently - once every month or 2. This is not a problem - if you can’t remember to top up your house battery, you probably forget to put petrol in your car or water your lettuces too. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Regulator settings</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"></span></h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">I use a Plasmatronics PL60 regulator, one that we used for 12 years on our flooded lead-acid batteries. I really like these PL regulators: good quality, made in Australia, programmable, and they count Ah and estimate SOC so you have some idea of how flat your battery is in cloudy weather - many regulators don’t. </span></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6X2ht1doN8I/XqTF2vZIFyI/AAAAAAAACAs/u_Am0DrQRqEw2Fbv08TTHf0boCicqWXiwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_0683.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6X2ht1doN8I/XqTF2vZIFyI/AAAAAAAACAs/u_Am0DrQRqEw2Fbv08TTHf0boCicqWXiwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_0683.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's our Plasmatronics PL60 - after nearly 20 years of working 24/7. On its left are DC and AC circuit breakers.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">When I realised my Nife problems were due to low charging voltages, I found I couldn’t set the PL60 to the high voltages I needed. I called Plasmatronics (Australian made, by people who know their product!) who, although they hadn’t any experience with Nife batteries, came up with a work-around. On their advice, I went into the regulator settings menu and used the temperature compensation setting to add about 2V to all the settings - tricking the regulator into thinking the batteries were very cold and needed higher charging voltages (that’s what lead acid batteries need in cold climates). <br />If you’re using a PL regulator, this is what I did: <br />SET -> REG -> TCMP -> change setting from 0 to 6. This adds about 2V to charge voltage settings<br />SET -> REG -> BMAX -> set max boost voltage to 31.8, giving a real life boost voltage of 33.8<br />SET -> REG -> EMAX -> set equalisation voltage to 31.8 - giving 33.8V<br />SET -> REG -> ABSV -> set absorb voltage to 31.0 - giving 33.0V. <br />SET -> REG -> ATIM -> set absorption time to 4 hours. <br />SET -> REG -> FLTV -> set float voltage to 28.0V - giving 30.0V <br />Some settings could be reduced if there is too much water loss by gassing - I think this is likely in sunny seasons. Also settings might need to be taken down a notch if the voltage sometimes goes over the inverter’s maximum for a moment - this has happened to me. <br />The maximum charging voltage is about 33.8V - just under 1.7V per cell. I’ve set this maximum to avoid the inverter having a high DC volts shutdown - maximum DC input to our inverter is 34V, and it shuts down and alarms if it gets to 34V (a Selectronics SE22 with 20 years service here). I think an inverter running on a 24V nickel-iron battery would need a high DC voltage capability of at least 34V. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">The 19 cell option</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"></span></h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">I have read that some people use 19 cells, instead of the standard 20 cells, for a 24V system. This reduces the overall voltage by about 1.2V at night (when the battery is discharging) and by up to 1.7V in the day when the PV is charging. <br />This strategy would solve a lot of the problems I’ve had with regulators (getting a high enough voltage to charge the battery properly) and fridges (having too high a voltage for the compressor). I haven’t tried it yet because I’m reluctant to lose the 1.2V in cloudy weather when the battery voltage goes low, with consequently earlier low voltage shutdown of the inverter. You could reasonably say that most of the problems I’ve had with my nickel-iron battery have been because of my sticking with 20 cells. I’ll keep the 19 cell option in mind. <br />If you can’t get a regulator or inverter that can cope with the high voltages of a 20 cell Nife battery, dropping a cell is a reasonable solution - that I haven't tried. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Why we should make hay when the sun shines</span></span></h3>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Using power when it's sunny, and not using it when it's dark or cloudy, is fundamental to using solar energy. This might seem obvious, like making banana bread when you have a ripe bunch. However cheap fossil-fuel-based energy has made us blind to the variability of most natural resources, and perhaps somewhat entitled to having as much energy as we want whenever we want. <br />As I described at the beginning of this post, storing solar energy costs about 10 times as much as producing it. You can imagine one kWh of solar electricity, stored in a battery and used at night, is worth about 11 times as much (the cost of generating plus the cost of storing) as a kWh used in the day. Even if some revolutionary battery storage cost 1/10 as much as it currently does - costing the same as PV generation - night power would still have twice the cost of day power. <br />Of course, off-grid power is much more complex than this. If you’re having a sunny week, each afternoon your regulator might be wasting nearly all your panels’ production because your battery is full and you’ve done all your big electric jobs for the day. That wasted solar energy has zero value (but it did cost money). At the other extreme, if you’re in the middle of a rainy month, your battery is nearly flat, you have a freezer full of beef, your generator has broken down and you insist on vacuuming the carpet, that little bit of power might cost you a fortune. <br />These sorts of limits affect energy systems at all sorts of scales. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Tasmanian_energy_crisis" target="_blank">Here’s a fascinating story about what happened to Tasmania in 2016</a>, when they had a hydro power drought and lost their backup power. I note that in the face of this crisis, the Tasmanian government didn’t raise the price of electricity to reduce demand, and have kept the cost of backup diesel generators a secret - perhaps they saw a political imperative not to challenge people’s sense of entitlement to cheap energy. <br />If our goal is to reduce the cost of our off-grid solar power, or if it’s to reduce our carbon emissions, we should maximise our direct use of PV power while it’s being produced, and minimise our dependence on battery storage. It’s the same: by reducing our long-term cost, we reduce our long-term carbon emissions, and we usually get a more resilient system. </span></span><h3>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">How to manage demand</span></span></h3>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Successful living with solar power is like growing a vegetable garden. You need to work within a philosophy, build systems, and develop your skills. On a sunny day the gardener might water her lettuces and shade her seedlings, while the solar power user might run the washing machine, pump water and make tea with the electric jug. I think there’s no way around learning to become conscious of the energy supply and matching tasks to it. <br />As an example, let’s look at how we cook in our house. If there is sun on our PV panels, and our batteries are reasonably full, we cook on a portable benchtop induction cooker, and boil our 700w Birko electric jug. If it’s cloudy and we have a medium amount of cooking to do, we’ll light a charcoal fire. If we want to make a little expresso coffee or re-heat a cup of tea, we can use our LPG gas ring (our 9kg LPG refill is now over 5 years old). For major cooking tasks in the daytime, or dinner every evening, we light our big Rayburn slow combustion cooker - burning wood. We didn’t design our PV system for electric cooking, but we can do most of our daytime cooking using solar electricity that otherwise would be wasted. This electric cooking saves us time and saves charcoal or wood fuel. The LPG is just a very cheap luxury, because we don’t use it for serious cooking. <br />When it’s sunny, we pump water, cut firewood with the electric chainsaw, do vacuuming, run the washing machine, use electric saws and planes in the workshop, etc.. Our loads need to stay within the power capacity of the inverter: there is a limit to our maximum power (in watts) as well as our supply of energy (in kilowatt hours). We can use up to 4kWh these days. <br />In cloudy weather we reduce loads. No electric cooking, essential pumping only, minimal workshop machines. We can stay under 1kWh on these days. <br />A few times a year we have extended heavy cloud with nearly no solar input. If the fridge and freezer are doing low voltage shutdowns, we'll turn them off overnight - even a cloudy day usually provides enough solar input to get them to run. We'll leave the inverter turned off most of the day, turning it on for limited periods to charge computers, grind some coffee or briefly run a bench grinder. </span></span><h3>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Daylight drive</span></span></h3>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">While I was searching around the web for information about nickel-iron batteries, I found a mob called Living Energy Farms (LEF). LEF take the principle of minimising dependence on batteries to its logical conclusion: many of their home and farm machines are run by a micro-grid that uses DC panel power, direct to loads, without battery storage. They call this “daylight drive” because work can only be done when there is sunlight on the PV panels. They have about 1400w of panels, (maybe 6 x 230w) connected in series, that drive 180V (nominal) DC motors they have installed on a range of machines. Their system is exceptionally resilient and low cost, but would take a fair bit of technical work to set up. <br /><a href="http://livingenergyfarm.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/electric.pdf" target="_blank">Here’s a brief description</a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvdExgvHnRI&feature=emb_logo" target="_blank">a video</a>. </span></span><h3>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Backup charging</span></span></h3><p>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Occasionally we need to backup charge our batteries, when there is inadequate sunlight to keep minimal loads operating (the fridges being the key load). NiFe batteries make backup charging a challenge, because they need such high voltages to charge at a reasonable rate. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Normal battery chargers, like our old Woods charger, don't produce a high enough voltage to charge our NiFe battery when driven by a petrol generator. The Woods can however charge half the cells at a time. <br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">At first we used our old Christie charger, a direct charging unit with a small Honda motor and a large car alternator, made to produce DC power straight into a 12V battery. With the nickel-iron battery, we use the Christie charger to charge 7 or 8 NiFe cells in series, then move the clamps along to charge another 7 or 8 cells. This doesn’t add up to 20 cells, so some cells get much more charging than others but they can cope fine with this: they will easily balance out their states of charge in sunny weather; but it's a messy way to do charging. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">I've since modified our Christie charger to deliver a higher charging voltage and can now charge 10 cells (half the battery) with full control of charging current (the 12V alternator can't deliver enough voltage for the 24V set). 1/2 hour charging on each half of the battery generally gets us out of trouble on a cloudy day. I plan to use the same modification on a 24V alternator so I can charge the full battery. <br /></span></span></p><h3>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"> </span></span><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">DC loads</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">I like to run our lights, fridge, freezer and a few other small things on DC circuits, direct from the battery. I know the modern way is to run everything at 230V through the inverter, but I think it’s more efficient, safe and resilient to have DC circuits as well. <br />Having DC circuits is efficient. When we go to bed at night, we turn off our inverter (it's in our bedroom, so that’s easy). This saves about 25Ah of energy overnight (over 0.5kWh), that would otherwise go into running the inverter and powering various little things that are left plugged in, like cordless phones etc.. The fridge and freezer can still run on their DC circuit, and the DC lights can still be turned on. 25Ah may be trivial in sunny weather, but when we’re in the clouds for a month, it makes a huge difference to our energy balance. <br />Using DC circuits is also more resilient. Like I keep saying: everything breaks down; and this includes inverters. A good inverter costs a few thousand dollar$, most of us don’t keep a spare in the shed, and it could take days or months to get a new one (perhaps more if a virus has shut down China) and get an installer to visit. With DC lights and fridge, a broken-down inverter won’t leave us in the dark with rotting food - although of course other failures could put us in that situation. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">DC lights</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">25 years ago, it was normal for off-grid houses to have DC lights, running straight off the house battery. Now it’s unusual, because PV panels are much cheaper and people are much richer - lights usually run on AC from the inverter. So it’s become harder to find good quality DC lights for a house. <br />Lately we’ve been buying LED bulbs with a wide voltage range: the seller states 24-36V, but we’ve had no trouble when house battery voltage has dropped to 19V. We’ve been buying from <a href="http://www.12vmonster.com/">www.12vmonster.com</a>. The bulbs are quite expensive (over AU$20 each), but we’ve had no failures. We mostly use 15w bulbs in our living area. </span></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nn0HsJfJJwQ/XqTEWiqEOlI/AAAAAAAACAY/C6yMX4x7niga6MjfJfe31pNX2OeitvA7QCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_0680.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nn0HsJfJJwQ/XqTEWiqEOlI/AAAAAAAACAY/C6yMX4x7niga6MjfJfe31pNX2OeitvA7QCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_0680.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's the 15w LED light that lights our dining table - from 12vmonster</td></tr>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">There are lots of “LED Corn Bulbs” available on ebay at low prices, but these have repeatedly proven to be very short lived. </span></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-d5noMfAuwIo/XqTE0uuscQI/AAAAAAAACAg/xDVKyLp7lOQdG7ZsoIjvmd6DvduQwpIAgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_0681.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-d5noMfAuwIo/XqTE0uuscQI/AAAAAAAACAg/xDVKyLp7lOQdG7ZsoIjvmd6DvduQwpIAgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_0681.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">These "corn bulbs" from ebay don't last long - sometimes only minutes</td></tr>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Another thing we have done for lights is to make up lights using cheap little constant-current constant-voltage (CC CV) power supplies from ebay. These cost only $2 - 3 each, take an input voltage of up to 35V, and can be adjusted to give an output from 1V to 30V. I use them to run some of our old 12V lights, and they are also very good for running LEDs. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">DC fridge and freezer</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"></span></h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">We use a DC fridge and a DC freezer. These are very efficient. They also allow us to leave our inverter turned off at night, or when we go away from home for a few days, and if we had an inverter breakdown they could keep running. I’ll write a separate post about the tricks of running them on the nickel-iron battery. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Summary</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">If you're planning an off-grid power system:</span></span><br />
<ul>
<li><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">develop skills: learn to be aware of your solar supply and how full your batteries are</span></span></li>
<li><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">sometimes it's sunny, sometimes it's not: match your loads to your energy supply</span></span></li>
<li><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">installing and replacing batteries is a major, ongoing cost</span></span></li>
<li><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">expect everything to break down some time</span></span></li>
<li><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">DC lights and fridges can make your system more resilient to breakdowns and cloudy weather</span></span></li>
<li><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">your expectations are your greatest challenge to living off-grid! </span></span></li>
</ul>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Here are some key points if you’re considering a Nife battery:</span></span><br />
<ul>
<li><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">you’ll need to set unusually high regulator settings - check that your regulator can go high enough</span></span></li>
<li><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">your inverter will need to work at higher than usual voltages </span></span></li>
<li><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">or you’ll need to drop down to 19 cells (in a 24V system)</span></span></li>
<li><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">you’ll need to top up with distilled/demineralised water</span></span></li>
<li><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">you’ll need to plan on replacing the electrolyte every 7 - 10 years</span></span></li>
<li><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">the best thing is you don't have to worry about damaging them with deep discharges </span></span></li>
</ul>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">NIckel-iron batteries are very different from usual off-grid solar batteries. They won’t suit someone who isn’t engaged in their household systems - but I reckon learning how to understand and look after the systems you (and your neighbours) depend on is a key strategy for getting on in this world. <br />I’m very happy with our new nickel-iron batteries. I’m expecting them to be reliable and long-lasting, as long as I keep up the distilled water to them and can replace the electrolyte when needed. I think they’ll be an asset to a low-cost, resilient household. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Extra info and links</span></span></h2>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Edison battery</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">This website: <a href="http://www.nickel-iron-battery.com/">www.nickel-iron-battery.com</a> has some information about nickel-iron batteries, including a historic brochure from the Edison Storage Battery Company, which can be downloaded directly from this link: <a href="http://www.nickel-iron-battery.com/edison_brochure.pdf">www.nickel-iron-battery.com/edison_brochure.pdf</a></span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Damn the matrix</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">My friend Mike Stasse was the first (and I think only) person I personally know to get a nickel-iron battery for his house. His blog posts about his experience are worth a look: <br /><a href="https://damnthematrix.wordpress.com/2016/05/28/patience-is-a-virtue-they-say/">https://damnthematrix.wordpress.com/2016/05/28/patience-is-a-virtue-they-say/</a><br /><a href="https://damnthematrix.wordpress.com/tag/nickel-iron/">https://damnthematrix.wordpress.com/tag/nickel-iron/</a></span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Living Energy Farm</span></span></h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">These people use radical but well tried and tested systems for managing energy, including NiFe batteries and their very interesting "daylight drive": <a href="http://livingenergyfarm.org/">http://livingenergyfarm.org/</a></span></span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span>Bruce Teaklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00911602199839526224noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796610487071943623.post-26634432039677505232020-02-25T17:54:00.007+10:002024-01-08T07:54:24.555+10:00Baumr SX45 (Chinese 4500 45cc chainsaw) Review<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9bMMEcjuclA/XlTJsRVmX6I/AAAAAAAAB-g/VN1RhD0Z0ZwT6FBFbu0dfIX4XWXFYBU2ACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_0623.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="298" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9bMMEcjuclA/XlTJsRVmX6I/AAAAAAAAB-g/VN1RhD0Z0ZwT6FBFbu0dfIX4XWXFYBU2ACLcBGAsYHQ/s400/IMG_0623.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>An extremely cheap small-medium sized chainsaw manufactured with a sound design, but poor quality control. If you get a good quality bar and chain for it and have some chainsaw mechanic skills, this could be an economical, capable, resilient and repairable saw. </i></span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Summary</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"></span></h3><p>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">I’ve been testing the Baumr SX45 as a chainsaw to use for light felling and limbing, mostly while thinning forest. So far I like this saw: light enough, powerful enough, reliable, easy to repair. It’s a generic Chinese product with cheap and easy access to generic spare parts. <br />The main problem with this model (sold with the Baumr brand) is that the chain is really way thinner gauge than the bar so it won’t work very well for long. I also think the bar is way too long. The chain and bar problem is, however, easy and pretty cheap to repair. You can expect to have other quality control problems to fix when you buy these saws. </span></span></p><p><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">I've been testing a few of these saws, some with friends, over the last 3 years. They're all still working and I'm liking them more. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Bush repair</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"></span></h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">The last few months of drought and terrible bushfires should be teaching white Australians that we’ve had the wrong relationship with the Australian bush. For 2 centuries we’ve turned our back on the sophisticated Aboriginal culture of forest management with cool fires, and now most of the country is a real mess. Many forests are now so thick and flammable that they can’t be simply burnt back into good condition: they need a lot of work, cutting and dealing with the fuel, before they can be safely treated with a cool fire. <br />Currently, the Australian way to manage the bush depends on big machinery: pushing up piles, smashing soil and plants, burning waste in huge, hot windrow fires. I don’t think this is the way to fix the forest - but wait and see how much pressure comes, after these bushfires, to send the bulldozers around every house, town or road that has a risk of fire. <br />In forests around human settlement, we can step down fuel loads with selective cutting of undergrowth and thinning of trees. This produces lots of fuel that needs careful disposal, so as not to damage living trees or soil with hot fire - hopefully some fuel can be burnt productively, like heating houses, cooking food, making charcoal. Then the forest might be ready to re-start cool burns and re-establish the more open, less flammable forests of Aboriginal times. </span></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YsX4bCUJH7o/XlTLerQE45I/AAAAAAAAB-w/UJoEofUMr5INpTP-dy5-62pjfUlw9HhnwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_0438.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YsX4bCUJH7o/XlTLerQE45I/AAAAAAAAB-w/UJoEofUMr5INpTP-dy5-62pjfUlw9HhnwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_0438.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's a patch of badly overgrown native forest near Stanthorpe, Qld. The old stringybark is crowded by 60 year old black cypress trees. In a fire, the understorey would burn so hot it would incinerate the older stringybarks. </td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tqbRF5w6b6M/XlTLuKZA09I/AAAAAAAAB-0/9tQ-eWHYB7AtAhA9EVdqiNik3DzwwGxeQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_0421.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tqbRF5w6b6M/XlTLuKZA09I/AAAAAAAAB-0/9tQ-eWHYB7AtAhA9EVdqiNik3DzwwGxeQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_0421.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's a nearby forest area that has been thinned by chainsaw and then given a cool burn. A new ground cover is starting to grow. </td></tr>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Small saws for forest thinning</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Doing this sort of thinning work over the last few years, has introduced me to small chainsaws. Previously I used bigger saws, when I was focussed on milling larger trees for timber. Now, spending many hours thinning, I have a new interest in small saws, light for lifting up and down all day, just powerful enough for the small wood I’m cutting. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">The economic thinning saw</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">My favourite thinning saws have been the Stihl 024: 42cc engine, running .325” chain. These are light, reliable and repairable, with easy access to non-genuine parts (here's <a href="https://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/2018/04/repairing-stihl-024-or-026-with-huztl.html" target="_blank">my blog post about them</a>). However, small professional saws are very expensive new (the Stihl MS261, the smallest professional Stihl sold in Australia, costs about AU$1500). Farmertec sell a Stihl 026 / MS260 copy, but it's around AU$500. Even a suitably sized Stihl consumer saw like the MS231 costs $750 - a good quality unit that will work well straight out of the shop, but not cheap or easy to repair (few non-genuine parts). For an explanation of the difference between professional and consumer chainsaws see <a href="https://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/2017/11/huztl-farmertec-036-chainsaw-kit-review.html" target="_blank">my post about the Huztl MS360 kit</a>. <br />Minimising what we spend to do what we need to do is important: minimum spend is minimum carbon emissions, minimum need to earn money and maximum time to do what needs to be done. <br />So I’ve been looking at what are available as cheap but good enough thinning saws - good enough means reasonable to use, reliable and cheaply and easily repairable. The Baumr SX45, from ebay, cost AU$91 delivered. I wanted to find out what they’re like, and if they could make a good thinning saw, so I bought one (and then another!). </span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">The generic Chinese chainsaw</span></span></h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sEXJRQQf-Uo/XlTJoDwJr7I/AAAAAAAAB-c/sSo8s7nlC4EhzKf0pyCqm2nBi_nU5pttwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_0622.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sEXJRQQf-Uo/XlTJoDwJr7I/AAAAAAAAB-c/sSo8s7nlC4EhzKf0pyCqm2nBi_nU5pttwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_0622.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's the SX45 with a 13" GB bar. Note the metal bar oil tank below the muffler, with a slightly corrugated surface - this is one of the characteristic marks of the Chinese 45cc chainsaw</td></tr>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"></span></h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">The Baumr SX45 is a 45cc petrol chainsaw, based on a standard Chinese model that is marketed under many brands. In Australia brands include Baumr, Giantz, Rockwell, etc., and there are a range of other brand names used overseas for the same basic saw. The well-known Chinese chainsaw parts online shop Huztl.com sells this saw as a Joncutter G4500. There are various minor variations in the cladding of the saw under different brands, but the essential parts appear to remain the same. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Is the SX45 a copy?</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"></span></h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">I expected, when I bought the SX45, that it would be a copy of a big brand saw - probably a Husqvarna (the Baumr SX82 appears to be a close copy of the Husqvarna 372). It does have some Husqvarna design characteristics (like having the carby on the same chassis as the motor), but as far as I can see it isn’t a close copy and doesn’t have interchangeable parts with any particular big brand saw. For example, the piston diameter of 43mm is not shared with any major brand saw I can find. The clutch drum doesn’t match any old-brand saw I can find either (internal drum diameter of 68mm, bore 15mm) but is shared by many Chinese saws and are easily bought online. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">The professional saw </span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"></span></h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Roughly speaking, chainsaw designs are divided between professional and consumer. Professional saws have a metal (I hear it’s a magnesium alloy) crankcase coming in 2 halves with a vertical joint in the middle. This allows easy and quick servicing or replacement of piston and cylinder. The metal crankcase casting also forms a chassis for the saw and includes the bar oil tank. The chain bar studs are threaded into the metal chassis, and the cylinder is bolted down onto the crankcase. This design is strong and easy to repair and is used by many manufacturers for their professional saws. Big brand manufacturers like Stihl and Husqvarna sell professional saws for 50% to 100% higher prices than their consumer saws, which is worth it to professional users. <br />Consumer saws are quite different: they have a plastic frame with a metal engine inside, using only just enough cast metal to form a cylinder and crankcase. The chain bar studs are screwed into a plastic moulding. These saws work well but as they age they’re less durable and more difficult to repair. <br />Despite its low price, the SX45 has a professional type of design, with a metal chassis and easily unbolted cylinder. I’m not saying it’s a “professional saw”, but the design gave me some hope it’s a unit that could be maintained and repaired for a long and productive life. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Spare parts</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Machines wear and break. Any tool I depend on needs to be repairable, which includes having access to parts at reasonable cost. <br />Parts for this saw are easily available from several sources including Aliexpress, Ebay and Huztl. They are often listed with titles including “4500 chainsaw” or “Chinese 45cc chainsaw”. All the usual parts are cheaply available, including clutch drums, clutches, ignition modules, cylinder and piston kits, carburettors, etc.. <br />Huztl stocks some parts, including outer panels, clutch cover, etc., for their Joncutter 4500 which I expect would fit the SX45, but strangely not the clutch drum - a frequently changed part. <br />This easy availability of spare parts indicates that there are a lot of people - somewhere - repairing these saws. That’s a good sign for its essential quality as a machine. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">First impressions</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"></span></h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">I was pleased with the saw, on arrival. It seems strongly built and I like the metal chassis. The saw started easily after fuelling and oiling, and was tuned slightly rich as a new saw should be - this increases lubrication of the piston and cylinder and reduces the top speed while running the saw in. After a few tanks of fuel the carby can be leaned out slightly, to get a little more power and make a bit less smoke. <br />With full tanks and a 13” bar with chain, the SX45 weighs 6.5kg. This is 5% heavier than a Stihl 024 at 6.2kg, but the SX45 also has an engine with just over 5% more cc’s. <br />The rewind starter is a bit strange: it seems to have 2 springs. The action of pulling the starter cord does not directly turn the crankshaft: a second spring seems to take up the tension, then crank over the motor with a delayed effect. This is a bit annoying to me - you can’t really feel what the compression is like. Some new Stihl consumer saws have a similar mechanism, maybe it compensates for the ongoing decline in consumer arm strength. I’m sure I can modify it if it breaks or annoys me too much. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Problems</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"></span></h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">If you’re going to buy cheap saws like this, you can expect to have some problems to solve - a bit like if you buy a 2nd hand saw, but better because you have a warranty if the problem is bad enough. I accept that if I buy a cheap saw or a kit saw, I’ll need to give them some attention. <br />There are 2 types of quality problems with these saws. Firstly there are the predictable and consistent ones from bad planning or design: the main one is<br />the bar gauge (a problem I expected and which I expect all these saws to have). Secondly are the random problems of poor quality control, for example I had an off-centre clutch drum (a real surprise, but I expect it is rare). <br />All the problems I’ve had so far were easily remedied. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Chain bar gauge problem</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"></span></h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">The few Baumr chainsaws I’ve seen share a problem common with many Chinese chainsaw bars: the bar groove is way too wide for the chain. This is a design/planning problem, that I think all these saws can be expected to have, even though it could be solved without being more expensive. <br />The SX45 is sold with a chain that is 1.5mm (.058”) gauge (the thickness of the drive links that slide along in the bar groove). However the groove in the bar is way too wide for this, making the supplied chain very sloppy in the supplied bar. This would probably work okay for a while, but would soon enough give trouble as the chain leans to one side and the bar has trouble following in the cut. <br />There are two effective solutions to this bar guage problem. The best solution for most people would be to get another good quality bar with matching chain - I give more detail at the bottom of this post. <br />The cheap and more troublesome solution is to install a chain with a bigger gauge into the supplied bar: a 1.6mm (.063”) gauge chain fits easily. After the paint was worn out of the groove by the chain (in the first session of cutting) the 1.6mm chain was loose and the bar groove needed closing. This isn’t hard to do: have a look at my video on hammering and dressing chainsaw bars:<br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1gyOhSIu-c">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1gyOhSIu-c</a><br />Periodic hammering and dressing is part of using cheap Chinese bars - get used to doing it if you don’t want to buy expensive bars (which will eventually need the same treatment if you want them to have a long life). </span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Bar length</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"></span></h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OEpH4xXSx-s/XtI8TjsmsVI/AAAAAAAACCE/Mob8qKZ6KPchwBvaBYkVk_2pq4dj56ePACK4BGAsYHg/IMG_0695.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1936" data-original-width="2592" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OEpH4xXSx-s/XtI8TjsmsVI/AAAAAAAACCE/Mob8qKZ6KPchwBvaBYkVk_2pq4dj56ePACK4BGAsYHg/s320/IMG_0695.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Here's the SX45 with supplied bar (soon to be cut short)</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The SX45 is supplied with an 18” bar, carrying .325” pitch chain. I reckon 18” is way too long: a saw this size can’t comfortably pull a chain through 18” of wood. <br />For my thinning saws I like a 13” bar which carries a 56 drive link (DL) chain (.325” pitch). A short bar gives the saw more power (less bar friction), makes it lighter and safer and the shorter chain gets better lubrication. </span></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D_3kbk5J0vo/XlSXIgBafzI/AAAAAAAAB9c/8-9O8853XwQ4c2NabSs0Gf6RHP8a3NjoACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_0572.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D_3kbk5J0vo/XlSXIgBafzI/AAAAAAAAB9c/8-9O8853XwQ4c2NabSs0Gf6RHP8a3NjoACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_0572.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of my usual 13" bars above, the SX45 supplied bar below</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">I cut down the supplied 18” bar, and made it into a 13” bar, 395mm long (see <a href="https://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/2017/08/shortening-chainsaw-bar.html" target="_blank">my post about how to shorten bars here</a>) which fits the 56DL, 1.6mm gauge chains I use on my 024s. The new, short bar is great. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Little quality problems</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">There have been a few little problems with the SX45 that I’ve fixed, but not everyone might have them. Here they are. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Off-centre clutch drum</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"></span></h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">I was pleased to see that the clutch drum supplied had a rim sprocket. This is the “professional” type of clutch drum, where the part that drives the chain - the rim sprocket - can easily be replaced without wasting the whole drum. </span></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H-A033UWKCA/XlSXvsf5W4I/AAAAAAAAB9k/138lDh6OnAQh1LNZ9k4aRjRWuPqr_o2YgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_0566.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H-A033UWKCA/XlSXvsf5W4I/AAAAAAAAB9k/138lDh6OnAQh1LNZ9k4aRjRWuPqr_o2YgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_0566.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">See the rim sprocket in there behind the clutch?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5IGRp5FLVBM/XlSX58zleCI/AAAAAAAAB9o/nJvUHdFWhGIWn5-2JJ0KVKjl4j-r_7VSQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_0580.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5IGRp5FLVBM/XlSX58zleCI/AAAAAAAAB9o/nJvUHdFWhGIWn5-2JJ0KVKjl4j-r_7VSQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_0580.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here is the rim sprocket on top of the matching clutch drum</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">However, when tensioning the chain, I found that the chain would go alternately tight and loose as the chain was pulled around. After a bit of investigation, I found that the bearing hole in the clutch drum was not centred with the splined surface, it was out by about 0.5mm. This was enough to make proper chain tensioning impossible, and promised to result in bad bar wear over time (have a look at my video of it here). Edisons (who sell the saw) was quick to replace the clutch drum (but sadly with a spur/star sprocket which doesn’t take replaceable rim sprockets). I found suitable rim sprockets on Aliexpress and ordered one in for later. <br />To change sprockets on the SX45, you need to remove the centrifugal clutch - this saw has an “outboard” clutch, with the sprocket behind the clutch and clutch drum (modern Stihls and many Huskies have an inboard clutch so you can change sprockets without removing the clutch). Removing the clutch is done by spinning it clockwise off the crankshaft (it is threaded on with a left hand thread). To do this you need some sort of tool to engage with the clutch and turn it. Suitable tools are easily available on Ebay, Aliexpress or Huztl (<a href="https://www.huztl.net/Clutch-Removal-Tool-For-Husqvarna-362-365-371-372-570-575-576-Jonsersd-2165-2171-p724500.html" target="_blank">here's a link to the Huztl clutch tool</a>). I usually drive off clutches using an impact driver. </span></span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/vBDQub4YyEY/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vBDQub4YyEY?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;"> Here's a video on how to remove the clutch</span></span></div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uRWigX7BlYA/XlTHZSRkCZI/AAAAAAAAB-Q/g82uN-Gt2w0QUaEd--beNdQxqDGELSxvQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_0619.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uRWigX7BlYA/XlTHZSRkCZI/AAAAAAAAB-Q/g82uN-Gt2w0QUaEd--beNdQxqDGELSxvQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_0619.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is a clutch removal tool sold by Huztl for some Husqvarna models. It works fine for the SX45, driven by an impact driver and a 3/8" socket adapter that fits straight into the back of it.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oqJLn68-dS8/XlS0t7okOpI/AAAAAAAAB90/WJ3_7l7Rza8Acd7SUfuA_nmKVM7LA39cQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/ClutchRemovalToolAliexpress.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="406" data-original-width="454" height="286" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oqJLn68-dS8/XlS0t7okOpI/AAAAAAAAB90/WJ3_7l7Rza8Acd7SUfuA_nmKVM7LA39cQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/ClutchRemovalToolAliexpress.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's a tool sold on Aliexpress specially for removing Chinese chainsaw clutches. It's made for manual clutch removal where you screw the plug on the right into the sparkplug hole to lock the motor, and turn the 3-pronged tool with a spanner. I haven't tried it yet but I expect the 3-prong tool would be easily driven by an impact driver and a socket, thus avoiding the need to lock the piston with the plug. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yP-vfO08O00/XlS03SzJgwI/AAAAAAAAB94/rubWI965AvkeNPMiyVb9Uz60yQYQ6YTZACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_0574.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yP-vfO08O00/XlS03SzJgwI/AAAAAAAAB94/rubWI965AvkeNPMiyVb9Uz60yQYQ6YTZACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_0574.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's a clutch removing tool I made from an M12 connector nut with some pieces of spring steel welded on. It was easy to drive with an impact driver and 19mm socket</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JB-EtiQt9M8/XlS2NiMx2LI/AAAAAAAAB-E/DqzPCj4RQ1MxN3Lr4oasBEUgJcJfGExWQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Socket%2Bdriver%2Badapters.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1002" data-original-width="1002" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JB-EtiQt9M8/XlS2NiMx2LI/AAAAAAAAB-E/DqzPCj4RQ1MxN3Lr4oasBEUgJcJfGExWQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Socket%2Bdriver%2Badapters.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">These are sold on ebay as "socket adapters" and are great for removing chainsaw clutches along with a suitable socket or clutch tool<span style="font-size: small;"> </span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">How to re-assemble the clutch (when the spring and weights come apart)</span></span></h3><h3><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GLUC7Y0iLEE" width="320" youtube-src-id="GLUC7Y0iLEE"></iframe></div><br /> <br /></span></span></h3><h3><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Air filter joint problem</span></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"></span></h3><p>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YpDTsi07W5o/X_ZM1yE3edI/AAAAAAAACFY/r6zyXSHqDMsgfwAfUmKSo-uqXK0Kk4xrACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/IMG_0770.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YpDTsi07W5o/X_ZM1yE3edI/AAAAAAAACFY/r6zyXSHqDMsgfwAfUmKSo-uqXK0Kk4xrACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_0770.JPG" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's the air filter as supplied, with O-ring in place. This doesn't seal well enough to keep out sawdust<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">The
air filter has an O ring that tries to seal it to the carby, but I
found this let in a lot of sawdust, which you could find stuck to the
rear inside face of the carby throat. That’s not good: in time,
especially if working in dry, dusty conditions, this would risk causing
wear to the engine. </span></span></span></span><br /><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">I
tried adding an extra O ring, but that didn’t help. What did help was
to cast a gasket in the filter: I carefully cleaned the filter in the
sealing area with isopropyl alcohol and degreaser, dried it, then
squeezed in a layer of polyurethane sealant (I would have used silicone
if I had some). I then sprayed a light layer of oil on the carby (to
stop the polyurethane from bonding to the carby), pressed the filter
into place and tightened down the filter cover. Since then I’ve had no
more dust getting in. </span></span></span></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jhP9K-HuQ4o/X_ZM1bpO5yI/AAAAAAAACFU/t2GIfZlQeqwF0E4VyeKfQPa3BEq5Iyj5wCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/IMG_0771.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jhP9K-HuQ4o/X_ZM1bpO5yI/AAAAAAAACFU/t2GIfZlQeqwF0E4VyeKfQPa3BEq5Iyj5wCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_0771.JPG" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's the top of the carby where the filter attaches. I spray light oil over this area before fitting the filter with a made-in-place gasket<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-d_3j_nIOnxs/X_ZM6vR98nI/AAAAAAAACFc/7B9x01tz-2YK6CFfdNKdUZ4eTDTQWZ-2QCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/IMG_0772.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-d_3j_nIOnxs/X_ZM6vR98nI/AAAAAAAACFc/7B9x01tz-2YK6CFfdNKdUZ4eTDTQWZ-2QCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_0772.JPG" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">To form a gasket, I take out the O-ring and put polyurethane sealant into the space around the spigot. This is black Sikaflex 11FC. This picture shows the gasket after it has set and I've prised the air filter off the carby. <br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UTWrYT9oFb0/X_ZNA5JGK7I/AAAAAAAACFg/_JwliwOqYrYIPctrcmUUZcJh7Nh21LIJwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/IMG_0773.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UTWrYT9oFb0/X_ZNA5JGK7I/AAAAAAAACFg/_JwliwOqYrYIPctrcmUUZcJh7Nh21LIJwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_0773.JPG" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's the freshy formed gasket after trimming off the surplus polyurethane<br /></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span><p></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Oiler vent problem</span></span></h3>
<h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"></span></h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">On the second SX45 I bought, I had trouble with the bar oil flow. It didn’t oil well at first - it seemed to have trouble priming the pump. I tested it the usual way by revving the motor while pointing the bar at a suitable surface and watching for oil to spray onto it. Loosening and retightening the oil tank cap seemed to provide a momentary flow of oil, that soon dried up. This suggested a blocked oil tank vent: if air can’t get into the tank, the oil has trouble getting out. Same happens with chainsaw fuel tanks. </span></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0PM4UEkOmQE/XlTNxpifXzI/AAAAAAAAB_E/f0idT81RJWMOJXAbk3EOXp8YpccmDZhjQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_0612.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0PM4UEkOmQE/XlTNxpifXzI/AAAAAAAAB_E/f0idT81RJWMOJXAbk3EOXp8YpccmDZhjQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_0612.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is the oil pump chamber of the SX45 - note the bar studs on the right. The red arrow points at the little rubber duck bill oil tank air vent - it lets air in when the oil is pumped out. There is usually a foam plug covering the duck bill.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><p>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">It took me a while to find the vent, hidden in behind the oil pump cover, behind the clutch. <br />The vent was behind a little foam plastic plug (and a random piston pin clip apparently stuck in the hole on the assembly line). It was a little rubber “duck bill”, that wasn’t able to quack - the end was blocked. I cut a sliver off the end of the duck bill and pushed it back into place. After that, the saw oiled fine. </span></span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Ignition switch</span></span></h4><p style="text-align: left;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">We've had several ignition switches fail and require replacement. These are easily and cheaply found on Aliexpress. </span></span></p><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Front handle</span></span></h4><p style="text-align: left;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Some friends of mine who use these saws frequently bend and sometimes even break the front handle. This handle is rather too lightly made of a soft aluminium material. This bending tends to happen when the saw is pinched in a cut and wrenched backwards. I haven't had this problem myself. </span></span><br />
</p><h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Bar pattern</span></span></h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">The chain bar on this saw uses the Husqvarna small chainsaw bar mount pattern: the slot for the bar studs, the holes for the chain tensioner, and the oil feed holes match the pattern in smaller Husqvarna saws. This is important to know if you want to buy a good quality bar for this saw (like the GB bar). <br />Here’s a link to a catalogue of chainsaw bar mount patterns: <a href="http://www.acresinternet.com/cscc.nsf/673d78ec01557aea88256b00005457e6/e39f46cf37dbe4a088256e0d0051dd49?OpenDocument">http://www.acresinternet.com/cscc.nsf/673d78ec01557aea88256b00005457e6/e39f46cf37dbe4a088256e0d0051dd49?OpenDocument</a></span></span><br />
<h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Opening the engine</span></span></h3>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-n2sePdVZyLY/XlTOtB1yHwI/AAAAAAAAB_Q/d_HgELuAtGUKUDUeBwWaVKvdwRRU878eACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_0567.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-n2sePdVZyLY/XlTOtB1yHwI/AAAAAAAAB_Q/d_HgELuAtGUKUDUeBwWaVKvdwRRU878eACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_0567.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's the cylinder and carby of the SX45</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">After giving the saw a first run to show that it worked, I opened it up and removed the engine cylinder. I wanted to: 1. have a look, 2. measure the bore and stroke (to calculate if it really was 45cc, and know what parts are compatible) and 3. check and perhaps modify the piston pin clips. </span></span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"></span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">The SX45 chainsaw engine is really very easy to repair. It took a few minutes to remove the top cowling, unscrew the carby, unbolt the cylinder, and get down to the piston. </span></span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">I measured the bore and stroke:<br />Cylinder dia: 43mm<br />Stroke: 31mm<br />Piston pin diameter: 11mm<br />This
works out at 45 cubic centimetres (some of these cheap saws don’t have
the cc’s they are sold as, so it was interesting to check). <br />The
piston pin clips are a very common source of failure on cheap chainsaws.
These are the spring wire clips that hold the piston pin in the middle
of the piston. Sometimes they aren’t well installed, and fall out when
the saw is nearly new - this happened to a neighbour’s Baumr SX82. </span></span></span></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OJFX2SXk5v8/XF0e5BjeOFI/AAAAAAAAB3Y/_oE_SzakUU4ck7sk4pKUhtQpnwekmN1MQCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/IMG_0398.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OJFX2SXk5v8/XF0e5BjeOFI/AAAAAAAAB3Y/_oE_SzakUU4ck7sk4pKUhtQpnwekmN1MQCPcBGAYYCw/s320/IMG_0398.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is what the piston pin clips look like in the SX45</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wZEUqbLTWJM/XF0fHSz6pXI/AAAAAAAAB3o/KinETtY0oDg_LvjD27wooTyDELXVkGo9wCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/IMG_0402.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wZEUqbLTWJM/XF0fHSz6pXI/AAAAAAAAB3o/KinETtY0oDg_LvjD27wooTyDELXVkGo9wCPcBGAYYCw/s320/IMG_0402.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is what the clips look like after the centre tail is cut off</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"></span>Sometimes piston pin clips give trouble after many hours of operation. Chinese chainsaw parts and saws seem to use piston pin clips with a central tail, making the clip look like an “e”, whereas genuine Stihl clips are simply shaped like a “c”, without the tail. The central tail makes installation and removal much easier than it is with the “c” shaped clips (you can grab the tail with pliers), but it seems this tail can waggle with the motion of the piston (going up and down at over 100 times per second) and eventually fatigue and break. On the chainsaw forums I’ve read a few reports of kit saws whose piston pin clips have had a piece break off and jam between the piston and cylinder after quite a few hours operation - a pretty major failure. <br />I now use the technique of other people building Chinese chainsaw kits, and cut the tails off my piston pin clips (I use a cutting disc in an angle grinder). Any time I’m opening up a chainsaw cylinder, I also check that the clips are tight in their grooves. The SX45 had “e” shaped clips so I took them out and cut off their tails. <br />Re-assembling the SX45 was quick and easy. A generous taper on the bottom of the cylinder skirt makes it easy to insert piston and rings (make sure the rings are aligned with their pins). </span></span><br />
<h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">What to do to an SX45</span></span></h3>
<h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"></span></h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">These are my recommendations for upgrading an SX45 into a long-lasting, hard working chainsaw:<br />- Put a reasonable bar and chain on the saw - the setup supplied will be too sloppy to work for long (the bar groove is way too wide for the chain). I recommend a 13” bar. See below for more details. <br />- Cast a silicone or polyurethane gasket to seal the air filter to the carby<br />- Check the carby tuning. The second SX45 I bought was tuned a bit lean on the high speed jet (adjusted with the H screw). Lean tuning like this risks burning the engine. See carby tuning instructions at the end of this post. </span></span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">- Buy a 4mm T-handle allen key for servicing the saw - a small L-shaped allen key is supplied but is clumsy to use. <br />- Buy or make a clutch removal tool so you can remove the clutch to change sprockets or service the oil pump. <br />- If you’re game: open the engine, cut off the tails on the piston pin clips and check they’re well seated. <br />- be prepared to replace the fuel hoses when they perish. </span></span><br />
<h4>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Using a 13" GB bar</span></span></h4>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">I bought a couple GB bars for these 45cc saws. This was a 13” bar to fit Husqvarna, .325” pitch, 1.5mm (.058") gauge, GB product code UHL13-58LH, costing just over $50 with a chain. I was a bit surprised to find that this bar was a little wide gauged (the slot for the chain was a little wide) from new, and fit a 1.6mm (.063") gauge chain from new. I am now running only 1.6mm gauge chains in it. Both bars had the nose sprockets fail with brittle breaks, but I never got around to making a warranty claim. </span></span></span></span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">I don't know if all their bars are like this, but I recommend you try a 1.6mm gauge chain in the bar, perhaps after running with a 1.5mm chain for a while, and perhaps plan on using 1.6mm gauge chains in the longer term. </span></span></span></span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">FYI as a rule, Stihl chainsaws with .325", 3/8" and .404" pitch use bars and chains with a 1.6mm gauge (.063" in American language), and Husqvarna uses 1.5mm (.058"). If a 1.5mm gauge bar is worn, it can be good to use 1.6mm gauge chains, but most bars will eventually need <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1gyOhSIu-c" target="_blank">hammering and dressing</a>. </span></span></span></span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">With all chainsaws, it's best to start with 3 chains, and rotate them as they wear out. When all the chains' teeth are sharpened away, get 3 new chains and change the drive sprocket on the chainsaw. </span></span></span></span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">13" bars for this saw take a chain with 56 drive links (56 DL). If you do a bit of chainsawing, I recommend learning how to punch and rivet chains yourself, so you can shorten or lengthen chains, as well as being able to buy a roll and make up loops cheaply from new. </span></span></span></span><br />
<h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Tuning the carburettor</span></span></h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Here's what the manual has to say about tuning the carby. Pretty good instructions really:</span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>The adjustment screws are generally located on the starter cord side of the unit. The high speed and low speed mixture screws are generall marked "L" and "H", respectively. In the adjacent image, idle speed is (A), low speed mixture is (B) and high speed mixture is (C).</i></span></span><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-glFjEt2Ps-g/XsQ8ZIfoywI/AAAAAAAACBc/buJaK-RbhWIQzVAJo4ix7xn0XLWbKM1IwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/SX45tuning.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="443" data-original-width="507" height="278" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-glFjEt2Ps-g/XsQ8ZIfoywI/AAAAAAAACBc/buJaK-RbhWIQzVAJo4ix7xn0XLWbKM1IwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/SX45tuning.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
<h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Factory Settings </i></span></span></h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Each adjustment screw has a general "factory setting", which is measured from the adjustment screw being rotated "IN" (right / clockwise) until fully seated (but not tight). From this point, the setting is made by counting the number of full rotations of the screw "OUT" (rotate left / anti-clockwise). Factory settings are: <br /> • Idle Speed – Approximately 5 turns out. <br /> • Low Speed Mixture – Approximately 2.5 turn out. <br /> • High Speed Mixture – Approximately 2 turns out. Use the factory settings as the basis for tuning. Set all adjustment screws to factory settings, then test the engine before further tuning. Use a suitable flat-blade screwdriver and ensure that the screwdriver is properly engaged with the adjustment screw before rotating. </i></span></span><br />
<h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Tuning </i></span></span></h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;"><i> 1. Start and allow the engine to idle uintil it is warmed up – tuning a cold engine will result in rich running when the engine is warm. If the engine does not idle, use the throttle to keep the engine running ("blip" the throttle; do not run the engine continuously at high speed). <br /> 2. Adjust Idle Speed – Rotate the adjustment screw one quarter (1⁄4) turn at a time – rotate "IN" (right / clockwise) to increase idle speed; rotate "OUT" (left / anti-clockwise) to reduce idle speed. Set the speed so the engine idles as fast as possible without engaging the clutch. Never set the idle so the saw chain rotates when the throttle is released. If the engine will not idle, adjust the low speed mixture (step 3). <br /> 3. Adjust Low Speed Mixture – Rotate the adjustment screw one quarter (1⁄4) turn at a time – rotate "IN" (right / clockwise) to lean the low speed mixture; rotate "OUT" (left / anti-clockwise) to richen low speed mixture. Rotate the screw IN until the engine begins surging or wants to stop – this is the lean adjustment position. Make a note of the number of rotations of the screw to reach the lean adjustment position. Then, rotate the adjustment screw OUT – the engine should start running better. Keep rotating the screw OUT until the engine starts to load up – this is the rich adjustment position. Make a note of the number of rotations of the screw to reach the rich adjustment position and compare it to the lean adjustment position. Then, rotate the screw IN to a position where the engine idles best – it should be about midway between the rich and lean position settings. At this point, you may have to re-adjust idle speed (step 2). <br /> 4. Adjust High Speed Mixture – Rotate the adjustment screw one quarter (1⁄4) turn at a time – rotate "IN" (right / clockwise) to lean the high speed mixture; rotate "OUT" (left / anti-clockwise) to richen high speed mixture. Rotate the screw OUT until the engine begins slowing and running roughly at full throttle. Then, rotate the adjustment screw IN – the engine should start running better. Keep rotating the screw IN until the engine reaches maximum speed. Then, rotate the screw OUT one eigth (1/8) to one quarter (1⁄4) of a turn to richen the air/fuel mixture for engine cooling purposes. </i></span></span><br />
<h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">Breakdowns</span></span></h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">So far my only breakdown of an SX45 motor has been very simple to repair: mud wasp nests in the muffler. The 2 round pipe exits for the muffler suit mud wasps very well. </span></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QPoQ2KWZq-c/Xu0mXtRdFqI/AAAAAAAACDA/AHcr8vnu9sA6TpYO0wl162_c0F9f9gOvACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_0713.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QPoQ2KWZq-c/Xu0mXtRdFqI/AAAAAAAACDA/AHcr8vnu9sA6TpYO0wl162_c0F9f9gOvACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_0713.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cooked mud wasp nests in both muffler exits - easily remedied with a screwdriver</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">Links</h3><div style="text-align: left;">Here's a video of a bloke fixing a Chinese saw of the same breed, that wouldn't run because of a missing flywheel key (messes with the timing):</div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-6Me6YFvdU">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-6Me6YFvdU</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>Bruce Teaklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00911602199839526224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796610487071943623.post-6907765231716536572019-07-03T08:24:00.003+10:002020-12-30T07:33:21.749+10:00Getting cool with getting poor<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 26px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12px; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rpEwQ6FWc1M/XRvacfmiCoI/AAAAAAAAB6E/wMcE4z_WmrglSd6_hPHwMpgH-TflyZ6qACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1308.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rpEwQ6FWc1M/XRvacfmiCoI/AAAAAAAAB6E/wMcE4z_WmrglSd6_hPHwMpgH-TflyZ6qACLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1308.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<div style="color: #2f5496; font-family: "arial"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Summary: if we want to avoid a climate disaster, we need to use much less fossil fuel. However everything we consume is produced using energy that is almost entirely from fossil fuel. Money spent, energy used, fossil fuel used and carbon emissions are all pretty much the same thing and all drive climate damage. The proposed solution of wind and solar energy generation isn’t saving us from climate change and can’t maintain the affluence and economic growth we’ve come to expect. Getting poorer is the our only way to reduce our damage to the earth’s ecological and climatic systems, and is the unavoidable outcome of our fossil energy supply constraints. </i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: "arial"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<h2>
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Because money is energy, the only way to burn less carbon is to earn and spend less money: get poorer. Cool with that?</b></span></h2>
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<div style="font-family: "arial"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<h3>
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><i>The energy is money problem</i></b></span></h3>
</div>
<div style="font-family: "arial"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">An imaginary, environmentally conscious but charming school teacher couldn’t decide which of 3 girlfriends he wanted to marry, so he gave them each $50, and secretly pledged to propose to the one who caused the least carbon emissions while spending his gift. One had a massage, one filled her car’s petrol tank, and one bought a basket of organic groceries. Which one should he marry? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Answer: He’ll have to decide another way. As far as we can tell, they used about the same amount of energy, and it’s nearly all fossil fuel. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Why? However you spend your money, it drives the same fossil fuel-based energy economy, pretty much in proportion to what you spend. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><i>The idea</i></b></span></h3>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Some years ago I heard a radio report about research into German households that had reduced their heating bills by installing insulation. Much of the money saved on heating was spent on overseas holidays that included a lot of flying. In balance there wasn't actually a net energy saving. I was a keen proponent of energy efficiency, so this was pretty challenging: if people's income and ability to purchase energy is fixed, then savings in one area simply lead to expenditure in another. Perhaps all the efficient lightbulbs and fridges I admired weren’t helping so much. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">More challenging evidence came in the <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/71628557/Dust-PDF-Version" target="_blank"><i>Dust to dust </i>report</a> which examined lifetime energy costs of a wide range of cars. The standout finding (in the first version of the paper) was that a Toyota Prius used more energy per mile than a Hummer, when all lifetime energy inputs, including manufacturing energy and life expectancy, were included (a later version of the paper amended this, but the point remained that the Prius wasn’t dramatically better).</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The<i> </i>report showed that innovative technology like hybrid cars require astronomical energy investments to build production lines that tend to be scrapped and re-built as technologies are superceded. Conversely, old technologies are cheap (in energy and money) per unit because the investment in their production has been paid for over a long time and many units. In addition, factors such as life-expectancy, maintenance and cosmetic repairs have a big impact on total energy consumption, because every dollar spent on a car means more energy used. Fuel consumption per kilometre on the road is only part of the story. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">These reports added to my reading writers like Ted Trainer (Author of <i>Abandon Affluence</i>), and increased my doubts that technology - efficiency, renewables, digitisation - will reduce our carbon emissions and save us from climate disaster. </span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Efficiency: reducing or shuffling energy?</i></span></h3>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Most people I'm close to care about the environment and about other people. They are very concerned about global warming, and the range of other consumption-driven environmental problems. Because they care, many well-educated and well-meaning people want to reduce their personal and community-wide carbon emissions. We ride bikes, drive efficient cars, install solar panels, use electrical goods with 5 stars and install insulation. But is doing all these things just shuffling our energy expenditure instead of reducing it? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Consider our imaginary school teacher - now recently married - who has decided to reduce his carbon footprint. He sells one of the 2 family cars, buys a bicycle and rides to work every day to be a good model to his students. His transport energy consumption plummets and so do his costs. He is not only burning less petrol, he’s saving money - <a href="https://www.racq.com.au/~/media/pdf/racq%20pdfs/cars%20and%20driving/private-vehicle-expenses-0715.ashx" target="_blank">at least $6000 per year</a>. After a couple of years, it’s enough for a holiday in Bali. The money and energy he’s saved from driving, gets used on flying. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Can he avoid this energy burden by spending his savings on something less energy intensive? What about spending $50 on a massage? While his cycling muscles are being rubbed, little fossil energy is directly consumed. However the $50 he spends will almost always flow to energy-dependent consumption: paying the masseus’ rent (which funds energy intensive building and the landlord’s consumption), car repayments, food. $50 worth of these energy-intensive processes could not happen if he didn’t pay for a massage. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">As long as our cycling teacher earns and spends the same wage, he will be causing about the same amount of energy consumption and carbon emissions. That’s because in our fossil fuelled economy, money represents energy use. </span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Money is energy</i></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">My proposition is that the money we spend is the best measure for the amount of energy we burn. This is based on the reality that every economic activity consumes energy, and almost all that energy is from fossil fuel. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It is easier to understand this energy - money relationship by looking at the whole economy. Economic growth as we know it started 300 years ago in the industrial revolution, when Europeans learnt how to burn coal in more creative ways, including making iron and fuelling steam engines. Prior to that, the economy was limited to biological productivity - mostly food and wood - and the amount of productive land limited the size of the economy and population. The only way to get rich was to steal from others: e.g. invading other countries, forcing people to be serfs. Growth really took off in the late 1800s, when Americans started big-scale use of fossil petroleum. The whole unnatural world built in the short time since then has been manufactured with fossil fuels.</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>World Energy Use by fuel</b></span></h4>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Above is a graph of total world energy supply, by fuel, from the International Energy Agency. It tells the story of the global economy. Energy consumption has more than doubled since 1971, and nearly all the growth has come from fossil sources. You can see the 1970s oil crisis, the 1980s recession, and the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC) as dips. The only times energy consumption goes down is when people get poorer. This relationship is illustrated more directly in the graph below, which compares growth in energy consumption with growth in the GDP. </span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rHc8r_H-Bfw/XRxAAnDdVDI/AAAAAAAAB6Y/lpLPGyUwsHg2A_E-N6EjSNGsxFGRQbsVwCLcBGAs/s1600/world-energy-growth-vs-world-gdp-growth-through-2016.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="378" data-original-width="640" height="236" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rHc8r_H-Bfw/XRxAAnDdVDI/AAAAAAAAB6Y/lpLPGyUwsHg2A_E-N6EjSNGsxFGRQbsVwCLcBGAs/s400/world-energy-growth-vs-world-gdp-growth-through-2016.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://ourfiniteworld.com/2017/08/14/world-gdp-in-current-us-dollars-seems-to-have-peaked-this-is-a-problem/">https://ourfiniteworld.com/2017/08/14/world-gdp-in-current-us-dollars-seems-to-have-peaked-this-is-a-problem/</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This graph superimposes energy and GDP growth, showing more clearly that the economy is really an expression of energy use. Again you can see the 1970s oil crisis, the 1980s recession, and the 2008 GFC that show as dips in the growth rate of both energy and money. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">If we understand the modern economy as a fossil-fuel-powered process, we can view money spent as the flow of fossil energy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica";"><i>The problem with energy efficiency</i></span></h3>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Energy efficient technologies are often promoted as a solution to climate change. Recognition that money is a measure of energy helps to explain why brilliant technological advances in efficiency have not resulted in decreased energy use.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">A recent <a href="http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/01/bedazzled-by-energy-efficiency.html#more" target="_blank">essay by Kris De Decker in<i> Low-Tech</i> <i>Magazine</i></a> </span><span style="font-kerning: none;">makes the case that energy efficiency in the affluent world is part of an escalation in expectations about energy services (the services that depend on energy), and itself doesn’t reduce energy consumption at all. Ever increasing expectations: of air conditioning in summer, heating in winter, convenience of transport, size of houses; serve to increase our total energy use, despite increasing efficiency. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Kris writes of efficiency: "it is about not using a fuel that does not exist”. This is deliciously similar to my children’s joke about bargains: “I saved so much money buying that bargain mountain bike, I had enough left over to buy a used iPhone and still be $150 ahead”. They can see that savings relative to an imaginary expenditure, as if it was real money, enables us to evade the reality of what we have actually spent. Where are our brilliant advances in efficiency in the world fuel consumption graph above? You can’t see them, because they have been used to increase affluence instead of decrease consumption. Wouldn’t we have used heaps more energy if we hadn’t invented all the efficient cars, planes and lightbulbs? No, because energy costs money to produce and has a limited supply in the earth. People have spent as much on energy as they can afford. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The failure of energy efficiency to reduce energy consumption was recognised 150 years ago. The Jevons Paradox is named after a brilliant English economist, William Stanley Jevons,</span><span style="color: #222222; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><span style="font-kerning: none;">who was concerned about depletion of coal reserves in the 1860s, and observed that greater efficiency of coal use led to higher consumption - not less. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">To me this now seems obvious. Energy efficiency is really the lowering in price of energy services, which leads people to consume more and find new uses for energy services. It's like junk food: as it gets cheaper, people don’t spend less on junk food, they eat more and spend more on it. Similarly, cheap cars enable more people to buy cars, and efficient cars enable people to drive further. A good argument is made that <a href="http://www.inscc.utah.edu/~tgarrett/Economics/Jevons_Paradox.html" target="_blank">efficiency is fundamental to economic growth</a>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Efficiency is useful. In an energy-constrained situation - this means a level of poverty - efficiency can raise people’s standard of living with real benefits. But again, efficiency helps a poor person to increase their affluence, not reduce their demand for energy. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><i>The innovation myth</i></b></span></h3>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I’ve found the arguments against the energy efficiency paradox almost as interesting as the idea itself. <i>Dust to Dust </i>was fiercely rebutted (e.g. <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/dust-to-dust-is-dust-prius-uses-less-energy-than-hummer/">https://www.cnet.com/news/dust-to-dust-is-dust-prius-uses-less-energy-than-hummer/</a>). Critics defended the Prius as a solution to energy problems, illuminating a strong commitment to the idea that technological developments will enable us to keep driving without cooking the planet - the modern man defending his right to drive. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Perhaps the Prius is a symbol of how we try to fix the problems created by innovative use of energy, with more innovative use of energy, further digging ourselves into the hole so well described by Jevons’ paradox. Energy efficient or electric or hydrogen fuel-cell or hover cars are the wrong answer to the wrong question. Our current car culture is itself not sustainable, whatever technology is used. Moving ourselves around in 1 or 2 ton metal boxes just takes a lot of energy. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><i>Economics: pretending the one way flow is a circle</i></b></span></h3>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I suspect much of our confusion about energy comes from economics. Economists tell us that money moves in a circular flow, from consumers to businesses, then back again, but this is a misleading model. The real value of money is in enabling us to spend energy which flows one way: from the resource (mostly in the earth) to waste (mostly in the atmosphere). Thus, the economy is really a flow of energy from resource to waste. Money is used to control who gets the benefits from that flow. Jevons Paradox is only a paradox because we have been confused by the circular notions of economics, and ignored the one-way flow of energy, mostly from coal, oil and gas that get burned up and never come back. </span><br />
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Have a look at <a href="http://www.inscc.utah.edu/~tgarrett/Economics/Physics_vs._Mainstream_Economics.html" target="_blank">how a physicist describes the economy and energy</a>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><i>Prove it</i></b></span></h3>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I haven’t provided a strong evidence-based argument for the proposition that money is the best measure of emissions. In the complexity of the global economy, this is difficult to prove. Imagine chasing down the energy content of dollars spent in different ways, through the infinite open channels of the economy. This idea has been proposed many times before. Economist Tim Jackson, author of <i>Prosperity without growth</i>, gives a figure of 770g carbon per dollar (presumably US$) in the global economy (hear his excellent presentation at <span style="color: blue; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/2010-07-04/3031202</span>). </span><br />
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Tim Garrett, a climate scientist who writes brilliantly on the relationship between economics and energy, proposes a more sophisticated relationship between money and energy. He says it takes 7.1watts of continuous power to maintain every US$1000 (2005 money) of <span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white;">historically accumulated economic wealth</span> <a href="http://www.inscc.utah.edu/~tgarrett/Economics/Economics.html" target="_blank">(read it here)</a>. </div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It is clear that each dollar spent does drive fossil fuel use - not instantly, but each transaction causes a chain of events. There isn't any place to spend money that won't lead to energy consumption. However, the money is energy argument would be weak if the ratio of money to energy was wildly variable, or if there was a better measure. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We don’t have a better measure. Research-based measures of energy consumption are common, e.g. <i>Dust to dust </i>comparing cars, or <i><a href="http://markmaking.com.au/mmwp3/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/The-elephant-in-the-sky_online_s.pdf" target="_blank">Elephant in the sky</a></i> critiquing the role of aviation in carbon emissions. However reducing emissions using this reductionist approach is difficult and can lead to misunderstandings. If our cycling schoolteacher decided not to holiday in Bali, to avoid aviation carbon emissions, he might instead drive to a holiday at the Gold Coast, where his money would pay for energy-intensive construction of high-rise apartments and the jet-setting lifestyles of their owners. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Understanding the role of our money in driving consumption, energy use and carbon emissions is fundamental to our decision-making. This helps us understand that the real solutions are humble and frugal, not technological. For example, in transport energy use, social behaviours make far more difference than car fuel efficiency. An old six cylinder Holden carrying a bunch of labourers to work emits far less carbon pollution per person than one professor in his Prius. The research may tell us that a Prius is more efficient in petrol per kilometre than an old Holden, but this doesn’t really help us decide how to get to work. The cost of the Prius tells us about the huge energy input to its manufacturing, compared to keeping an old car going, and if it’s only carrying one person, that energy cost isn’t being shared around.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><i>The pool of consumption</i></b></span></h3>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Is the ratio of money to energy widely variable? I doubt it, because nearly all money flows to the same pool of economic consumption. Think about where the money goes when you buy anything: it flows to the energy consumption of all the machines and people along the economic path to you. It is the same with buying energy: if you buy a tank of petrol, your money flows to the petrol station staff (who spend it on their living costs: car, house, clothes, food), the station infrastructure (building made of gas-fired concrete, coal-fired electric lights, refrigerators, pumps), oil transported in ships made from coal-smelted steel, delivery trucks, thousands of oil company staff and their living costs. In fact no money goes directly to the petrol, it all flows to the millions of expenditures that get oil from the ground to your car.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It is the same with coal. Most coal we buy is for electricity consumption, a mind-bogglingly complex system resulting in a vast number of economic and energy transactions, through wages to employees, royalties to governments (spent on roads and schools), and payments to factories for transformers, turbines. Huge amounts of oil are used in coal production: transporting coal, machinery and the people who work producing it. If you blur your eyes a little, these expenditures look very similar to the whole economy: people, buildings, machines, energy. Whatever you spend your money on, it flows into the same pool of energy-dependent consumption. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This is all really applying the idea of ‘embodied energy’ (the energy that needs to be used to consume a product) to money. Every expenditure of currency drives fossil energy use. We could call it the embodied energy of money - similar to Tim Jackson’s 770g carbon per dollar. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><i>Distortions</i></b></span></h3>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Of course dollars spent is an imperfect measure of energy cost, because there are distortions within the money system and in the relationship between money and energy. There are differences in emissions between fuels: coal is more carbon intensive than oil, which is more intensive than gas. However, as described above, there is a significant degree of blending in the complex paths of these fuels to the consumer: coal is dependent on oil and oil is dependent on coal. I suspect the biggest distortions are economic, such as subsidies, which hide energy costs in artificially low prices, and debt which hides energy costs by delaying payment. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Some countries deliberately distort the relationship between money and energy by adding energy taxes. Europeans pay more for car and truck fuel – petrol and diesel – because of fuel taxes. This has the effect of making them poorer and is one of the causes of Europeans’ much lower per capita energy use. This is a survival strategy for Europeans, who import more than half their total energy supplies and are very vulnerable to energy markets. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">These graphs show the wide variation in tax rates on road fuel, and the wide variation in energy use per person. </span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KosXQWUYCrc/XRxDOpVtZ-I/AAAAAAAAB6k/kodMzcWVzkkxvFNODAks7MTOaOwLtY0_ACLcBGAs/s1600/Implicit%2Btax%2Brates%2Bon%2Benergy%2B-%2Bgasoline%2Bvs%2Bdiesel.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="429" data-original-width="515" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KosXQWUYCrc/XRxDOpVtZ-I/AAAAAAAAB6k/kodMzcWVzkkxvFNODAks7MTOaOwLtY0_ACLcBGAs/s320/Implicit%2Btax%2Brates%2Bon%2Benergy%2B-%2Bgasoline%2Bvs%2Bdiesel.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">[</span><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; font-kerning: none;">OECD (2013),Effective tax rates on energy: Gasoline vs. diesel (road use), in </span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Taxing Energy Use</i></span><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; font-kerning: none;">, OECD Publishing.]</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">[</span><span style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #222222; font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 9.5px;">The World Bank : Kilograms of oil equivalent (2011)</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">By </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">未知との遭遇 </span><span style="font-kerning: none;">- Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31190628]</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><i>Rooftop solar</i></b></span></h3>
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<span face=""arial", "helvetica", sans-serif" style="font-kerning: none;">Much hope is focussed on household solar energy as a solution to our climate and energy depletion problems, but if you look at the money, it doesn’t look like it’s helping much. </span></div>
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<span face=""arial", "helvetica", sans-serif" style="font-kerning: none;">What if our school teacher and his wife, earning $100,000 per year between them, install PV panels on their roof. Government subsidies pay $5000, they pay $5000, so $10,000 is spent on energy intensive PV panels, inverter, wire and tradespeople. The PV panels are saving the couple $1000 per year from their power bills: about 1% of their income, so about 1% of their energy consumption. They have reduced their contribution to the energy cost of coal-fired electricity but now have an extra $1000 per year to spend on consumption of other energy-dependent products, perhaps including air conditioning. </span></div>
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<span face=""arial", "helvetica", sans-serif" style="font-kerning: none;">Has installing PV panels reduced their carbon emissions? It doesn’t look like it: government subsidy has allowed the household to spend more money than their normal income, and ongoing electricity bill savings enable spending on other energy-intensive products. In effect, the family income, and thus energy consumption, has been increased. </span></div>
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<b style="font-family: "helvetica";"><i>Money in the bank?</i></b></h3>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">What if our schoolteacher just leaves his money in the bank - will that help him escape energy-driving consumption? It seems not. “Fractional reserve lending” is an old strategy of money lenders, enabling a bank to lend out several times more money than they hold in cash. It’s legal and it works, as long as not all the depositors ask for their money back at the same time - this happens and it’s called “a run on the banks”. What this means for our climate-conscious schoolteacher is that his $1000 in the bank might be financing $5000 or $10,000 of lending and consequent consumption. Hiding his money under the mattress doesn’t cause this multiplication of harm to the climate, and it does take money out of circulation and reduce consumption. However once he spends it (if he can find it), his money goes back to driving emissions again. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><i>Decoupling?</i></b></span></h3>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Perhaps the strongest argument in favour of the “money is energy" proposition is the idea that it may be possible to “decouple” GDP (Gross Domestic Product = total amount of money spent) from energy use, environmental impact or carbon emissions. A good start is this essay by Nafeez Ahmed reviewing some studies: <a href="https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-07-15/green-economic-growth-is-an-article-of-faith-devoid-of-scientific-evidence/?mc_cid=de076fc29a&mc_eid=a31ee7ab4a">https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-07-15/green-economic-growth-is-an-article-of-faith-devoid-of-scientific-evidence/?mc_cid=de076fc29a&mc_eid=a31ee7ab4a</a><span><a href="https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-07-15/green-economic-growth-is-an-article-of-faith-devoid-of-scientific-evidence/?mc_cid=de076fc29a&mc_eid=a31ee7ab4a" target="_blank"> </a> </span></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span><span style="font-kerning: none;">and this page:<a href="https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-07-15/green-economic-growth-is-an-article-of-faith-devoid-of-scientific-evidence/?mc_cid=de076fc29a&mc_eid=a31ee7ab4a" target="_blank"> </a></span><a href="https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-07-15/green-economic-growth-is-an-article-of-faith-devoid-of-scientific-evidence/?mc_cid=de076fc29a&mc_eid=a31ee7ab4a" target="_blank"></a></span><a href="https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-07-15/green-economic-growth-is-an-article-of-faith-devoid-of-scientific-evidence/?mc_cid=de076fc29a&mc_eid=a31ee7ab4a" target="_blank">http://www.resilience.org/stories/2018-01-02/are-we-decoupling-not-really-but-happy-2018-anyway/ </a>. An economic analysis rebutting the decoupling idea here: <span style="color: blue; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/112/20/6271.full">http://www.pnas.org/content/112/20/6271.full</a></span> Tim Jackson roundly rebuts the potential for decoupling in his podcast at <span style="color: blue; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/2010-07-04/3031202">https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/2010-07-04/3031202</a></span>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The graphs above show that the growth of global GDP has been matched very closely by the growth in energy consumption, but sometimes a superficial look at some high-tech economies shows periods of economic growth without so much energy. With the shift of manufacturing, rich countries offload many energy-hungry industries to poor countries, and now import high-embodied-energy manufactured products which aren’t accounted for in their national energy consumption figures. This is like paying your neighbour to cook dinner: your energy bill goes down, but your food bill goes up. Overall you use the same or more energy, but more energy cost is hidden in other bills. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><i>Affluence = emissions</i></b></span></h3>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">If the argument that ‘money is energy’ is right, then most efforts of the wealthy world’s educated classes to fix climate change are to no avail. International agreements and schemes have had no impact on steadily rising carbon emissions, even in the 29 years since the first International Panel on Climate Chance (IPCC) report clearly outlined the problem. The only occasions when our emissions have been (briefly) reduced have been events generally considered to be disastrous: the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, the 1980s recession and the 1970s oil crisis. Economic growth and carbon emissions are inseparable. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This puts our desires to leave a habitable planet for our children in direct conflict with our aspirations for affluence: a good education, a successful career, and the reward, in proportion to our value as a person, by income - our share of fossil energy. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">There is no way around the uncomfortable truth: if we don’t want to cook the planet for our kids, we need to be poorer, in the economic sense of having less ability to buy stuff. Some people (like Ted Trainer) have been saying this for decades, but it seems a no-go zone for public discussion, even by environmental organisations. Kevin Anderson says we’ve known all about the dangers of global warming for 27 years, but haven’t tried to reduce our emissions. “A shameful litany of technocratic fraud” See him give a straight explanation of our climate situation here: <span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjTtohMgGk8">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjTtohMgGk8</a></span> ). </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The other no-go in public discussion is resource limits, which will take away choice and make us poorer whatever we do. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><i>Peak everything</i></b></span></h3>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Our social conversation about energy and global warming is largely within a framework of consumer choice: how can we make choices that are better for the climate? This fits with our societal myth of limitless energy resources which will always be easily and cheaply accessed. Almost all conversation about future energy supply is shaped by our belief that technological solutions will maintain cheap energy: nuclear fusion, thorium reactors, low-cost photovoltaic panels, oil from algae. Prius or Tesla cars are a step along the same thought path, that we are headed for a Star Wars future where our cleverness will ensure energy and materials are always in abundance. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This view of our future has been shaped by our history, over only a few generations, of continuous economic growth, fuelled by increasing availability and consumption of fossil fuels. We project that history of growth forwards with our science-fiction-based myth of the high-tech future. We collectively hold to a determinism - a belief that a particular path is set for our future - that our expectations of ongoing growth and affluence will be met. Our media, our conversations, our government policies, all align with this myth. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">There is a story that much better fits the facts than the techno-fix narrative: the “one-off bonanza” story. Humans lived on the products of nature for 200,000 years, until their accumulated cleverness enabled them to mine and burn the coal, oil and gas that had lain in the earth for hundreds of millions of years. When this fuel was cheap and easy to extract, humans multiplied exponentially and used the energy in a multitude of ever-cleverer ways. As the fuel became harder to extract, people got poorer, reduced in numbers and this was very hard for them. This perspective is usually described under the heading “peak oil”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Peak oil leads us to the related issues of peak coal, peak minerals, etc.. If fossil fuel becomes harder to get, everything we we extract using oil is also harder to get, including other energy sources like coal, uranium, silicon for PV panels or wind power. It is like when you are short of money, you are short of everything that costs money. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">While the concept of peak oil is obvious, there is a strong incentive to imagine the problem to be far in the future. However, many people believe we are at the peak now. Consider how new oil is being produced in North America: by cooking tar sands in Canada, fracking tight oil in USA, and deepwater wells in the Gulf of Mexico. These are expensive, energy-intensive ways to get oil, not at all like 20th century oil production. A lot of commentary proposes that producers are losing money with these processes and that reserves are depleting fast. Consider how countries like Britain and USA have peaked in their oil production and are now net importers, while other countries like Egypt have declining oil exports and collapsing economies. As <a href="http://richardheinberg.com/" target="_blank">Richard Heinberg</a>, a respected writer on peak oil says: the party’s over .</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><i>Renewable energy </i></b></span></h3>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">A strong narrative of the progressive Left is that the solution to peak oil and global warming is renewable energy. Increasing our use of renewable energy is good, but there is no way it can maintain the affluence and growth we feel entitled to. Manufacture of renewable energy devices uses great amounts of fossil energy, so their price is totally dependent on the price of fossil energy. An increase in the value of energy due to fossil fuel scarcity would make renewable energy more expensive and us poorer. If we scratch through the hype, there is no prospect of running an economy that looks like ours, with renewable energy alone (see essays analysing this by <a href="https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2017/09/how-to-run-modern-society-on-solar-and-wind-powe.html#more" target="_blank">Kris De Decker</a> and <a href="https://www.withouthotair.com/" target="_blank">David Mackay</a>). </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><i>Energy return on investment</i></b></span></h3>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">To understand renewable energy it is essential to grasp the concept of ‘Energy Return On Energy Invested’ (EROEI). This is a measure of how much productive energy we get for each unit of energy invested in delivering it. For example, an oil well might take the energy equivalent of 1 ton of oil to drill, set up the infrastructure, refine and deliver 20 tons of oil, giving an EROEI of 20. Most renewable energy sources, such as photovoltaic and wind (which together provide less than 1% of global energy) have much lower EROEIs than coal and oil. Renewables such as hydroelectricity and waste wood have a high EROEI, but these can’t be significantly expanded because of limited resources and environmental problems. Ethanol fuel from grain (produced as a petroleum substitute) has an EROEI of around 1, meaning it consumes as much fossil energy to produce as the fuel contains. There is a well developed argument that an affluent, complex and growth-dependent economy requires lots of high EROEI energy (like 20th century coal and oil), and that renewables are not able to deliver this. </span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Putting renewables into perspective</i></span></h3>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5Ra6e7MniFk/XRw_jhoeOnI/AAAAAAAAB6U/ew5mJgTO0pEv5xpsX3z0LMKehzbz_AWmQCEwYBhgL/s1600/TotalEnergySupply2015.tiff" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="493" data-original-width="748" height="210" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5Ra6e7MniFk/XRw_jhoeOnI/AAAAAAAAB6U/ew5mJgTO0pEv5xpsX3z0LMKehzbz_AWmQCEwYBhgL/s320/TotalEnergySupply2015.tiff" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">To put wind and solar renewables into perspective: they are part of the thin grey line on the top layer of this graph. The explosion of rooftop solar in the last 10 years isn’t visible, wind and solar together hasn’t anywhere near matched the growth in total energy consumption, and hasn’t dented the huge baseline of fossil fuels. By far the biggest renewable energy source is biofuels and waste, which includes unsustainable burning by mostly poor people in poor countries, sustainable wood burning, and a tiny amount of bio-fuels like ethanol and biodiesel which have a marginal or small EROEI. Wind and solar energy are not protecting the climate, nor replacing our diminishing reserves of fossil fuel.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We can expect to increasingly depend on renewable energy in the future, and the sooner we get started the better. However there is no chance we can maintain the growth and affluence we expect, in an economy powered by renewable energy. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><i>Nuclear energy and other technotopias</i></b></span></h3>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Nuclear energy is often promoted as one of the technological solutions to our energy and climate problems, but there’s no way it can keep the party going. Nuclear reactors make a lot of electricity in places like France, where they operate under massive direct and indirect subsidies. Nuclear fuels, facilities and research programs have astronomical embodied fossil energy. Conventional nuclear reactors use uranium that has a limited supply, breeder reactors make fuel but have much greater waste and risk. Thorium reactors have an enthusiastic following as a magic bullet, but don’t yet exist as a working source of energy, and would take decades to start rolling out. Nuclear fusion has been promised for decades, and no doubt will continue that way. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Remember that nuclear energy only generates electricity, which currently accounts for about 1/4 of global emissions. The other 3/4 of emissions goes to activity that doesn’t currently use electricity, because that would be too expensive or impractical (consider trucks, for a start <a href="http://energyskeptic.com/2015/all-of-california-electricity-per-year-to-power-16000-catenary-trucks-on-2400-to-8275-miles-of-highway/"><span style="color: blue; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">http://energyskeptic.com/2015/all-of-california-electricity-per-year-to-power-16000-catenary-trucks-on-2400-to-8275-miles-of-highway/</span></a> <span style="color: blue; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><a href="https://www.peakprosperity.com/alice-friedemann-when-the-trucks-stop-running/">https://www.peakprosperity.com/alice-friedemann-when-the-trucks-stop-running/</a>)</span>. Switching the world economy to nuclear energy (converting everything that now runs on oil to run on nuclear electricity) quickly enough to avoid both global warming and peak oil, and cheaply enough to avoid economic disruption, is not a realistic prospect. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Perhaps the worst technotopian dream is “negative carbon” technologies: those that claim to be able to take CO2 out of the atmosphere and put it somewhere safe. This is often titled clean coal, carbon sequestration or carbon capture and storage - a technology that has never been economical to implement (meaning that it takes too much energy to do). I understand that the economic model on which the Paris agreement is based, anticipates that a technology like this will be invented and somehow remove a high proportion of CO2 from the atmosphere in the near future. It would require funding an industrial infrastructure on a similar scale, cost and energy demand of the global electricity generating system. Clearly this is a fantasy invented as an excuse for doing nothing about the real problem. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Decisions about nuclear energy, fossil fuels, computer games, agricultural chemicals, military adventurism, extramarital affairs, etc. all suffer from the same human frailties: we have a great new idea, exaggerate the imagined benefits, minimise all the problems and inflate sense of our power to manage the consequences.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">A cool look at the world’s energy situation reveals that our economy totally depends on a limited supply of fossil energy, which is getting harder to deliver. There are no new energy sources that can meet current global demand, avoid terrible climate change or maintain our current affluence. We need to reconcile ourselves to a future of decreasing energy use. The nice way to describe this is energy descent. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><i>A peek at the global perspective</i></b></span></h3>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I don’t want to write about the climate emergency (there is heaps of good and horrifying information about that), but it’s relevant to mention the scale of that situation. The world’s richest 10% (that’s us) collectively have about the same carbon emissions as the poorer 90%. That means the rich 10% have about 10 times the emissions per capita as the poorer people. This means that if we are to reduce global emissions, nearly all the reductions must come from the rich, as the poor can’t really get any poorer and stay alive. Reducing global emissions by 50% in 10 years (as required) would require the equivalent of stopping all emissions from the rich. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This gives some perspective of what sort of actions are real solutions: major, short-term reductions many times bigger than the Global Financial Crisis. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><i>Getting poorer: the only way forward</i></b></span></h3>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">So far I've made two arguments for getting poorer: it's the only way to avoid cooking the planet; and it's going to happen anyway as we run out of fossil energy. The solutions we are offered as responses to climate change and resource constraints don’t work: efficiency (unless part of a downsizing strategy) simply shifts our energy use to different places; and renewables have no prospect of maintaining our expectations of affluence and growth. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">There are other, very strong, reasons to get poorer, that I won’t explore in depth here. Violence and oppression are used to maintain the shocking differences in wealth between people in the world. A move towards greater equity and less violence would require greatly reduced affluence for people in rich countries. There is also a strong argument that our obsession with earning and spending money wastes our short and precious lives, harming our relationships, families and communities. Once you have enough, more doesn’t make you happier. </span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QsjFqf9oGi0/XRxW01fjkoI/AAAAAAAAB68/YyJdaJRnz70uqX-q5JSDpWRkOs0mu9OgACLcBGAs/s1600/1138px-SpcialProgressIndexVsEnergInOilPerDay2.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1138" height="202" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QsjFqf9oGi0/XRxW01fjkoI/AAAAAAAAB68/YyJdaJRnz70uqX-q5JSDpWRkOs0mu9OgACLcBGAs/s320/1138px-SpcialProgressIndexVsEnergInOilPerDay2.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">By Thomasjam - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=51509025</td></tr>
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This graph of social progress relative to energy consumption shows how increased energy use tends to improve social measures. Note that the energy scale is logarithmic, so the countries on the right use many times more energy than those on the left. However energy consumption is not very good at producing social progress: Russians uses about 10x as much energy as Philipinos, but have lower social measures; Americans use more than 2x as much as Danish, with lower social measures.By Thomasjam [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], from Wikimedia Commons]</div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><i>The politics of energy and climate change</i></b></span></h3>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">If you accept the arguments made above, or the data on energy consumption in the graph above, it is clear that the current political conversation fails to address our energy, climate or economic challenges. The political Right and Left are both totally committed to the paradigm that is driving our climate and resource problems. The Right either denies there are problems with the environment or resources, or says they must not get in the way of growth and consumption. The Left recognises there are problems, but says we will fix them with regulation, innovation, technology and thus maintain growth and consumption. Both are incompatible with the science (the closest thing we have to facts) showing that our fossil energy resource is finite, burning it up is cooking the planet, and the earth doesn't have enough resources, or capacity to absorb waste and emissions, for everyone to live like Americans (or Australians or Europeans). </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In this light, we are all little different from climate-change deniers: the deniers have merely chosen to get off the logic train earlier than those who accept the climate science but can’t accept what it means for how we live. The well-educated classes who “vote for the climate” are driving carbon emissions in proportion to their income, just like climate deniers. </span></div>
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<i>The non-solutions</i></h3>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I am definitely not proposing that we can address our climate problems by taking a moral position on money or affluence - a campaign for voluntary frugality. That's not going to happen. My goal is that we, as Greta Thunberg says, "tell the truth", so we can make helpful decisions. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Understanding that money represents energy and emissions, and that we are on a path of energy descent, gives us a “crap filter” for the information blizzard we are subjected to. Expensive “solutions”, like electric cars and solar batteries, are more of the same problem. Political promises to solve problems with economic growth mean wrecking our kids’ futures by cooking the planet, and are probably undeliverable. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">As we begin energy descent, we are at great risk of spending our efforts in denial and violence trying to extend our energy wealth. There are an abundance of voices telling those already frustrated by energy descent to blame their discomfort on some group of people: immigrants, or Muslims, or the other political party. Consider what happened to the USA in the 1860s when the southern states were confronted with the loss of their low cost, pre-oil, energy supply: slavery. The Civil war was a catastrophe, as was the invasion of Iraq (another war about energy), each time wasting astronomical amounts of energy and making most people sadder and poorer. Consider also the American “preppers”, who build bunkers full of tinned food and guns and prepare to shoot their hungry neighbours. The less we understand the reality of our situation, the more likely we are to resort to greed and violence.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><i>What to do about it</i></b></span></h3>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">An effective response to our climate and resource challenges needs to start in our heads. There are plenty of practical problems, but we can’t deal with them until we’re cool with the reality of our situation. Planning to get poorer peacefully in our communities, instead of fighting over diminishing resources, is a huge opportunity to give our children a safer, happier future. </span>To do this, we need to see ourselves differently as individuals. Currently, our money income defines us: our career success, our status, our sexual attractiveness. Reducing our earning time or wage level is, within our economic and social paradigm, to waste our skills, miss opportunity, become less important. This is the primary task of addressing climate change and peak oil: developing a new identity that allows us to value ourselves and each other without reference to what we spend and burn. </div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Our new individual identities need to include our communities, a part of us that has been hit hard by the rise of consumerism. Our future, like most of our history, is built on our successful interdependence with our neighbours. Helping out, and being helped, is not only the cheapest way to do most things, it’s also the happiest. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">If we can let go of (or at least manage) our consumer identities, and rebuild our community relationships, then we can start the task of building an economy of “sufficiency”, focussed on providing people with fulfilling lives on minimum energy and resources. This project has already started, under titles such as Permaculture, Transition Towns, Resilience, Sufficiency, Retrosuburbia; and clearly has a lot of work to do. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In an economic paradigm of “sufficiency” we could pursue the minimum level of money-based consumption that enables human dignity and health, and devote the balance of our time to doing what makes us happy: looking after family, community and environment. Growing, making and fixing more of our needs in family and community economies of trust and interdependence, or extending local economic capacity with local currencies, increases our economic well-being but doesn’t enable carbon emissions. It also builds a resilience to shifting economic conditions. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">To build cultures and economies like this requires adopting new paradigms in our minds and communities, building new systems that provide our needs, and learning and teaching the required skills. Getting cool with getting poor, and letting go of the dreams that make us wreck our country and our future, is fundamental to this. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>If you did not want much, there was plenty. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">(Go Set a Watchman, Harper Lee)</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><i>Acknowlegement</i></b></span></h3>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i style="font-family: "helvetica";">Thanks to Carol Booth for her </i><span style="font-family: "helvetica";"><i>generous</i></span><i style="font-family: "helvetica";"> help in editing this - it's a difficult idea to get across!</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><i>Links</i></b></span></h3>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">If you think I must be wrong because nobody agrees with me: you have a valid point. Herd instincts evolved because they work - mostly. Here are some sources I recommend if you want to think more about the challenges I have presented. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: "arial"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Nate Hagens</b></span><br />
<span style="font-kerning: none;">I recently heard Nate Hagens interviewed on Radio Ecoshock, and he gave a really good way of looking forward and working out what action to take, with a focus on how our ecological problems will be experienced as an economic crisis. I strongly recommend listening to the podcast: <a href="https://www.ecoshock.org/2020/01/nate-hagens-the-collision.html">https://www.ecoshock.org/2020/01/nate-hagens-the-collision.html</a><br /><b></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Post Carbon Institute</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.postcarbon.org/">https://www.postcarbon.org</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Post Carbon Institute collects some really good communicators about peak oil and global warming. I’ve been particularly enjoying their recent podcast Crazy Town <a href="https://www.postcarbon.org/crazytown/"><span style="color: blue; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">https://www.postcarbon.org/crazytown/</span></a>, about the distressing mismatch between what seems logical (what I’ve written about above) and what everyone is doing. Their new report The Future is Rural <a href="https://www.postcarbon.org/publications/the-future-is-rural/"><span style="color: blue; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">https://www.postcarbon.org/publications/the-future-is-rural/</span></a> is excellent and clear. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: "arial"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>David Holmgren's Retrosuburbia</b></span><br />
Our family and friends have been enjoying David Holmgren's recent book <i>Retrosuburbia</i>, which outlines a household and community path for energy descent. I think this is where things are at currently - it's not a time when policy reform can be looked to for progress, culture needs to lead. More information on the book and its ideas can be found at the book's website <a href="http://retrosuburbia.com/">retrosuburbia.com</a>, including valuable <a href="https://retrosuburbia.com/further-reading/" target="_blank">free download reading</a>. An excellent <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/pip-permaculture-podcast/id1194241902?i=1000401496631&mt=2" target="_blank">podcast interview of David about the book is here</a>. Our family particularly enjoyed reading the <i>Aussie Street</i> chapter from the book out loud to each other - it shows the power of story to getting ideas across.<br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Ted Trainer</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.thesimplerway.info/">http://www.thesimplerway.info<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Ted Trainer was the first person I ever heard or read that really put the affluence myth to the test, in his book <i>Abandon Affluence</i>. Over 30 years ago he showed that renewable energy, at any price, couldn’t replace fossil fuels. </span><br />
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Here's a nice, short essay by Ted that sums things up pretty well: <a href="https://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=12162&page=0">https://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=12162&page=0</a> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Kevin Anderson on climate change</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjTtohMgGk8">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjTtohMgGk8</a></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This is an excellent, concise, but challenging video in which academic Kevin Anderson lays out the facts on climate change and how government plans don’t match the science. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Resilience.org</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://resilience.org/">resilience.org</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> is a program of the Post Carbon Institute, focussed on what sort of new economy we should be building. This is a useful article on “decoupling”, the misguided idea that we can have economic growth without growth in carbon emissions <a href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2018-01-02/are-we-decoupling-not-really-but-happy-2018-anyway/"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">http://www.resilience.org/stories/2018-01-02/are-we-decoupling-not-really-but-happy-2018-anyway/</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Gail Tverberg </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://ourfiniteworld.com/">https://ourfiniteworld.com</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Gail is an excellent writer on energy, using the discipline of focussing on facts. Here is her article on peak GDP (have we peaked already?) <a href="https://ourfiniteworld.com/2017/08/14/world-gdp-in-current-us-dollars-seems-to-have-peaked-this-is-a-problem/"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">https://ourfiniteworld.com/2017/08/14/world-gdp-in-current-us-dollars-seems-to-have-peaked-this-is-a-problem/</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Energy cost of energy blog</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/">https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
<div style="font-family: "arial"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>A more detailed look at fossil fuel consumption</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.nationalobserver.com/2017/07/13/analysis/these-missing-charts-may-change-way-you-think-about-fossil-fuel-addiction?utm">https://www.nationalobserver.com/2017/07/13/analysis/these-missing-charts-may-change-way-you-think-about-fossil-fuel-addiction?utm<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
<div style="font-family: "arial"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Bedazzled by energy efficiency (Kris De Decker’s essay)</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/01/bedazzled-by-energy-efficiency.html%23more">http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/01/bedazzled-by-energy-efficiency.html#more<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Jevons’ paradox</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"></span></a></span></div>
<div style="font-family: "arial"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Living within planetary limits (the challenge of equity)</b></span></div>
<div style="color: blue; font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;">https://theconversation.com/is-it-possible-for-everyone-to-live-a-good-life-within-our-planets-limits-91421</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Sustainable energy without the hot air</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This is a really comprehensive analysis of Britain’s energy situation, if it tried to run on some sort of sustainable energy supply. It’s a pdf book, free to download, that takes a lot of reading but leaves you with a much better understanding of the energy situation of rich countries. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.withouthotair.com/">https://www.withouthotair.com</a></span></div>
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<h4 class="legacy entry-title instapaper_title">
The Conversation: <b>Affluence is killing the planet, warn scientists</b></h4>
This recent article in The Conversation includes a lot of good links to papers on rebound, sufficiency, etc.. <a href="https://theconversation.com/affluence-is-killing-the-planet-warn-scientists-141017">https://theconversation.com/affluence-is-killing-the-planet-warn-scientists-141017</a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">More evidence against decoupling</span></h4></div><div style="font-family: "arial"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">https://eeb.org/library/decoupling-debunked/ </span><br /></div>
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Bruce Teaklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00911602199839526224noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796610487071943623.post-77205524937848916592019-01-07T07:00:00.001+10:002020-02-24T18:52:00.861+10:00Top bar hive design<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This post describes the top bar hive design I am currently using, which is slightly modified from the Les Crowder design to suit my situation. I have written other posts about my top bar beekeeping efforts, including <a href="https://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/2017/12/starting-top-bar-bee-hive.html" target="_blank">putting a top bar super on a framed hive</a>, and <a href="https://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/2018/12/starting-top-bar-hive-with-brushed-swarm.html" target="_blank">putting a brushed swarm into a top bar box</a>. </span></i></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LJogeAbkV8Y/XC87yOv3qpI/AAAAAAAAB08/bKml30SgikkSW-tuSmXJjQ7-xlWxCNI1gCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1440.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LJogeAbkV8Y/XC87yOv3qpI/AAAAAAAAB08/bKml30SgikkSW-tuSmXJjQ7-xlWxCNI1gCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1440.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My first top bar hive at home in our hillside orchard. The framed nucleus hive above it provided the bees for a brushed swarm to start a top bar hive</td></tr>
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<h3>
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What top bar design to use?</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There are heaps of top bar hive designs visible on the internet. Many tend to be quite complex, and the array of options is confusing to the beginner. While getting started with top bar hives, I've found myself settling on a frugal and simple design which I have adapted for my circumstances. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I've taken a lot of inspiration from Les Crowder, reading and frequently referring to his book (Top Bar Beekeeping), and watching him on youtube (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gkz34d_L5w" target="_blank">this one is my favourite</a>). Les clearly is focussed on the bees instead of the appearance of their accomodation, perhaps like those families who are more interested in relationships and good health than the architectural status of their houses. He uses many re-used materials, and only does as much work as is required to make the parts do their job. There’s a lot to be learnt from this approach (I also appreciate the frugality of Sam Comfort’s beekeeping, e.g. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogYGjJCQ-k0" target="_blank">this video of him inspecting a top bar hive</a>). </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Hot climate design</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Living in a climate where it can get very hot, I’ve followed Les’s lead in using a relatively long bar in a relatively shallow box. This means the combs carry less weight per length of bar, and are less likely to break off in hot weather when the wax gets soft and weak. I’m also providing insulation above the top bars, to reduce the flow of solar heat from the roof, which could heat the top bars and cause combs to soften and fall. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I'm still considering how best to provide ventilation to my hives. I'm interested that many top bar hives have mesh floors, that give a lot of ventilation, but I wonder if this would make it hard for the bees to keep warm and dry in our winters. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Dimensions</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The key dimension for any top bar hive is bar length. Les uses bars 20” long (508mm), which I rounded down to 505mm (cold climate beekeepers often use shorter bars in deeper hives). Because I see a lot of value in standard, exchangeable bars (e.g. when helping other beekeepers start hives) I was a bit torn between Les’s size and the <a href="https://mistressbeek.com/2009/05/03/diagram-and-plans-for-a-top-bar-hive/"><span style="color: #888888; font-kerning: none;">“Standard top bar”</span></a> size of 19 1/2” (495mm), but it’s easy to cut bars short if needed. I’ll say more about my top bars later. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The internal dimensions of the box cross-section are 465mm max width (at top), 235mm wide at bottom and 200mm depth, which gives the sides a 60* angle. </span></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-901Zl_ty2Lo/XC864CdbYsI/AAAAAAAAB00/HXdAh4fbJmcUrpCblTlfzkC4pd2ePmTSgCLcBGAs/s1600/TopBarDimensions.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-901Zl_ty2Lo/XC864CdbYsI/AAAAAAAAB00/HXdAh4fbJmcUrpCblTlfzkC4pd2ePmTSgCLcBGAs/s320/TopBarDimensions.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hive end board dimensions</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">End boards and divider boards are made to this cross-section size, cut from 200 x 25mm boards. The tops of my end boards are flush with the tops of the side boards. This makes it easy to put on a capping piece at the end with an entrance; it’s also easier to mill 200mm boards than 250mm boards. This is different from some designs that have end boards standing above the side boards (e.g. Les Crowder). </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The box sides are 250 x 25mm boards, square edged (these could be made from 2 boards joined together). The bottoms are 235 x 25mm boards (or narrower boards fitted together), with the edges angled at 60*. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I’ve made my full-size hives 1200mm long. This is longer than some designs (Les uses ~1100mm long to fit in his truck), but it gives the bees some spare room in case of neglect during a honey flow. Currently I find the extra length useful for temporarily holding bars and combs I’ve lifted out of the hive. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I’ve also made a few 10-bar top bar nucleus hives (nukes) which are the same cross section, but 420mm long (outside dimension: side and bottom boards are 420mm long). </span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cHztw40XluQ/XDJo1l3iH3I/AAAAAAAAB1Y/qYqW_x3hlWIZ-sviIOI66JhJyIRDc0JbwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1513.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cHztw40XluQ/XDJo1l3iH3I/AAAAAAAAB1Y/qYqW_x3hlWIZ-sviIOI66JhJyIRDc0JbwCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1513.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's a 10 bar nucleus hive. Note how the sides are made from narrow boards, avoiding the need for 250mm-wide timber. I haven't put an insulating board under the roof of this hive yet. </td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The nukes are very useful for making a split (dividing a hive to make a new hive). They are great for collecting and initially housing swarms: small enough to carry to the swarm. They are also easy to transport when setting up hives in another place - I try to avoid moving full-length hives. An empty nuke is also a very useful toolbox and top bar comb holder when doing beekeeping: when you lift out combs from a top bar hive, you need somewhere to put them: you can’t just lean them against the outside of the hive like you can with a Langstroth frame. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Hive entrance</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My hives have an entrance at the top of one end board. The opening is created by a slot 150mm wide, 10mm high, cut into a piece of 30mm x 20mm x 505mm wood, nailed on the top of one end board. </span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lzV2geQVmeM/XDJozk1zP-I/AAAAAAAAB1g/7hHqxUfXKioKEkwx95GtpLne5mnSitNqwCEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_1512.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lzV2geQVmeM/XDJozk1zP-I/AAAAAAAAB1g/7hHqxUfXKioKEkwx95GtpLne5mnSitNqwCEwYBhgL/s320/IMG_1512.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The centre stick in the picture is an entrance bar, with 150mm wide slot in the middle. On its right are 2 spacer bars, for when the standard bars don't quite fit into the hive</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The inside top edge of the end board needs a bevel cut below this opening, so the first top bar doesn’t block the entrance. </span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YZMGqnUoh9g/XDPRZzrWfnI/AAAAAAAAB18/MZX8XvvN1h8Zg4J09HcVtypKy0D3o63NwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1517.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YZMGqnUoh9g/XDPRZzrWfnI/AAAAAAAAB18/MZX8XvvN1h8Zg4J09HcVtypKy0D3o63NwCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1517.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's a bevel on the inside of the end board, ready for the entrance bar to be nailed on top. The bevel allows the bees to enter without being blocked by the first top bar.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BjPKhfat0Gg/XDPRTgC-BWI/AAAAAAAAB14/pbUHwyuXjw8KuIL6weXZHG3b-da3oybtwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1521.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BjPKhfat0Gg/XDPRTgC-BWI/AAAAAAAAB14/pbUHwyuXjw8KuIL6weXZHG3b-da3oybtwCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1521.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And here's what the entrance looks like from the inside with the entrance bar in place. </td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Most of the smart top bar beekeepers seem to put the hive entrance at the bottom of one of the hive’s long sides: Les puts his close to one end as a 10mm x 150mm slot, some put 3 x 25mm holes in the middle (e.g. <a href="http://www.biobees.com/" target="_blank">Philip Chandler</a> , <a href="http://www.beekeepingnaturally.com.au/" target="_blank">Adrian Iodice</a>). I’m sure they’re right about the benefits of a low-down side entrance, but I’ve put my entrance at the top of the end to fit with my local conditions. Because of the steep slope I keep my hives on, a side entrance would require me to stand in front of the entrance while working on the bees, creating an air-traffic-control problem, irritating the hive and giving me more risk of bees going up my shorts. An entrance at the bottom of the hive would also be easily obscured by fast-growing weeds in our sub-tropical paradise. I take comfort from <a href="https://www.blogger.com/link%20to%20http://bushfarms.com/beestopbarhives.htm" target="_blank">Michael Bush</a>, who describes how he uses a top entrance created by leaving a gap between the end bar and the hive end board. My entrances are easily removed and a side entrance could easily be cut in if my hives are moved to somewhere flatter some time. One of the splendid things about these top bar boxes is how easy it is to try a diversity of ideas, even if you stick to one top bar length. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Top bars</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So far I’ve been using 35mm wide top bars, following Les Crowder, 505mm long. <a href="http://www.beekeepingnaturally.com.au/" target="_blank">Adrian Iodice</a> also uses 35mm bar width. Many top bar beekeepers use 38mm (1 1/2”) wide bars all through (<a href="https://mistressbeek.com/2009/05/03/diagram-and-plans-for-a-top-bar-hive/" target="_blank">Standard top bar</a> and Philip Chandler both use 38mm wide bars). </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Some people use wider bars for honey combs and narrower for brood. This is similar to Australian framed hive beekeeping, where it’s common to use 10 frames in a 10 frame brood box, but only 9 frames in honey supers. This makes wider honey combs that are easier to uncap when extracting honey, and requires less wax and fewer frames per kg of honey. Using 2 different widths of bars would add significant complexity to using a top bar hive, as combs that have been used for brood are gradually progressed outwards to become honey combs. <a href="http://www.biobees.com/build-a-beehive-free-plans.php" target="_blank">Philip Chandler’s top bar hive plans</a> mention that some beekeepers add 6-8mm wide shims between honey bars during a flow. Occasionally I’ve used a few spacers (about 8mm) for bars with extra-wide honey comb. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My first batches of top bars had a square ridge machined into the bottom edge, intended to help guide the bees in comb building (does it?). I made these from 35 x 25mm timber, and used my circular saw bench to saw away the wood on each side of the ridge, leaving a 35 x 20mm bar plus ridge. Making these ridges adds a significant amount of time to bar-making, and requires the timber to be 5mm thicker than it would be without the ridge. </span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-26Cxipa5Pds/XDJoxtPRapI/AAAAAAAAB1c/0B4mtyXTi5QJuH2neVbHOFgTSfuCL5jiQCEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_1511.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-26Cxipa5Pds/XDJoxtPRapI/AAAAAAAAB1c/0B4mtyXTi5QJuH2neVbHOFgTSfuCL5jiQCEwYBhgL/s320/IMG_1511.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here are my 2 types of top bar, plain on the left, ridged on the right. Both have a cross-cut groove near the end to locate the bar on the top of the hive side</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Watching<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gkz34d_L5w&t=1037s" target="_blank"> Les Crowder’s video</a> I noticed that although his book advises you can nail on a cleat along the bottom of the bars, Les’s bars visible in the video are plain flat on the bottoms (watch from about 11min to 14min). Les’ bars are a diverse collection of timber scraps: the right width and length, but otherwise anything goes (including what looks like a strip of short-grained 10mm plywood). His combs, however, appear remarkably straight and well aligned to their bars. I now suspect that there isn't much value to making top bars with complex shapes on the bottom, hoping to influence comb building. </span></span></div>
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<br /><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Since working this out, I’ve been mostly making plain 35 x 20mm bars, flat on the bottom, rough-sawn unless planing is necessary to make a straight bar. In the hives, I don’t find the bees align their combs better on either type of top bar. Both require some straightening of combs at the ends. The bees </span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">actually appear to attach their comb more strongly to the </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">bars without ridges. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-QUc3QA5ZBgQ/XGh7S3KwdFI/AAAAAAAAB38/Moy0OVsvQ-ogvCSGw4MQoQjgPqjnjyo6gCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1544.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-QUc3QA5ZBgQ/XGh7S3KwdFI/AAAAAAAAB38/Moy0OVsvQ-ogvCSGw4MQoQjgPqjnjyo6gCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1544.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's a ridged bar, standing upright. See how a lot of the comb is attached only to the narrow ridge on the bar bottom, with occasional extra reinforcement onto the bar base.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hA19xOGWluU/XlOONjuNtjI/AAAAAAAAB9Q/hMUABSl_uUQraPdKnVKjbTWN0TX1uK-fQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_0611.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hA19xOGWluU/XlOONjuNtjI/AAAAAAAAB9Q/hMUABSl_uUQraPdKnVKjbTWN0TX1uK-fQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_0611.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's a ridged top bar, showing how little interest the bees have in the ridge. </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8F0p11wByi0/XGh7S2fZCcI/AAAAAAAAB34/cM8PJB433sEjbiXyD03UDHw8H_pT92zLgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1545.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8F0p11wByi0/XGh7S2fZCcI/AAAAAAAAB34/cM8PJB433sEjbiXyD03UDHw8H_pT92zLgCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1545.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's a flat-bottomed bar, with the comb attached more broadly and strongly along the bottom of the bar. </td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Following Adrian Iodice’s method, I have been making a cross-cut slot near the end of each bar, which engages with the ridge of one hive side board. This is to maintain more consistent alignment of combs in the hive when replacing bars, and cause less interference with the bee space between the comb and the hive sides. Maybe I’m being too fussy…</span></span></div>
<h3>
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Roof</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I’ve used a very simple roof: a sheet of corrugated iron, 1450mm long and 740mm wide, edges turning downwards, on top of some 25mm pine boards, on top of the top bars. The hinged roofs on the fancier hives would have real advantages: light and easy to lift, no need to find a place to put them down. However for now, I’m stuck with keeping hives on a steep slope, I’m using top, end entrances, and hinged roofs wouldn’t easily work. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I cut the corrugated iron so it has about 100mm overhang all around, keeping sun and rain off the hive walls. This requires cutting along the corrugations, which isn’t easy. I could use an angle grinder and disc, but that burns the zinc coating and leaves a nasty burr, so I manage with special flat-bladed tin snips (or my friend’s electric snips!). I use a couple of bricks to hold the roof on in storms - perhaps I should tie down with a strap or rope like Les does. </span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-C5dTNLJvPLU/XC87zt1VIGI/AAAAAAAAB1A/gk5A5GRrej0tLS2MrZeU74i6LRgoo-xPQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1500.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-C5dTNLJvPLU/XC87zt1VIGI/AAAAAAAAB1A/gk5A5GRrej0tLS2MrZeU74i6LRgoo-xPQCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1500.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's the wooden insulating panel, on top of the top bars</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Under the iron I have a wooden panel which is purely to add insulation from the heat of the sun - I really don’t want the bars to heat up on a hot, sunny day and have combs fall down. It is made from 25mm thick pine boards held together with 3 cleats across, screwed together with type 17 screws. I put a layer of reflective foil building paper on top of the boards to reflect heat from the corrugated iron. The cleats, on top of the boards and foil, create an air space under the iron to further reduce heat. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Materials</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One of the things I most love about top bar hives is that I can make them myself from timber I mill myself, from trees we grow. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So far I’ve made most of my boxes from untreated slash pine (Pinus elliottii - the most common exotic pine in this area). This is mostly due to having some old boards to use up, plus my reluctance to use more valuable hardwood when I’m still at an experimental stage. With 3 coats of water-based exterior paint (from the tip) on the outside, bare wood on inside, I expect a reasonably long useful life. The shallow profile and sloping side boards, under an overhanging corrugated iron roof, mean that the top bar box rarely gets wet at all - unlike a framed hive, with tall walls that will be running with water in any rain. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">To make hardwood hives, I’m milling 25mm boards of lighter eucalypts such as blackbutt, flooded gum and Sydney blue gum. Narrower boards can easily be butt-jointed, with cleats to hold them together when required: the bees will fill any shrinkage gaps they don’t like with propolis. Painted, covered and on a dry base, these should last for decades. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I’ve made the top bars from whatever offcuts I have available from sawmilling, lately mostly slash pine and flooded gum. Additionally, I’ve been experimenting with milling some of the smaller, rarely used rainforest timbers that go to waste locally, and experimenting with non-chemical treatments to avoid beetle damage. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I screw the hives together with 50mm type 17 galvanised hex head screws, 12 or 14 gauge, whatever used screws I can find. I pre-drill holes for the screws, I dip a little grease on each screw before insertion, I paint the joining faces of the wood, and put a little paint in the screw hole, before screwing the pieces together. These screws are very durable, very strong, and easy to remove when desired. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Home grown</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">All the wood I use for my hives is milled here on our place, and nearly all is grown here in our valley. The Eucalypt wood (flooded gum, blackbutt, Sydney blue gum) is from trees we planted here in the late 1980s/early 1990s. The slash pine is from trees planted in the mid-1900s that are old and falling apart. On our fertile, well watered soils, all these trees grow very fast and are light, easily milled timbers. Because the longest piece of a top bar hive is 1200mm, it’s easy to find sections of even a crooked log that can be cut into the various parts of a hive. While it’s legitimate to grow trees for timber, I haven’t ever cut a tree just for wood. The trees I mill are felled for other property management reasons, such as maintaining sunshine on our house, solar panels or garden, or thinning over-crowded forest. If you grow forest, you will have lots of wood to spare. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I produce hive wood with a small chainsaw mill (<a href="https://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/2018/10/holzfformahuztl-alaskan-chainsaw-mill.html" target="_blank">here's a post about my current Alaskan mill</a>) and some crude, solar powered circular saw equipment. I can cut 1” (25mm) thick boards for the hive boards with the chainsaw mill. Some of my top bars are specially sawn from small logs, milled into 40mm slabs to dry and later resawn by circular saw; most are cut out of offcuts from my other timber work activities. </span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ql3dBxHWHmo/XDJrEsTcp3I/AAAAAAAAB1s/eBWy6padZZguQ5OiSIz37RHhuObGhpb_ACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1514.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ql3dBxHWHmo/XDJrEsTcp3I/AAAAAAAAB1s/eBWy6padZZguQ5OiSIz37RHhuObGhpb_ACLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1514.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's a stack of 40mm Pencil cedar slabs, just long enough for top bars, seasoning in the shed loft</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It’s so satisfying to have a good use for small pieces of wood!</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Both the hive for the bees, and most of the nectar they harvest, are products of our native forest, along with all our firewood, building wood, charcoal for cooking and blacksmithing, etc.. We live from our forest. </span></span></div>
Bruce Teaklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00911602199839526224noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796610487071943623.post-88289978907632376892018-12-13T21:40:00.000+10:002019-05-25T10:34:37.875+10:00Starting a top bar hive with a brushed swarm<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The hardest part of starting my top bar hives has been getting some bees into the first hive when I didn't have a top bar hive I could take combs from. This is how I did it, using a brushed swarm from a framed (Langstroth) nucleus hive. </span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I've written more on my top bar hive design in <a href="https://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/2019/01/top-bar-hive-design.html" target="_blank">this post about how I've been making my top bar hives</a>. </span></i></div>
<h3>
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Splitting a hive</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When you want to start a top bar hive, it's quite easy to make the hive. But then you need to get some bees into it. When I first tried to start a top bar hive (<a href="https://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/2017/12/starting-top-bar-bee-hive.html" target="_blank">described in my blog post here</a>), I thought I’d do it with the method known as “splitting” or “dividing”. This is where you take some of the brood, bees and honey from one strong hive, to make another. If you don’t provide a new queen, the workers in the queenless hive will usually make one for themselves from eggs in the comb. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We have several framed hives which we split from time to time. However the challenge was that I couldn’t do a split into </span></span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">my top bar hive</span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> in the normal way from the Langstroth hives, because Langstroth frames won’t fit into a top bar hive. Some people cut up frames to fit them in a top bar box, but I wanted to avoid this (I'm inhibited by my deeply imbedded frugality - if you don't suffer from this you could save a lot of trouble with a little frame chopping - see</span><a href="https://vimeo.com/5614348" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank"> https://vimeo.com/5614348</a><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">). </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My plan was to put a top bar super on top of a framed hive and get the bees to build comb on the top bars. When there was brood in the top bar combs, I could simply move the bars and combs from the top bar super into a top bar hive, the bees would make a new queen, and I would have my first top bar hive. I tried this with 2 different hives. It didn’t work, because although the bees did build comb on the top bars, I couldn’t get brood laid in the top bar combs. </span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-g2Tpbt24Q3I/XBI2kQKKX7I/AAAAAAAAByw/sJIAs9nIOb4NohmPmDX88K-SyIvTDWxrACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1389.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-g2Tpbt24Q3I/XBI2kQKKX7I/AAAAAAAAByw/sJIAs9nIOb4NohmPmDX88K-SyIvTDWxrACLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1389.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's a little comb being started on a top bar - beautiful</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When the bees made new combs in the top bar boxes, the combs hung down from the bars which make the hive roof. This meant there was a significant air gap between the top bar combs and the brood comb below, which I think made it unattractive for the queen to go up and lay eggs. Without brood in the new hive, you can’t do a split. My plan didn't work and I needed to try something different. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A brushed swarm</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Although plan A hadn’t worked as planned, the bees had built some combs on a few top bars. Having some combs on top bars was good preparation for doing what is called a “brushed swarm”, or a “shaken swarm”. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In a brushed swarm, you take the combs from a brood box and gently brush all the bees - including the queen - into a new hive that has some comb but no bees. If the combs are strong enough you can shake most of the bees off before brushing. Langstroth frames are strong enough to shake pretty vigorously. Top bar combs are often strong enough to shake - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy57cOkSj9M" target="_blank">see expert top bar shaker Sam Comfort at work here</a>. The new hive is then set into its new place and the bees left to organise themselves. Many of the worker bees brushed into the new hive are young nurse bees, who haven't yet been outside the hive. These nurses will stay in the new hive. The queen, who also doesn’t travel and won’t go back to her old home, will start laying in the empty comb. The nurse workers will look after this new brood, and make more comb if they have some honey to eat. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The older flying workers will leave the new hive to do their foraging work, and then return to their old hive. The new hive will appear very quiet once the flying workers have left, but will gradually build a flying worker population as the nurses mature. In 3 weeks the first of the new brood will start to emerge from their cells, and the new hive should start to get stronger. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Back at the old mother hive, we have a population of foraging-age workers, who have flown back to the old hive. When these workers find that they are queenless, they will attempt to make a new queen from a day-old egg - usually this works out fine. 4 weeks or so after brushing the swarm, you can check for eggs in the brood comb to see if they have made a new queen. If there are no eggs, they were unsuccessful, but you can give them a second chance by introducing a comb from another hive, with day-old eggs in it, for them to make another queen from. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Growing some top bar combs</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Having some combs in the new hive is quite important to doing a shaken swarm. It means there is comb for the queen to lay in immediately, and it saves the small crew of nurse bees from having to make so much fresh comb from honey at a difficult time. Also, in a top bar hive, existing combs are important to give you control of where new comb is built. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I tried 2 methods of starting the top bar hives, and both did produce some combs which were very useful to the brushed swarm. The first method was described in <a href="https://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/2017/12/starting-top-bar-bee-hive.html" target="_blank">my blog post a year ago</a>, and I suspect it’s the better way to go. I made a small top bar super that fit onto a 10 frame hive. </span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-g9lMEvyTQJ0/WkR9GmBW8VI/AAAAAAAABXE/H7Z0Md9WC44t3nSqBes3SKQUSjmvV6XMQCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/IMG_1152.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-g9lMEvyTQJ0/WkR9GmBW8VI/AAAAAAAABXE/H7Z0Md9WC44t3nSqBes3SKQUSjmvV6XMQCPcBGAYYCw/s320/IMG_1152.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's my brown top bar super on a white, standard, 10-frame hive. This is a reasonable way to get some combs started on some top bars, in preparation for starting a top bar hive. Once it's done its job, the top bar super could then be converted into a top bar nucleus hive - very useful. </td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I attached some pieces of free comb I cut off a hive lid onto 3 or 4 bars, to give the bees some guidance where to start - if I’d just given them bare bars, I could have ended up with comb going anywhere and any direction. The bees built these combs bigger as little honey flows occurred. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The second method was a bit clumsy, but was necessary in the circumstances. I made a 4-frame nucleus hive (“nuke”) by splitting, that I took home to Mt Glorious when it appeared strong. It was easily transported on the roof rack of our hatchback, in cool weather. At home, I cut a large hole in the bottom of a full length (1200mm) top bar box, and strapped the nuke (with lid removed) to the bottom of the top bar box, giving the bees easy access from the nuke to the top bar box. </span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0C9B_1386lE/XBI_Dh8lkHI/AAAAAAAABzE/7_uyyXz82SA7mJ8tAIczsTc3ZlD8iGnpwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0322.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0C9B_1386lE/XBI_Dh8lkHI/AAAAAAAABzE/7_uyyXz82SA7mJ8tAIczsTc3ZlD8iGnpwCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0322.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's the top bar hive upside down, being painted, showing the hole in the bottom</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rgjbf-ufIYM/XBI_h7U3WyI/AAAAAAAABzk/CHj-vuPfY4UUOWnj6Ze3cRMR1iD3sbeTwCEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_0325.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rgjbf-ufIYM/XBI_h7U3WyI/AAAAAAAABzk/CHj-vuPfY4UUOWnj6Ze3cRMR1iD3sbeTwCEwYBhgL/s320/IMG_0325.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's the nucleus hive strapped to the bottom of the top bar hive. The strap went over a separator board</td></tr>
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<tr><td><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kFAGLxRGP54/XBI_CmXY4MI/AAAAAAAABzM/1FICwouOyWsD836RRjzoEfi_jGDTOAOPgCEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_0323.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kFAGLxRGP54/XBI_CmXY4MI/AAAAAAAABzM/1FICwouOyWsD836RRjzoEfi_jGDTOAOPgCEwYBhgL/s320/IMG_0323.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Looking down into the top bar hive after it was joined to the nuke, showing frames of the nucleus thru the hole in the bottom </td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The bees seemed to prefer to build free comb onto the top of their nuke frames, inside the top bar box, but I kept cutting the combs off and attaching them to the top bars. Eventually I had a few combs hanging on the top bars. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Realising that my splitting idea wasn’t going to work for a long time if at all, I separated the nuke from the top bar box, and made my brushed swarm. I took out the nuke frames one by one, and brushed all the bees into the top bar box, making sure the queen wasn’t hiding in the frames after brushing. Once all the frames were clear of bees, I put them back into the nuke and replaced the lid. Foraging bees quickly re-populated the nuke hive. </span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7DipUG3DfGw/XBI_lONB8sI/AAAAAAAABzk/y_nlbSIDkyYFp-CvkNya3aoO5hub_sRSQCEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_1440.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7DipUG3DfGw/XBI_lONB8sI/AAAAAAAABzk/y_nlbSIDkyYFp-CvkNya3aoO5hub_sRSQCEwYBhgL/s320/IMG_1440.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here are the framed nucleus hive (background) and the newly separated top bar hive, with all their bees adapting to the new arrangement</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I fed the top bar hive with honey cappings I had kept from our framed hives, spooning cappings onto a piece of wire mesh in the hive bottom and letting the bees lick them clean. I expect this was a help to their work in making new comb, which takes a lot of honey. Top bar hives make this sort of feeding easy, as there is open space under the top bars in the part of the hive where the comb hasn’t yet been built - framed hives have no open spaces. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Over the next few weeks, the top bar hive settled down and gradually grew in strength. The framed nuke didn't manage to make a new queen the first time, but I gave it a top bar of comb from the top bar hive (replacing a frame), and they were successful at the second attempt. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Catching a swarm</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">After I got the top bar hive going well, I made a couple of top bar nukes: 10 bar hives, only 410mm long, according to Les Crowder’s description in his book. I made these in preparation for splitting off new hives. </span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This was also good preparation for swarms: a couple of days after finishing the top bar nukes, I found a swarm in a tree nearby (from a wild hive). A nuke was very convenient to take out to catch the swarm: small and easy to take out to the bush to catch the swarm, has a fixed bottom (unlike a framed super) so it can be put on the ground, and unlike a cardboard box, doesn’t require tipping the bees out into a hive when you get home. Before putting the swarm in, I put some combs on top bars into the top bar nuke, from the established top bar hive. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2TnNKYo2kPo/XBI_4nX-W0I/AAAAAAAABz0/04apDsxtSLAl-fPzLs6FEV7uf9uH6CU2wCEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_1441.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2TnNKYo2kPo/XBI_4nX-W0I/AAAAAAAABz0/04apDsxtSLAl-fPzLs6FEV7uf9uH6CU2wCEwYBhgL/s320/IMG_1441.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's the 10 bar nucleus hive, swarm installed, with temporary roof</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Having already-built combs on top bars was very helpful for installing the swarm: it made the bees feel at home (I think), it gave the queen comb so she could start laying immediately, and it gave me control of how the swarm bees built their comb: using existing combs to get them to build along the bars. The swarm hive established very quickly, and soon overtook my first hive (from the shaken swarm) in strength. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Splitting</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Making new hives is essential to frugal beekeeping, even if you want to keep a steady number of hives. I don’t buy new queens: they cost a lot of money, and travelling to pick them up is time consuming and expensive. I prefer to split hives when they’re strong, and unite them when hives seem weak or are found to be queenless - which happens to me reasonably often. This means that you need to either have more than one hive, or some friendly neighbours with compatible hives, who can help you with brood combs or a healthy nucleus hive when you find you have no queen. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Now that I have plenty of top bar combs, it is easy for me or my friends to start new hives, by splitting or by shaken swarms from framed hives. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I split hives from a strong hive, when they seem to be vigorous and there is a reasonable honey flow. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I put 2 or 3 brood combs (on top bars), with plenty of fresh eggs (look for the tiny rod-like eggs standing up in the bottoms of the cells), into a top bar nucleus hive. I usually shake extra nurse bees, off some more of the mother hive's brood combs, into the nuke to provide more working population, and replace the combs into the mother hive</span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I also put 3 or 4 honey combs (on top bars) into the nuke, to provide food for the new hive until it is strong enough to harvest its own. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The bars taken from the mother hive are replaced with bare bars, usually in the same places. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I close the doorway to the hive down to a small entrance, maybe 20mm wide, to make it easier for the weak new hive to defend itself. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I try to minimise disturbance of the new hive for about 4 weeks, so I don't mess up their making new queens. After 4 weeks, the new queen will have hatched, killed off her competing sisters, mated and started laying. If I find fresh eggs at this time, the split has worked. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">If there is no sign of eggs, there is no queen, and the colony is doomed if left alone. The nuke can either be joined to another hive or given new brood combs to try again to make a new queen. </span><br />
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Splitting top bar hives is so easy!</span></h3>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Compared to splitting framed hives, splitting top bar hives is very easy. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's so easy to get to the brood combs in the top bar hive: lift the lid, and every comb in the hive is accessible immediately. You know where the brood is, because you've looked after this hive already, and you can lift out a brood comb straight away and see if it looks suitable for use in the new nuke. There is hardly any disturbance to the hive, rarely many upset bees, and I can comfortably work wearing shorts and with bare hands (I do always use a veil, in case things do go wrong). </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">With a framed hive, you need to lift off all the honey supers (could be up to 40kg each), then the queen excluder, before the brood frames are accessible. The whole hive is in pieces and the bees are upset - but not as upset as they'll be when you squash dozens of them while reassembling the hive. You need long pants and plenty of smoke! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">With a framed hive, you need to replace the brood frames you take away, with new frames with fresh foundation (or other suitable worker-comb frames), which you need to have prepared first. In top bar beekeeping, you simply drop new or comb-less top bars in place of the ones you've taken away, and the bees build whatever comb they think best onto the new bars - in the brood chamber this will generally be worker brood comb. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Checking the success of a split is likewise easy in top bar hives. When I split, I'm not particularly careful where the queen ends up - it takes so long for me to find her with my ageing eyesight, and I've never found it easy. I also don't consider it to be important most of the time to find the queen: if there are plenty of fresh eggs, there's a reasonable queen. It's important to check in the mother hive and the new nucleus to see which hive has the old queen, by looking for fresh eggs in a week or so. Again, in a top bar hive it's so easy to lift out a few brood combs and check, without having to un-stack the hive, and without causing much disturbance to the hive. </span></div>
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Bruce Teaklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00911602199839526224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796610487071943623.post-63713643089590950832018-11-03T07:18:00.001+10:002020-12-02T07:53:41.528+10:00Huztl chainsaw chain review<i><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Huztl chains are cheap and cut well, but often have hard spots that blunt your file, and you can’t predict what profile or manufacturer of chain you’ll get. </span></i><i><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><br /></span></i>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Over the last few years I’ve been using Huztl chains on nearly all my saws, doing work ranging from thinning cypress to milling. Overall they've worked very well, and have been remarkably cheap. </span></div>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">I haven’t noticed a difference in how long the Huztl chains stay sharp compared to Stihl chain, but I would expect Stihl chain, which is noticeably harder to file, to stay sharp longer in clean wood. </span></div>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Varying chain types</span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Most chains I’ve bought from Huztl have been marked “KANGXIN” on the side plates, with semi-chisel tooth profile. I like this chain: semi-chisel is good general purpose chain, and copes better with dirty conditions than full chisel tooth. Chisel tooth cuts very well, but when you find some sand in the bark or a termite pipe, the corner can be badly damaged and it needs a lot of sharpening to cut well again. </span></div>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Lately some chains from Huztl have been a different make. They are full chisel and unbranded. This was first with 3/8 LP, then with .325, now with 3/8 pitch chain. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5FoMkYAPVTg/W9y5YZS1PBI/AAAAAAAABx0/FQCCymmrp1M7qUEs8_kwyTg8nH6SBtGIwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0359.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5FoMkYAPVTg/W9y5YZS1PBI/AAAAAAAABx0/FQCCymmrp1M7qUEs8_kwyTg8nH6SBtGIwCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0359.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Huztl's .325" chisel-tooth chain. See it is a low-kickback chain with ramps on the drive links. This is safer, but can obstruct boring cuts. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">I wrote to Huztl to ask if they can still provide the semi-chisel chain, and they replied that they couldn’t. </span><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Because of this, I’m now trying the chain from jonoandjohno.com.au, which is a similar price to Huztl if you buy a roll. </span></div>
<h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Hard spots</span></h3>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">The biggest problem I’ve had with these Huztl semi-chisel chains has been frequent hard spots in the steel, in the gullets of the teeth. Small spots of steel are hard enough to damage the saw file when sharpening. I really don’t like this: it’s terrible to damage a new sharp file. </span></div>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">I think the cause of these hard spots is easy to guess: when the chains are being machine sharpened with a grinder in the factory, poor quality control of the grinding wheel condition, or the feed rate, or something, is causing overheating of the teeth. </span></div>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">I’ve seen hard spots in chains before, usually on chains sharpened inexpertly with electric grinders. I’ve even caused the problem myself, overheating teeth with a bench grinder while modifying chains to “Granberg” ripping chain pattern. </span></div>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">What happens is that the heat created by the friction of the grinding wheel, is enough in some small part of the steel, to bring the steel to red heat - critical temperature for hardening. Then when the grinding stops, heat quickly flows from the tiny volume of hot steel into the surrounding metal, quenching and hardening the steel that was red. </span></div>
<h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">A remedy</span></h3>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">The easiest solution to the hard spots is to carefully grind the tooth gullets of these hard-spotted chains before sharpening them the first time with a file. One grinding should remove the hard bits permanently. </span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-swh91QQ-vmI/W9y6UR1mDyI/AAAAAAAAByA/sE8l0oj0q7YUwIrN7zLp54e0JzikjxjDgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0351.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-swh91QQ-vmI/W9y6UR1mDyI/AAAAAAAAByA/sE8l0oj0q7YUwIrN7zLp54e0JzikjxjDgCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0351.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is the tooth before grinding. The hard spots seem to be on or around that little peak in the bottom of the gullet. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BBaLt6zOrTo/W9y6Z2EOsGI/AAAAAAAAByE/xLdtPIHRmPgjOSJKF4ElnKysEo4mPDbKACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0356.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BBaLt6zOrTo/W9y6Z2EOsGI/AAAAAAAAByE/xLdtPIHRmPgjOSJKF4ElnKysEo4mPDbKACLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0356.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's a tooth after grinding. See the little peak is gone and the gullet is a bit deeper. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">I’ve been using a cheap chainsaw-sharpening grinder I inherited from a neighbour. It’s a terrible machine really: terribly inaccurate and totally unsuitable for sharpening - I nearly took it to the tip more than once. The greatest benefit of an electric chainsaw sharpener is to accurately equalise the teeth of a poorly sharpened chain. However this machine is no good for that because the plastic parts give it so much flex. However for gulleting these chains to remove the hard spots, this cheap machine is good: the flex allows the grinding wheel to be swept back and forth in the gullet. </span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o_u3J2NX2vA/W9y6nuNazWI/AAAAAAAAByM/paayqMk3TOI0_6JouIYC-7_lKQECqzJWgCEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_0352.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o_u3J2NX2vA/W9y6nuNazWI/AAAAAAAAByM/paayqMk3TOI0_6JouIYC-7_lKQECqzJWgCEwYBhgL/s320/IMG_0352.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is the cheap chainsaw chain grinder. Mostly plastic construction makes it very flexible and inaccurate. An old angle grinder cutting disc is mounted on the plastic spindle, held on with a plastic nut. It works very well for this job but not for sharpening.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Because the original sharpening wheel was broken, I mounted an old 2.5mm thick angle grinder cutting disc in it. This would be too coarse for sharpening, but is good for this gulleting task. The plastic spindle needed to be trimmed a little (spinning it against a chisel) to fit the disc. </span></div>
<h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Hard depth gauges</span></h3>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">I’ve also noticed some depth gauges are hard to sharpen, in the Huztl chains but also in genuine Stihl chains. It only seems to be a problem the first time the dept gauge is filed, perhaps due to the chrome plating instead of steel hardness. This is also annoying, leaving visible lines of damage to the file teeth. If I’m in the workshop when I find these hard depth gauges, I’ll use the grinder to take the tip off the depth gauge, so my files will last longer. </span></div>
<h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Conclusions</span></h3>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Huztl chains are alright, but you need to be flexible about what tooth profile you get. </span></div>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">It’s not worth buying a cheap electric chainsaw sharpener, but they can be useful to remove hard spots. </span></div>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">If you use an electric chainsaw sharpener, grind very gently, to avoid overheating and hardening. </span></div>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Some of this cheap Chinese chainsaw gear is good enough, if you have the time and bush engineering skills to make it work properly. Spending less money means less time earning money, more time in the workshop at home. That works for me. </span></div>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">[but some of this cheap Chinese gear isn’t good enough: see <a href="https://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/2018/07/holzfforma-chainsaw-bar-review.html" target="_blank">my review of the Huztl/Holzfforma chainsaw bars</a>]</span></div>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><br /></span>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oUa8RBmaypc/XqVi3gEw0lI/AAAAAAAACBA/FOjhqZvXxD0xBphnps8rzwL6yXYQAiBIACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_0679.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oUa8RBmaypc/XqVi3gEw0lI/AAAAAAAACBA/FOjhqZvXxD0xBphnps8rzwL6yXYQAiBIACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_0679.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's another chain bought from Huztl, this time branded "ZHUANG". It looks like the riveting machine missed a side plate, and no one was checking. Easily enough repaired - but remember to do your own quality control. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><br /></span></div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Bruce Teaklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00911602199839526224noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796610487071943623.post-75966813178705687712018-10-24T22:20:00.002+10:002022-09-29T11:37:55.096+10:00Holzfforma/Huztl Alaskan Chainsaw Mill Review (with Huztl MS660)<i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A light, effective and very cheap chainsaw mill can be made from the Holzfforma Alaskan chainsaw mill and the Huztl MS660 chainsaw, but it does need some bush engineering to work well. The mill needed some adjusting to work properly, the Holzfforma bar didn’t last long and needed replacing, and there's a few things to look out for in the MS660, but overall it is a low-cost mill that can do the job. </i><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Yqix2TOBHQY/W8f9OZxQ1mI/AAAAAAAABuE/ve6fSQc9usUfGY_lvdonVbz481ZyFXHLwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0335.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Yqix2TOBHQY/W8f9OZxQ1mI/AAAAAAAABuE/ve6fSQc9usUfGY_lvdonVbz481ZyFXHLwCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0335.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Huztl MS660, the Holzfforma Alaskan mill, and a stack of beautiful silky oak boards</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">I’ve done a lot of chainsaw milling since I started in the mid-1980s. I’ve used a genuine Granberg Alaskan mill, 48”, with .404 chain. I drove this with a Sachs Dolmar 120cc chainsaw for many years, now I use a Stihl 090 as the mill motor. I’ve milled many tons of wood with this setup. It’s been very reliable, but it’s big: it is very heavy to carry and use and was relatively expensive to set up. </span></div>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Recently I set up a new, low cost, lightweight mill for myself, entirely made of Chinese Huztl components. I bought a <a href="https://www.huztl.net/ST-066-MS660-Parts-Complete-Saw-Repair-Kits-c3074.html" target="_blank">Huztl MS660 kit</a> and assembled the saw (a friend and I made an MS660 each in one day), adding a 25” Holzfforma bar from Huztl, and a Huztl chain. I bought the <a href="https://www.huztl.net/24-Inch-Holzfforma%C2%AE-Portable-Chainsaw-Mill-Planking-Milling-From-14-to-24-Guide-Bar-p228058.html" target="_blank">Holzfforma 24” Alaskan chainsaw mill</a>, also from Huztl, and made a range of modifications to it, some to correct manufacturing faults, but mostly to make it easier to use. </span></div>
<h2>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">The motor: Huztl MS660 kit</span></h2>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-E3H7CBCnx-k/Wz3fWbINzOI/AAAAAAAABnQ/TfRZxDTkoP0QtEN262Oow8j7KAM6LopvACPcBGAYYCw/s1600/IMG_0298.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-E3H7CBCnx-k/Wz3fWbINzOI/AAAAAAAABnQ/TfRZxDTkoP0QtEN262Oow8j7KAM6LopvACPcBGAYYCw/s320/IMG_0298.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's my freshly assembled Huztl MS660</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">This was astonishingly cheap (just over AU$300 on sale), was easy and fun to assemble, and works really well. </span></div>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">There is a lot of information on youtube about making these MS660 clone saws, and their various issues. One of the best sources is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCD9l4lTAtiosSJnuxcXxdcg" target="_blank">afleetcommand’s videos</a> . My experiences with building Huztl/Farmertec chainsaws, including the MS660s, is mostly documented in <a href="https://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/2017/11/huztl-farmertec-036-chainsaw-kit-review.html" target="_blank">my post on building a Huztl/Farmertec MS360</a>. </span></div>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">I’ve remained genuinely non-genuine: I haven’t added any real Stihl parts to my MS660s or MS360. Many kit builders replace some components with genuine Stihl parts: </span><br />
<ul>
<li><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Afleetcommand points out a problem with some Huztl MS660s, including mine, with the half throttle setting not working properly. When I need half throttle (mostly in cold starts after turning off the choke) I simply use the traditional solution of putting my boot in the rear handle and pushing the throttle up with the top of my boot - a good trick for a flooded saw too.</span></li>
<li><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Quite a few kit builders report piston and cylinder damage from piston pin clips. My Huztl MS360 post outlines my response, modifying the Huztl clips. <i>2022 update:</i> I recently helped a friend build a Farmertec 066 kit, whose piston pin clips had no tails at all, so it appears Farmertec is fixing that problem. <br /></span></li>
<li><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Decompression valves routinely lose their plastic heads (all mine have). You can buy a genuine valve, or make a simple fix (also in my MS360 post).</span></li>
<li><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">I've had one bad Huztl carby, but this was willing replaced by the supplier. </span></li>
<li><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">I've had some trouble with Huztl oil pumps, but each time it's been repairable - see below. </span></li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">The MS660 has a 92cc engine which is powerful enough for the 24” Alaskan mill, especially for smaller logs. It would be worth having a bigger saw if you were consistently milling over about 450mm diameter, but that would be balanced against the much greater expense of the motor and the increased kerf of .404 chain used by bigger saws. For most people’s needs the MS660 makes a fine mill. </span></div>
<h2>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">MS660 oiler</span></h2>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">In the first few hours of milling, I was a bit concerned about the low use of bar oil by the MS660. </span><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">I’m particularly sensitive to my bar oiling, as I use used cooking oil for bar lube (</span><a href="https://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/2018/08/using-vegetable-oil-for-chainsaw-bar-oil.html" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">see my post here on using vegetable oil for bar lube</a><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">) and I want to make sure I use plenty, to compensate for possible quality problems with the oil (not that I’m convinced it’s any worse than other oils).</span><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"> Milling hardwoods is particularly hard on chainsaw bars. </span></div>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">After joining the facebook "Huztl Farmertec Chainsaw Builders" group, I found some illuminating discussion of MS660 oil pumps, and dismantled mine to see if I could improve it. </span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">What I found was that the pump piston stroke was inhibited by the end pin of the piston control bolt. </span><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">To increase the oil flow, I tried grinding the end pin right off the control bolt. This enabled singificantly greater oil flow, but disabled the ability to turn down the oil flow. </span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">I could have achieved the same result with a less dramatic modification, by simply grinding a flat on the end pin in the right place. </span></div>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Gy7UQR3VSYk/XFuFvvpyvNI/AAAAAAAAB2k/YS91VC-IQrs_FRXCbCnC15aOjpmXr09ggCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0391.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Gy7UQR3VSYk/XFuFvvpyvNI/AAAAAAAAB2k/YS91VC-IQrs_FRXCbCnC15aOjpmXr09ggCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0391.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's the MS660 oil pump piston (top) and control bolt below. If you look carefully, you can see a gap between the ramp on the piston (to the right of the gear) and the control bolt, caused by the pin on the end of the control bolt. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YNWRJiE86ss/XFuFvkJkd4I/AAAAAAAAB2o/n6rQ1DHqb7AqzyjdefO-DMgY-SyqOA2kQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0392.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YNWRJiE86ss/XFuFvkJkd4I/AAAAAAAAB2o/n6rQ1DHqb7AqzyjdefO-DMgY-SyqOA2kQCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0392.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's the control bolt</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pUTyzqhu_oU/XFuFuM3tawI/AAAAAAAAB2g/RjNasa8HQAUaHjXdt8MubPfIdlKabgQdgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0393.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pUTyzqhu_oU/XFuFuM3tawI/AAAAAAAAB2g/RjNasa8HQAUaHjXdt8MubPfIdlKabgQdgCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0393.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And here's the control bolt with the end ground off. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">I later dismantled my earlier Farmertec MS660 saw, and found its pump didn't have this problem, so I left it unmodified. </span><br />
<h2>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">The bar</span></h2>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">I bought a Holzfforma 25” bar from Huztl (3/8” x 1.6mm, 84 drive links). Outside the Alaskan mill, this has a maximum cut of 610mm (24”) with the saw spikes removed. With the spikes on the saw it will cut about 570mm (about 22.5”) (this labelling of saws with lengths they can’t actually cut is common to various brands including Stihl, not just Holzfforma). In an Alaskan mill, a 25” bar will cut up to about 465mm (18”) wide boards - this is plenty for many trees. </span></div>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">If you want to use the full capacity of the 24” Alaskan mill, I recommend a 28” or longer bar. Depending on the spot welds in the roller nose, you may be able to drill the bar as I describe below. </span></div>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">My friend and I both bought 25” Holzfforma bars with our MS660 kits, and both failed very early. Bad steel quality has caused failure of the rails, mostly near the nose. </span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3Vyhl3eQcWc/W679N4a_2jI/AAAAAAAABts/vS4EMkui5EkQqLfS_5fB_4rsla6Z49jHwCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/IMG_0342.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3Vyhl3eQcWc/W679N4a_2jI/AAAAAAAABts/vS4EMkui5EkQqLfS_5fB_4rsla6Z49jHwCPcBGAYYCw/s320/IMG_0342.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">See the chip broken off the 25" bar nose? It's where the chain hits the bar rails after coming off the sprocket. The heat mark in the middle is where the Alaskan mill bar clamp squeezed it a bit when I was trying different positions. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">I give a more comprehensive <a href="https://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/2018/07/holzfforma-chainsaw-bar-review.html" target="_blank">review of Holzfforma bars in my blog post here </a>.</span></div>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">I’ve bought a 28” Tsumura bar from chainsawspares.com.au, which has worked without any problems at all. </span></div>
<h2>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">The mill</span></h2>
<div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KUqTMTbPuHc/W8gOthD6e7I/AAAAAAAABuU/oLXA1Y_DS_Abtb7N6y1LQsEAFklTLsGHQCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/IMG_1418.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KUqTMTbPuHc/W8gOthD6e7I/AAAAAAAABuU/oLXA1Y_DS_Abtb7N6y1LQsEAFklTLsGHQCPcBGAYYCw/s320/IMG_1418.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's the shipping box for the Holzfforma Alaskan mill. The serving suggestion shows an 070 motor, which is 105cc and uses .404" chain. </td></tr>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">The maximum width of cut in the 24” Holzfforma Alaskan mill is 540mm (just over 21”)</span><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">, which covers most logs</span><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">. This requires a 28” or longer bar. A longer mill is good when you have a big log, but it is a nuisance to carry around the longer frame when you’re milling smaller logs. I’m finding it very convenient to have this smaller mill. </span></div>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">The quality of the Holzfforma Alaskan mill is okay, but (like many things from Huztl) it needs some work before it is ready to use. </span></div>
<h4>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Squaring the cast aluminium bridges</span></h4>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">The mill has 2 cast aluminium bridges that join the 2 fence rails to the bar posts. These (in my mill at least) were out of square, so they sprang a bend in the chainsaw bar when I first assembled the mill, and made adjustment of slab thickness difficult. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LZtuqI6RyiU/W8gTbnT93II/AAAAAAAABuk/GCDwn-SPu9IiOJy2uZxAtnse5LZc844vgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1414.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LZtuqI6RyiU/W8gTbnT93II/AAAAAAAABuk/GCDwn-SPu9IiOJy2uZxAtnse5LZc844vgCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1414.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Looking along the bar now, it is straight, but this was bent before filing the bridges. </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tup77SL4gjc/W8gS9A2s7LI/AAAAAAAABuc/svG6cVl8q7o-7QbqJiINBOZQBeCMTfYawCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1400.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tup77SL4gjc/W8gS9A2s7LI/AAAAAAAABuc/svG6cVl8q7o-7QbqJiINBOZQBeCMTfYawCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1400.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You can see the mill post (vertical steel piece which clamps onto the bar at bottom) is not parallel to the square</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-otPz2ipBYFw/W8gTgNJvDZI/AAAAAAAABuo/SGKzKhqUpBEWosEb2jEkkcgrq_Ojg5EIgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1410.JPG" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-otPz2ipBYFw/W8gTgNJvDZI/AAAAAAAABuo/SGKzKhqUpBEWosEb2jEkkcgrq_Ojg5EIgCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1410.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's one of the mill fence bridges in the vice, ready to filed square with the dreadnought file. These files are specially designed for aluminium and work very well</td></tr>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">The remedy is simple: file the landings where the fence rails meet the bridge, so they’re square to the post. A dreadnought file is the best tool for filing aluminium (should be in every bush engineer’s toolbox) because it doesn’t clog, but if you don’t have one, you can get away with your coarsest file and frequent cleaning of the teeth. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3sTpVbofQxQ/W8gUtOvroGI/AAAAAAAABu0/8fRKAZBY2UEGS3zcW9Jud1j0mPTHmb2uACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1411.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3sTpVbofQxQ/W8gUtOvroGI/AAAAAAAABu0/8fRKAZBY2UEGS3zcW9Jud1j0mPTHmb2uACLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1411.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Filing the landing on the fence bridge</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-P13nUjWx0Zo/W8gUvwpSD0I/AAAAAAAABu4/hLwuR5PO8ecZTbQTgSx1l2nFgWczpDsXwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1412.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-P13nUjWx0Zo/W8gUvwpSD0I/AAAAAAAABu4/hLwuR5PO8ecZTbQTgSx1l2nFgWczpDsXwCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1412.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A freshly filed landing</td></tr>
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</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-usEfG0InN-E/W8gVahb8KSI/AAAAAAAABvE/e73Qa2izJdA9KBCrGmIKZ9UiqdvhqFcRQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1408.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-usEfG0InN-E/W8gVahb8KSI/AAAAAAAABvE/e73Qa2izJdA9KBCrGmIKZ9UiqdvhqFcRQCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1408.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is how I checked the landings for square while I was filing them. A piece of pipe is clamped where the mill post goes, and a square is clamped onto the landing where the fence rail goes. You can see they're not parallel yet. </td></tr>
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<h4>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Adding a bridging rail</span></h4>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Alaskan mills usually have 1 or 2 bridging rails, that go between the long fence rails, and are flush with the fence’s bottom surface. These are very helpful when starting and finishing cuts, making it easier to start a cut parallel to the previous cut, and reducing the tendency for the leading fence rail to fall off the end of the log and curve the cut downwards at the end of the cut. The 24” mill only has 1 bridging rail, so I made another one from wood and attached it to the cast aluminium bridge at the engine end of the mill. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wy6BvOZjZRw/W8gfnmex97I/AAAAAAAABvQ/G_zUe2yr-tg0BLIMGZtHNDe7BFkqfYXXQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1432.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wy6BvOZjZRw/W8gfnmex97I/AAAAAAAABvQ/G_zUe2yr-tg0BLIMGZtHNDe7BFkqfYXXQCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1432.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The extra bridging rail is painted green, and helps start and finish cuts</td></tr>
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</div>
<h4>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Frame bolt failures</span></h4>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hjntG5MJt_4/XFuB22BG98I/AAAAAAAAB2Q/PhUf2zrp9mMA4FJu4tDtFT95-Mw7dbO6ACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1532.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hjntG5MJt_4/XFuB22BG98I/AAAAAAAAB2Q/PhUf2zrp9mMA4FJu4tDtFT95-Mw7dbO6ACLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1532.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's the junction between the mill bridge and the mill rail, with failed bolts and nuts on top. See how shallow the nyloc nut is, and see the stripped section halfway along the thread of the coach bolt in the middle. </td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12px;">I had an early failure of the bolts that were provided with the mill to hold the bridges onto the rails. These are metric 8mm (M8) coach bolts: they have a domed head with a square base, instead of a hex head.</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12px;"> </span><br />
<div style="font-family: helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
The bolts on the outer bridge (furthest from the motor) stripped after a few hours use. This appears to be because the nyloc nuts provided have a very short metal thread, and my need to loosen and tighten these bolts, in order to use different length bars, quickly stressed and stripped the bolt threads. </div>
<div style="font-family: helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
These bolts have their heads in the slot of the mill rails, so need to be keyed into the slot - using the square base of the coach bolt - to stop the bolt from spinning when the nut is tightened (you can't put a spanner on the bolt head). Although I didn’t have any M8 coach bolts in stock, I was able to easily replace the bolts with hex head bolts with filed rebates under the head, which key into the mill rail slot. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-s6fKAyvt73E/XFuB18HsKVI/AAAAAAAAB2M/15C12cqI1qcQ-dNP_wGFjreUINXy4uuMACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1534.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-s6fKAyvt73E/XFuB18HsKVI/AAAAAAAAB2M/15C12cqI1qcQ-dNP_wGFjreUINXy4uuMACLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1534.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's the M8 bolt replacing the failed coach bolts. See the rebates filed on each side of the hex head, to key into the rail slot and stop the bolt from spinning when you tighten the nut. I used standard nuts to replace the poor-quality nyloc nuts.</td></tr>
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<h4>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Drilling and direct bolting the chainsaw bar</span></h4>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">I’ve done hundreds of hours of chainsaw milling before getting this setup, and I’ve learnt to keep checking and tightening all the bolts in the mill: they tend to vibrate loose. When the bolts that clamp the chainsaw bar to the mill posts come loose, your bar slips and the saw cuts into the clamping bolts. I’ve done this, it feels bad. </span></div>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">The solution I’ve come up with, and which I’ve been happy with for years, is to drill holes in the chainsaw bar, drill and thread the landings at the bottoms of the 2 mill bar posts, and bolt the bar directly on to the mill. This gives a more positive connection of the bar to the mill posts. Now that you are not depending on friction to hold the bar, less will go wrong if the bolt comes loose. This method also makes attaching and detaching the saw from the mill - for sharpening or other servicing - quicker and easier. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1XfSQlV6PNc/W8ggeFv1rbI/AAAAAAAABvc/y1NNdH32WG0mctXEq-_7xCwWIyLDfJt3QCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1422.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1XfSQlV6PNc/W8ggeFv1rbI/AAAAAAAABvc/y1NNdH32WG0mctXEq-_7xCwWIyLDfJt3QCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1422.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is a bar that has been drilled and bolted onto the mill posts. You can see a centre bolt in the left side clamp, and a bolt going thru the roller nose on the right</td></tr>
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<tr><td><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bJr0NTd-kUs/W8ggdor0wdI/AAAAAAAABvY/xs7hgiWjuMo-Bsp43LB_Hqq7aNIIDs9-ACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0331.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bJr0NTd-kUs/W8ggdor0wdI/AAAAAAAABvY/xs7hgiWjuMo-Bsp43LB_Hqq7aNIIDs9-ACLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0331.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Here is the bottom clamp piece from the engine-end of the bar, with a 10mm hole drilled thru the centre and a bolt ready to go thru the hole in the chainsaw bar. See the M8 bolt at top, which keeps the bottom clamp in alignment. </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FWFWlJo_5PQ/W8ggezUE3KI/AAAAAAAABvg/Pd3L3ibe88U84s6V0XUthlPW6pVw_PR1QCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0332.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FWFWlJo_5PQ/W8ggezUE3KI/AAAAAAAABvg/Pd3L3ibe88U84s6V0XUthlPW6pVw_PR1QCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0332.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An M10 threaded hole has been made in the middle of the landing at the bottom of the mill post</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0I09w0LwUHQ/W8ghGbJGH-I/AAAAAAAABv0/jLp21-SJUfIdam1ocLOJABBuMZji-ZKAACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1403.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0I09w0LwUHQ/W8ghGbJGH-I/AAAAAAAABv0/jLp21-SJUfIdam1ocLOJABBuMZji-ZKAACLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1403.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here is the bar bolted on with the M10 bolt at the motor end. Both skids are kept in place to run along the side of the log. The M8 bolt on the top end of the clamp is there to stop the bottom skid from turning, but is only bolted to the bottom clamp/skid. </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wegTUC3416A/W8ghFNQwoCI/AAAAAAAABvw/6P_y3QgJkw0pFS2BblSXadQYG3LFnrUTwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1405.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wegTUC3416A/W8ghFNQwoCI/AAAAAAAABvw/6P_y3QgJkw0pFS2BblSXadQYG3LFnrUTwCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1405.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">At the bar nose, only the M10 bolt is needed to hold the bar on</td></tr>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"></span></div>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Sometimes it’s hard to find a place to drill some bars</span><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"> </span><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">around the sprocket nose, </span><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">so you need to use the clamp. One engine-end bolt still makes for a quick and positive connection, which won’t slide if it loosens. </span></div>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">I use M10 bolts for this job, and an M10 tap for the mill posts. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rn7YEmty_7E/W8kVkwaTmtI/AAAAAAAABwY/1Y88JhYCB0s8EP5DZQ1Pg05ihQHgrgACwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1402.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rn7YEmty_7E/W8kVkwaTmtI/AAAAAAAABwY/1Y88JhYCB0s8EP5DZQ1Pg05ihQHgrgACwCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1402.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The saw and mill ready to cut</td></tr>
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</div>
<h2>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Saw chains</span></h2>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Special chains are available for ripping (cutting along the grain), which is what you are doing when milling. For example, skip tooth chains have fewer teeth, achieved by having 2 blank links between the teeth instead of the usual 1. Having fewer teeth in the cut gives more horsepower per tooth, which allows teeth to dig deeper and cut chips instead of dust, making the cutting action more efficient and the teeth stay sharp longer. </span></div>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Chains can also be bought that have been sharpened specially for ripping: filed at 10 degrees from square, instead of 30 or 35 degrees which is normal for cross cutting. </span></div>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">For milling I usually make my chains from standard crosscutting chain: this means I only have to buy one type of chain for crosscutting and ripping (I use semi-chisel chain, as the teeth cope better with dirty conditions). However I modify the chains as I sharpen them to make them better for ripping: gradually changing the sharpening angle to 10 degrees from square. </span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">I also often do a more dramatic modification, following the Granberg ripping chain model: grinding the top plates off 1/2 of the teeth in a regular pattern. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WSHwexFzZOI/W8hhmas5S_I/AAAAAAAABwE/zPLvr3mx2b0jt94KIK8z57owGWSQkpfEwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1438.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WSHwexFzZOI/W8hhmas5S_I/AAAAAAAABwE/zPLvr3mx2b0jt94KIK8z57owGWSQkpfEwCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1438.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(It's hard to photograph chain teeth) Here are 2 teeth with their tops ground back. The tooth is still full height, but the top plate has been ground back so the tooth is very narrow at the top. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bSMDpjyukcc/W8hhnmdqwuI/AAAAAAAABwI/fkNaWWgeI1UidCjZkYkIBqSE0mhYNPLxgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1439.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bSMDpjyukcc/W8hhnmdqwuI/AAAAAAAABwI/fkNaWWgeI1UidCjZkYkIBqSE0mhYNPLxgCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1439.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And here are the next 2 teeth, normal size. As this chain is sharpened, I will make the teeth more square. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">This achieves a similar effect to skip tooth chain, reducing the cutting load of some teeth so that there is more horsepower per full tooth. </span></div>
<div>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">For this mill, I bought 3/8” chains from Huztl to match the 25” bar. The Huztl chains seem quite good (I have written <a href="https://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/2018/11/huztl-chainsaw-chain-review.html" target="_blank">a review of Huztl chains here</a>). I’m sure they’re not as good as Stihl (they’re certainly softer to file), but they keep their edge surprisingly well. I have found a few chains where there are hard spots in the base of the gullet that blunt the file - hard spots are usually caused by sharpening teeth with a grinder, and grinding too hard so a spot of steel briefly becomes red hot and quenches hard. A few sharpenings with a little grinding sharpener should get past the hard spots. </span></div>
<h2>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">The mill guide ladder</span></h2>
<div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-k2IgLTYrFD4/W8kcR6vv4SI/AAAAAAAABwo/kWeoOJv-nwsfQ9dkf5O_wr9Aqd8AIBzYwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1415.JPG" style="font-size: 12.8px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-k2IgLTYrFD4/W8kcR6vv4SI/AAAAAAAABwo/kWeoOJv-nwsfQ9dkf5O_wr9Aqd8AIBzYwCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1415.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The mill guide ladder spiked onto the log, with the saw ready to start and cut. Note how the weight of the engine tends to tilt the mill</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Alaskan mills need something to guide the saw in a flat plane for the first cut. This is usually based on a ladder or something that looks like a ladder, fixed to the top of the log. </span></div>
<div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nj0OII2LQ_4/W8kcRzRfQeI/AAAAAAAABwk/J06gpfnEPIUgoaaOoEeV_vGoiofyX_NNQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1417.JPG" style="font-size: 12.8px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nj0OII2LQ_4/W8kcRzRfQeI/AAAAAAAABwk/J06gpfnEPIUgoaaOoEeV_vGoiofyX_NNQCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1417.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The saw ready to make the first cut in this log. The ladder has been offset so that the force of the teeth cutting is borne by the mill skids against the log, and the ladder doesn't have to bear the force. The fence has been adjusted high enough so there's no risk of cutting into the spikes (I've done that too...)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">For years I’ve used a 4-rung “ladder” I made for the job. It has steel rungs or bridges that span between 2 pieces of very straight timber, dressed from 75mm x 50mm hardwood. The rungs are about 315mm long, made of 25mm solid square section steel, with flat bar pieces welded onto the ends for bolting onto the rails. 8mm vertical holes are drilled thru the rungs at 25mm centres to take spikes that fix the ladder to the log. The spikes are locked into the vertical holes with M8 bolts, which thread into horizontal holes in the rungs. </span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-39XKfX9UyTI/W8kcR63X9-I/AAAAAAAABws/wOMBHBIFAnkz-JgbwnAdZJ_lDEHXEbRagCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1416.JPG" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; font-size: 12.8px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-39XKfX9UyTI/W8kcR63X9-I/AAAAAAAABws/wOMBHBIFAnkz-JgbwnAdZJ_lDEHXEbRagCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1416.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here is one of my steel rungs: the spikes can be put into the vertical holes and knocked into the log with the back of an axe. Then the horizontal bolts are tightened to grip the spikes. The ladder must be checked for twist and adjusted flat.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"></span></div>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">The rungs are about 450mm from each end of the ladder, leaving the ladder overhanging the ends of the log enough to hold the mill up before the cut starts. </span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">After the half-round flitch is sawn off the top of the log, I use a barking bar (a small, specialised crowbar for removing bark from logs) to lever the spikes out of the log while they're still clamped into the ladder, by levering up on the steel bridges. The ladder is then removed and the half-round flitch is slid off the log and out of the way. Now you have a log with a flat top. </span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">To mill slabs and boards, the mill fence</span><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"> </span><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">is now adjusted closer to the bar, to mill whatever thickness you want. </span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Sometimes I put the ladder back on top of the log when it has a flat top, if I've made some bad cuts and I want the ladder to help straighten the cuts. </span></div>
<h2>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">What you need</span></h2>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">If you are considering setting up an Alaskan mill similar to mine, this is the minimum you’d need:</span><br />
<ul style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: -webkit-standard; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<li><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Huztl MS660 chainsaw (smaller saws, maybe down to 70cc, would work in small, softwood logs, but the bigger saw will work better, and probably last longer)</span></li>
<li><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Holzfforma 24” Alaskan chainsaw mill (if you go bigger than 24”, you probably need a bigger-engined saw)</span></li>
<li><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">A good quality chainsaw bar up to about 28” (don’t try Holzfforma, I’ve done that for you)</span></li>
<li><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Chainsaw chains (it’s good to get 3 at a time, wear them out together, then replace the sprocket and 3 chains together)</span></li>
<li><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Milling ladder with spikes or screws to attach it (people improvise all sorts of ladders, but you want it to be strong and steady so the first cut is straight)</span></li>
<li><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Some thin wedges (to put in the kerf behind the saw, when you get close to the end of the cut)</span></li>
<li><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">A cant hook to roll the logs (a crow bar might substitute, but it’s far inferior). <a href="https://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/2017/03/making-cant-hook.html" target="_blank">Here's my post on how to make a cant hook</a>. </span></li>
<li><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">A crow bar (useful for lifting and sliding logs and slabs)</span></li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AcKr3gQ556c/W8ke3yY_Q-I/AAAAAAAABxA/FV94siLNf18a8C6FrPcBuyIKINlUZbQlQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1419.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AcKr3gQ556c/W8ke3yY_Q-I/AAAAAAAABxA/FV94siLNf18a8C6FrPcBuyIKINlUZbQlQCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1419.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's a centre board from a silky oak log. See the very centre of the log (called the heart or pith) is within the board (look at the rings on the end grain). This heart needs to be cut thru, or even "boxed out" (cut out in a section of timber and discarded) to avoid drying stresses from damaging the timber around it.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VUXEuLiPlZA/W8ke3tdivWI/AAAAAAAABw8/ojGnktvNf-YSNk01ZL5HKwtPbrxy2N9twCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1420.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VUXEuLiPlZA/W8ke3tdivWI/AAAAAAAABw8/ojGnktvNf-YSNk01ZL5HKwtPbrxy2N9twCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1420.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">See the short split at the near end of the board, caused by growth stresses in the log. With fast-grown Eucalyptus wood (this isn't), there is much more growth stress, the centre board can split itself in 2 while you mill it. I'll often rip down the centre of a Eucalyptus log with a circular saw cutting the centre slab in 2 before I mill it off the log.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5zrVfRXRjik/W8ke3zAoibI/AAAAAAAABxE/A0h9YldvnKkgYtoGI-w9qDXrWgnpacK0wCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1421.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5zrVfRXRjik/W8ke3zAoibI/AAAAAAAABxE/A0h9YldvnKkgYtoGI-w9qDXrWgnpacK0wCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1421.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The board has been re-sawn with a hand-held circular saw (1200w Makita) with 8 teeth (a 20 tooth blade with most of the teeth cut off to increase horsepower per tooth - very effective). The board has been sawn down the pith to reduce immediate splits from growth stress, and long term splitting and distortions from drying stresses. The sapwood has been sawn off as it would be eaten by lyctus borers (unless the sapwood was soaked in borax solution). </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<h2>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Thoughts on Alaskan chainsaw milling</span></h2>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">In many ways, Alaskan mills are a terrible way to cut wood: they’re slow, noisy, vibratey, smokey, take lots of time to maintain, waste a lot of wood as sawdust, etc.. However, we use them because they can do what no other technology can do: for a few hundred dollars, and some time setting up, we can mill almost any log, any place. With these mills you don’t need a bulldozer or tractor to snig your logs to a mobile mill, or a truck to haul them to a stationary mill. All you need is the chainsaw and mill, a cant hook, and probably a hand-held circular saw for resawing (it’s very helpful to have a second chainsaw to hand as well, for crosscutting.) They make it worthwhile milling small amounts of timber that wouldn’t justify bringing in a mobile mill. </span></div>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">For me, although I have a big bandsaw mill, and access to friends’ Lucas mills - both far more efficient and fast ways to mill logs - my chainsaw mills are extremely useful.</span></div>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Years ago, I had a tiny, 800cc Suzuki four wheel drive with roof racks. I could take my chainsaw mill anywhere this little car could get to, and mill almost any log. </span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Chainsaw milling does use a lot of petrol per cubic metre of wood sawn, as the chainsaw engine and the chainsaw cutting process are not particularly efficient. However overall I think this is an energy-efficient method of milling wood in the circumstances it's used in. The massive energy cost of tractor snigging and loading, truck transport, etc., are avoided just at the start of the process. Then if you use the wood at home (as most chainsaw millers do</span><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">), you avoid another whole set of energy costs in processing, retailing and delivering. </span></div>
<h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">You still need to know about wood</span></h3>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">The setup I’m describing in this post is so cheap, it puts milling within the reach of many people. However whatever saw you use to cut up logs, you still need to understand wood, cut it to deal with its growth and drying stresses, know how to protect it from insects, have space to store it straight and dry; so that you end up with wood you can use, and not a pile of expensive firewood (I’ve done that, it doesn’t feel good). I’ll write more on that later. </span><br />
<h4>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Freehand milling</span></h4>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">There is another way to mill wood which is cheap and accessible. A chainsaw can be used "freehand", cutting along a chalk line, to make beams and posts. I've milled many beams this way for houses and sheds. </span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-seO1MkvNL5Q/W8zycQfUnfI/AAAAAAAABxk/doPQrUZk3RMi6U0Fhu6VpcHchEaJg9qKQCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/Beams01.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1065" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-seO1MkvNL5Q/W8zycQfUnfI/AAAAAAAABxk/doPQrUZk3RMi6U0Fhu6VpcHchEaJg9qKQCPcBGAYYCw/s320/Beams01.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here is the basic kit needed to cut beams freehand. The cant hook and crow bar are used to position the log on vee cradles (short pieces of log with vee notches cut in). The spirit level and builder's square are used to mark the ends of the log with the sections to be cut. The chalk line is used to mark along the length of the log. The small chainsaw is used to make a marking cut along the chalk line, and the big chainsaw is used to rip the log. The axe and adze are sometimes used to cut the sapwood off the beam.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="font-size: 18px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qz5j-C6XFFU/W8zyWprXwrI/AAAAAAAABxg/I47So_6Lvi8XQ11DVJdTTQ4mye7gVD_YgCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/DSC02969.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1065" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qz5j-C6XFFU/W8zyWprXwrI/AAAAAAAABxg/I47So_6Lvi8XQ11DVJdTTQ4mye7gVD_YgCPcBGAYYCw/s320/DSC02969.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 14.4px;">The log has been cut twice to leave a centre slab and 2 flitches (on right), then has been turned and is now being ripped thru the heart into 2 beams. This fast-grown flooded gum has a lot of growth tension that is released in this cut and is bending the beams. Often this bend is pulled straight in the building structure, by placing beams with opposing bends, and using threaded rod to pull them both straight. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">I usually work backwards when freehand milling, but some tropical village chainsaw timber millers use a very different technique to great effect, working forwards along the log. Here's an example of freehand milling with an old Stihl 070:</span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44i9AMphxrE&t=118s">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44i9AMphxrE&t=118s</a></span><br />
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Here's a Russian with a small chainsaw using a similar technique on soft pine wood:</span><br />
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qz64ELkxdA">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qz64ELkxdA</a></span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">I'll write more on freehand milling beams later. </span><br />
<div style="font-size: 18px;">
<br /></div>
</div>
Bruce Teaklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00911602199839526224noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796610487071943623.post-29354216239333738502018-08-15T08:24:00.002+10:002024-01-08T07:27:12.495+10:00Using vegetable oil for chainsaw bar oil<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 18px;"><i>I've been using used cooking oil as chainsaw bar oil for the last few years. It seems to work fine, but there are some risks to look out for.</i></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/--iPOKKNEfNA/W3NPvPfgkaI/AAAAAAAABrg/fW0uIE0kxcQ4G7lVaMLRR9VDYeDC1fpzQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1386.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/--iPOKKNEfNA/W3NPvPfgkaI/AAAAAAAABrg/fW0uIE0kxcQ4G7lVaMLRR9VDYeDC1fpzQCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1386.JPG" width="239" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">The oil I use comes in these 20 litre drums new, then is used for deep frying, then put back into the drums. I filter it into 5 litre tins like the one on top - the rats can't chew thru a steel container</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h2>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">
What's wrong with normal bar oil?</span></h2>
<div style="font-size: 18px;">
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Chainsaws use a "total loss" oiling system to lubricate the chain as it slides along the bar: oil is pumped into the chain slot at the top of the bar base, and most of it is lost into the sawdust by the time the chain has travelled around the circumference of the bar. If you want to use your sawdust for composting, you might think about this bar oil that's mixed in: over time the sawdust will be reducing in volume as it is oxidised away biologically, so the oil will become more concentrated, along with any additives or contaminants. Mineral oils are gradually decomposed by microbes, but we don't know how quick or complete this is with our chainsaw oils. "Bio" chainsaw oils, made mostly from plant oils, seem to be required in some European countries, but aren't common in Australia. </span></div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 18px;">Chainsaw oil is also quite expensive: around $5 to $10/litre, depending on how big a drum you buy. To avoid this cost, there is an old bushie tradition of using sump oil (used oil from car engines) instead of bought bar oil. "It was fine lubricating the engine for the last 1000km, so what's wrong with using it in the saw?", is a reasonable question. I've occasionally used sump oil in the past, especially in the external oiler for my Alaskan mill, but sump oil is worse than new mineral oil as a sawdust contaminant: it is laced with all sorts of toxic chemicals from the petrol and combustion, and I certainly don't want it in our garden. </span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="font-size: medium;">Interestingly there is some discussion about the health effects of breathing in oil mist from chainsaw bars - again, I'd rather not be breathing old sump oil. </span><br />
<h2>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">
Using vegetable oil</span></h2>
<div style="font-size: 18px;">
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">A few years ago, with all these questions about bar oil in my mind, and after a few google searches to assure me I wasn't the first, I started cautiously by using some out-of-date vegetable oil in my electric chainsaw. The saw is small, so the risk seemed less. Nothing bad happened over the next couple of years: the saw worked fine, the bar didn't seem to wear, so I tried using veggie oil in my petrol saws. </span></div>
<div style="font-size: 18px;">
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">I now get 20 litre drums of used canola oil, out of a deep frier, from my friend who has a cafe (he otherwise has to pay for old oil to be removed). I strain this oil thru a seive (to remove old chips etc.) into 5 litre steel fuel cans, from which I put it into the chainsaws. I use this oil in all my saws, from the big Stihl 090 milling saw, to the little Stihl 024 thinning saws and the electric saws. </span></div>
<h2>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">
What can go wrong?</span></h2>
<h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">
Rats</span></h3>
<div style="font-size: 18px;">
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">The biggest risk from using veggie oil comes from it being undoubtedly food - there is even a scent of hot chips in the forest as I work, some days. This makes it attractive to rats, and in our sheds amongst the rainforest, we have an abundance of native and introduced rats, who will chew anything they think is getting in the way of a feed. I only store the veggie oil in steel containers, because plastic bottles are easily chewed. Most 20 litre steel drums have a plastic bung near the bottom for screwing in a tap. I screw a metal BSP plug into this to make it hard for rats to chew at the plastic. </span></div>
<div style="font-size: 18px;">
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">I once made the mistake of leaving the lid out of a chainsaw's plastic oil tank, and later found the female thread nearly chewed away by rats trying to enlarge the oil filler hole and get to the puddle of veggie oil inside. The plastic external oiler tank on my Alaskan mill was chewed to pieces after I used veggie oil in it. Now I've made a stainless steel tank from an old water bottle. </span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-L0g2xPyf3z0/W3NPv2SrAoI/AAAAAAAABrk/iE-Ay4X9es07H49PKHxWXwZCkJgrvcRhgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1385.JPG" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-L0g2xPyf3z0/W3NPv2SrAoI/AAAAAAAABrk/iE-Ay4X9es07H49PKHxWXwZCkJgrvcRhgCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1385.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Bush rats chewed this hole in my Alaskan mill external oiler!</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="font-size: 18px;">
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">If you're using a saw with a plastic body, veggie oil could get a hole chewed in your plastic oil tank if you're not careful (generally, professional saws have a metal oil tank, consumer saws have one of plastic). </span></div>
<h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">
Bar and chain wear</span></h3>
<div style="font-size: 18px;">
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">The biggest worry to most saw users will be that the veggie oil doesn't do its lubrication job well. Some people worry that without the sticky additives, the oil will be flung off at the bar nose, and that the oil won't have the lubricating properties the chain and bar need. </span></div>
<div style="font-size: 18px;">
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">I haven't noticed any increase in wear, but I understand I'm not doing a controlled experiment: I'm not running 2 saws with different oils, doing the same amount of work for several years, to see what happens. So it's possible that I am getting more bar wear, and will pay a price for that. However the savings of 100s of $ in bar oil will easily pay for a little more bar wear. Certainly the type of bar oil is nowhere near as important as chain sharpening and bar maintenance: I see many badly worn bars that have only had expensive bar oil on them. </span></div>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">This report <a href="https://www.fs.fed.us/eng/pubs/html/98511316/98511316.html">https://www.fs.fed.us/eng/pubs/html/98511316/98511316.html</a></span></div>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">shows very good results from veggie oil-based bar oils, but they are commercial oils with additives, not just straight from the fryer like mine. </span></div>
<h3>
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Oil drying on the chain or in the tank</span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Veggie oil could be a problem for the occasional chainsaw user. It does dry over time, so if you haven't used the saw for a couple of months, the chain can be a little stiff with dried oil. On the bar this isn't much of an issue: it usually runs itself free pretty quickly, or occasionally needs a little spray of kerosene and oil (homemade WD40) to loosen.</span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">I imagine this could be a problem in the tank, thru the filter, and in the pump, if left for a very long time. I've had enough experience with linseed oil in furniture finishing to know how hard it is to clean off excess dried oil - it doesn't dissolve in normal solvents. So far I haven't had any problems inside my saws. </span></div><div style="font-size: 18px;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Different oils have different drying characteristics: olive oil doesn't seem to dry at all (we've used the same olive oil containers for years without any sign of drying), and some dries quickly. The repeatedly heated (in a deep fryer) canola oil I've been using seems to be very quick to dry into a hard varnish. <br /></span></div>
<h3>
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Oil drying on the engine cylinder</span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">The most serious concern I've heard about using veggie oil has been in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwAdKcjC7vY&index=10&list=PLQAXpOOjFoVETl7Wuba2b0inZF66Ox7T0" target="_blank">a youtube video by Andy Reynolds</a> (in the last minute of the video) (Andy's chainsaw maintenance and repair videos are really good). Andy says that veggie oil is swept thru the engine cooling fan and gradually deposits on the cylinder fins. There it will bake on, reduce the cooling effect of the air, create hot spots on the cylinder, and cause an engine to seize (this can happen just from sawdust buildup alone). </span></div>
<div style="font-size: 18px;">
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">I think Andy is speaking from experience, and I'm looking out for this. Any old saw will show some oil, usually mixed with fine sawdust, on the flywheel side of the cylinder fins (which should be cleaned off to improve cooling). Given the drying nature of veggie oil, I can imagine the buildup of "frying pan varnish" if not managed carefully. </span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EWCjPVsNwyE/W3NNLmC6xqI/AAAAAAAABrU/anjWIE3QH0AHKaO2W6CTdhGU6ghEOxlpACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1320.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EWCjPVsNwyE/W3NNLmC6xqI/AAAAAAAABrU/anjWIE3QH0AHKaO2W6CTdhGU6ghEOxlpACLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1320.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Here's the bottom side of one of our old cast iron frying pans, showing an impressive coating of cooked-on oil. This wouldn't be good on a chainsaw cylinder.</span></td></tr>
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<div style="font-size: 18px;">
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">I make a habit of removing the cowlings after a few hours use and blowing with compressed air, plus if necessary scraping with a screwdriver (and potentially wire brushing?) to ensure the fins are clean.</span></div><div style="font-size: 18px;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYN86bGEM56_MZ2JQ9wVLdkgVGEPDFJRGvNRXuUaE5QXSKSmkNJ_XyjYlxCQ7rUUrRsXspiLKqfYMnTf5CYj1jOE8YYLLgh8f_PkSL8oNmjpAZvKDdumVurulP0y7YA-P6OsFVQoS-2N7T43Jfafy0SzE1lbQrq3i1mGSIDJwsRKCVKxJMeSmI7j9jL4pt/s4032/DirtyCylinder024.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYN86bGEM56_MZ2JQ9wVLdkgVGEPDFJRGvNRXuUaE5QXSKSmkNJ_XyjYlxCQ7rUUrRsXspiLKqfYMnTf5CYj1jOE8YYLLgh8f_PkSL8oNmjpAZvKDdumVurulP0y7YA-P6OsFVQoS-2N7T43Jfafy0SzE1lbQrq3i1mGSIDJwsRKCVKxJMeSmI7j9jL4pt/s320/DirtyCylinder024.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's the cylinder on a Stihl 024 I've run with veggie bar oil for several years, but neglected to do a good clean (shared use, away from home). The worst oil buildup is on the flywheel side of the cylinder, where the air, sawdust and mixed-in oil get blown in. These old 024s are particularly oily as they keep pumping even on idle. I'm pleased to say it didn't have any cylinder overheating problems before I gave it a good scrub. Methylated spirits is good for cleaning off dried veggie oil, but this baked on stuff wasn't easy. It would be worth trying some stronger solvents (maybe acetone?) to see if they are more effective with the well-cooked oil. It would also be good if I clean this saw more frequently. <br /></td></tr></tbody></table></span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Veggie oil won't affect electric chainsaws in the same way, but it's worth looking out that the air slots are clear and that there's no buildup of oil and/or dust inside the motor. </span></div>
<h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">
Conclusions</span></h3>
<div style="font-size: 18px;">
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">For me, as a frequent chainsaw user, and happy to be a bush mechanic, used veggie oil seems very worthwhile. We use all the sawdust we can collect: in our garden, in composting toilets, for neighbours' chook houses, we even sell it in bags, sometimes for house cat litter. Sawdust is a valuable resource and biodegradable oil makes it safe to use. </span></div>
<div style="font-size: 18px;">
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">The biggest risk to using veggie oil appears to be burning onto the cylinder, which I expect to be able to manage. If I can manage that, the savings and benefits seem well worth it. </span></div>
<div style="font-size: 18px;">
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 18px;">
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Here's another web page on using veggie oil:</span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><a href="https://learn.eartheasy.com/articles/using-vegetable-oil-to-replace-chainsaw-oil/">https://learn.eartheasy.com/articles/using-vegetable-oil-to-replace-chainsaw-oil/</a></span></div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Bruce Teaklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00911602199839526224noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796610487071943623.post-33771360049658084432018-08-02T09:11:00.002+10:002018-08-02T09:11:43.213+10:00Iron wedding rings<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;"><i>Making some iron (mild steel, actually) wedding rings from a railway spike, with bronze decorations</i></span><br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ll_7GVLPYtA/W2I4so8Q33I/AAAAAAAABpo/a4txZjyAkRQ-jjZb7zFpM2LipiFBy1MtACLcBGAs/s1600/Rings1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ll_7GVLPYtA/W2I4so8Q33I/AAAAAAAABpo/a4txZjyAkRQ-jjZb7zFpM2LipiFBy1MtACLcBGAs/s320/Rings1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;"><i><br /></i></span>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;">
My friends and neighbours Alan and Ildiko decided to get married recently, after about 15 years of engagement and cohabitation, and having 2 together children (taking their time about this allowed them to develop wedding vows based on hard evidence, rather than imagination). </div>
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The first I knew about the wedding plan was being asked by Ildiko if I’d make their rings. “Could you make them out of wood?”, she asked. I worked hard at thinking of a way to make a mostly wooden ring that would be strong enough to survive married life on a finger, but I couldn’t think of anything (short grain is weak). I thought about some way to make rings of metal that would fit the spirit of the occasion. </div>
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The wedding was a celebration of Ildiko’s and Alan’s life together and little family, but also a celebration of the life of Ildiko’s father Bob, who was old and unwell. Railways and steam locomotives had been a big part of Bob’s life, especially in his retirement, in which he had been a leader in a local group that restored and operated a historic locomotive on local lines. Discussion quickly led to the idea of forging a pair of iron wedding rings from an old railway spike, representing Bob’s life travelling over millions of them in trains. </div>
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Ildiko also wanted 4 marks on the rings to represent the 4 members of their little family. This led me to remember a technique my brother-in-law Burke had shown me 20 years or so ago: indenting steel with punches, files, or whatever you like, then filling the dents with brazing bronze, then filing or grinding the surplus bronze back to original steel surface level, leaving the bronze only in the indents. </div>
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So this is what I did (after trying a few things that didn’t work so well): </div>
<div>
<ul class="Apple-dash-list" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SxKBRn0-z4I/W2I8ee-17mI/AAAAAAAABq0/g1NPXCwlpHUDD6crL0m2hyxRxPz6pQY3wCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1372.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SxKBRn0-z4I/W2I8ee-17mI/AAAAAAAABq0/g1NPXCwlpHUDD6crL0m2hyxRxPz6pQY3wCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1372.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is the railway spike I started with</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<li>I found an old railway spike (also called a dog), to draw out. These old-type spikes are the ones used to attach railway lines to old-style wooden sleepers. I’ve previously tested these spikes to be mild steel (by drawing out, heating, quenching, then hitting, to see if it hardened). I thought mild steel to be best for a task like this, as it would not be prone to going brittle, could be safely worked cold, would be easy to draw down to the small section required, and easy to file in the final stages. Not all railway hardware is mild steel tho, the clips used to hold rail to concrete sleepers are spring steel of some sort.</li>
</ul>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LZcvm69P5z0/W2I66_fMJWI/AAAAAAAABqc/f4gXjkKjz-EUTAXZv4m83HHIXj8rI0ImQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1377.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LZcvm69P5z0/W2I66_fMJWI/AAAAAAAABqc/f4gXjkKjz-EUTAXZv4m83HHIXj8rI0ImQCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1377.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Drawn-out spike, with angled cut on the RHS for the scarf joint</td></tr>
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<li>I cut the head off the spike to make it easy to hold in tongs, then drew out a length to a thin flat bar of 4mm x 2mm - what Ildiko thought a suitable section. </li>
</ul>
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<li>I cut a length of bar for each ring, calculated from the inside diameter of a known ring that fitted, plus 2mm for the steel thickness (because that makes the mid-section diameter of the finished ring), times Pi. The lengths were cut with a scarfed end, for joining, so the length is of course only measured on one side, and the scarfed end makes the piece a bit longer. Ring sizes are in increments of 1/10ths of millimetres, and this method turned out to be surprisingly accurate. </li>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AbQukRN1s4g/W2I63CB36zI/AAAAAAAABqY/47uMcpfbaI4LS9Lpwi5nw9KonVvPVxvZwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1376.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AbQukRN1s4g/W2I63CB36zI/AAAAAAAABqY/47uMcpfbaI4LS9Lpwi5nw9KonVvPVxvZwCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1376.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's the punch, with the tiny star-shaped end</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<li>I made a punch to make 5-cornered stars in the rings. This was forged from a short piece of spring steel, drawn down rather like a centre punch on the end, then filed into a tapered 5-cornered end, then hardened and tempered. I needed lots of magnification to do the filing on something so small. To get a suitably sharp-cornered file, I took an old chainsaw depth-gauge file and ground the edge square. While discussing this idea with friends I had several offers of torx drivers which would could be used as a round-cornered 6-pointed star punch, but I was clear a tiny mark on a ring should be 5-cornered, and sharp cornered, to be clear to see. </li>
</ul>
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<li>I punched the 4 stars in the piece of flat bar, hot. </li>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YY9kn2TvjaM/W2I68iUjmSI/AAAAAAAABqg/6MOcd_Td55QjactLstA7srY7F02uwBfVACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1378.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YY9kn2TvjaM/W2I68iUjmSI/AAAAAAAABqg/6MOcd_Td55QjactLstA7srY7F02uwBfVACLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1378.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">These are the tools I used to roll the rings: 1" swage (with concave top), large punch (to fuller the ring into the swage), little hardy horn for adjusting the ring, and hammer</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<li>I rolled the pieces into rings using a round punch on its side, and a swage (about 1”). This was much easier than I imagined, I reckon it would have been very difficult without the swage. </li>
</ul>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YGXdE82tgjY/W2I6jn8CQ1I/AAAAAAAABqA/8Lzj72d3_ls8361x9pl5yzO5_IfZ83wBwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1374.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YGXdE82tgjY/W2I6jn8CQ1I/AAAAAAAABqA/8Lzj72d3_ls8361x9pl5yzO5_IfZ83wBwCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1374.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">If you look carefully on the far side of the rings, you can just see the diagonal bronze line of the scarf joins</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<li>The circular rings were brazed in the charcoal forge to fill the stars, and join the ring scarf. I fluxed the brazing sites with some commercial brazing flux, mixed with a few drops of water in a plastic bottle lid and applied with a little brush. The ring was then put stars down in the forge and gently heated to red brazing heat, then turned around so I could see the stars and phosphor bronze applied by touching the site with brazing wire, which melted perfectly over the area. Then the ring was arranged scarf down in the fire, and the scarf brazed, bronze wire applied to the inside of the ring. </li>
</ul>
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<li>The rings were then filed with the flat chainsaw depth gauge file on the outside, and a 5.5mm round chainsaw file on the inside. Filing was mainly flat to file back the bronze level with the original flat bar and show the stars and scarf, then chamfering to remove the sharp edge. I did file the outside surface enough to make the rings a little thinner and less obtrusive on the finger. </li>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xRYMPfaCIyU/W2I58XgYYQI/AAAAAAAABp0/OTS5TiDkw8MtlTJDtFXIC99FtNG11aDrACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0311.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xRYMPfaCIyU/W2I58XgYYQI/AAAAAAAABp0/OTS5TiDkw8MtlTJDtFXIC99FtNG11aDrACLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0311.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Blackening the rings hot, with linseed oil, makes the stars shine out</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<li>After filing, the stars were very hard to see, with bright bronze against bright steel. This was remedied very easily with normal blacksmith’s blackening: the rings were heated over the forge to a blue heat, then rubbed with a roll of rag with a little linseed oil. At the right temperature the oil smokes and blackens the steel, but doesn’t all burn off. This made the stars come out beautifully. </li>
</ul>
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<li>I made some mistake calculating the size of Alan’s ring, so it was too big. This was easily remedied (after the wedding) by hacksawing thru the scarf joint, then filing and testing the ring on Alan’s finger until it fit. To re-braze the scarf join, I used an oxy torch, for fear of damaging the stars in the forge. </li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium;">Everyone is happy with their iron star rings so far. I don’t know how the finish will develop over time, I expect the black to rub off and the steel to become polished in use, so I don’t know how clear the stars will remain - they can be re-blackened for special occasions! Ildiko’s finger had a feint mark of rust red under the ring last time I looked, which doesn’t bother her currently. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px;">
I’m not a jewellery-making sort of bloke, but I loved making these rings. They are themselves crude and humble, but they represent great things: Alan and Ildiko’s relationship, little family and extended family, our friendship, the humble spirit of doing what you need with what you have. </div>
Bruce Teaklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00911602199839526224noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796610487071943623.post-61016079352011866632018-07-05T19:23:00.000+10:002019-08-18T06:48:39.857+10:00Holzfforma chainsaw bar review <i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: center;">“Holzfforma” chainsaw bars from Huztl are very cheap and pretty rough. They need quite a lot of bar-doctoring before use and in the early hours of use to get them to work at all. They seem to be made from poor quality steel and tend to chip after a few hours use. I can't recommend them, but I have a few of them doing useful work for me. </i><br />
<i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: center;">I have reviewed some other products from Huztl in my blog:</i><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><a href="https://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/2017/11/huztl-farmertec-036-chainsaw-kit-review.html" target="_blank">Farmertec MS360 / 036 chainsaw kit</a></i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><a href="https://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/2018/11/huztl-chainsaw-chain-review.html" target="_blank">Huztl chainsaw chains</a></i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><a href="https://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/2018/10/holzfformahuztl-alaskan-chainsaw-mill.html" target="_blank">Holzfforma Alaskan chainsaw mill (with Huztl/Farmertec MS660 chainsaw)</a></i></span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>The good news is that most of the other Huztl products are better than the bars. </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i style="background-color: #f3f3f3;">August 2019 update</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i style="background-color: #f3f3f3;">Recently Huztl advertised a new-looking chainsaw bar, still branded Holzfforma, but with different logos and printing on the bar, and stating "German Quality". Given that I've published a critical review of Holzfforma bars here, I thought I should buy a bar and see if Holzfforma has addressed some of their quality problems. </i></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kdYIiFLbUPQ/XVhmjm6CpQI/AAAAAAAAB8Q/tOS44HMFHz8f2336YNyiiIJAeTndyytgwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_9924.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: #f3f3f3; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kdYIiFLbUPQ/XVhmjm6CpQI/AAAAAAAAB8Q/tOS44HMFHz8f2336YNyiiIJAeTndyytgwCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_9924.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;">Here's my new Holzfforma "German Quality" 20" bar, Stihl pattern. You don't have to say anything about the messy state of my workbench. </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i style="background-color: #f3f3f3;">I bought a 20" bar to fit Stihl (MS380, MS660 etc.) and had a look. </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i style="background-color: #f3f3f3;">In summary: this bar has the same over-gauged bar groove, needing hammering when new. The rails were better than the previous Holzfforma bars I've bought, but still required dressing before use. As for steel quality - the biggest problem with these bars - we'll have to give it a few hours work to find out. </i></span><br />
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<tr><td><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AH6PzLERIVg/Wz3eSd3ZaXI/AAAAAAAABmw/BrvV8agc6f4OO9HdcePpcxADtiH5bZ65ACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1250.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AH6PzLERIVg/Wz3eSd3ZaXI/AAAAAAAABmw/BrvV8agc6f4OO9HdcePpcxADtiH5bZ65ACLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1250.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">Two of my cut-down Holzfforma bars, attached to Stihl 024s, off to the forest to work thinning cypress</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I’ve been using a few Holzfforma bars on a few of my Stihl saws over the last few months. They are astonishingly cheap: I’ve had an 18” long, 3/8”pitch, 1.6mm gauge bar delivered for under AU$12, when a genuine Stihl bar would be more than 10x this. If they were of reasonable quality they could save a lot of money. However I can't find any reviews online, and I note that most youtube videos by people making Huztl saw kits show branded non-Chinese bars attached.<br />For me, these cheap bars have allowed me to try things out without concern about wasting money. On these bars I’ve been trying out ideas: cutting bars shorter, using used frying oil as bar oil. If my experiments wreck a bar, I haven’t lost much, if they work, I’ve saved a lot of resources.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Trying out cheap bars might be interpreted as stingy. Maybe, but working out what is "good enough" is, I believe, a key to dealing with our overwhelming culture of consumerism. It's very powerful to work out what is good enough to do what you need to do, spend only as much money as you need, and live less as a slave to debt and status anxiety. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">After doing a lot of chainsawing with several these bars, I've concluded they are not "good enough". They have 3 main problems:</span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Rails out of square: the bar rails appear not to have been ground after laminating, leaving the rails out of square. This will cause the saw to cut a curve. It is relatively easy to remedy this with a file or linisher. All the Holzfforma bars I've bought have had this problem. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Over-sized gauge: Every Holzfforma bar I've bought has had a bar groove way wider than its specifications, requiring repeated hammering to get the groove to the right gauge. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Bad steel: with a few hours use, these bars develop chips in the bar rails, apparently due to discontinuities in the steel. These chips are bad enough to make the bars </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">unusable. This has occurred in several different bars: 25" x 3/8" x .063" (2 bars chipped), 18" x 3/8" x .063", 16" x .325" x .063". </span></li>
</ul>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Laminated bars</span></h3>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-r6JZ7waduFE/Wz3ey3jkmmI/AAAAAAAABm4/pifk7w36jUwz7vn-IGESZplEFar1lDPtACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1269.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-r6JZ7waduFE/Wz3ey3jkmmI/AAAAAAAABm4/pifk7w36jUwz7vn-IGESZplEFar1lDPtACLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1269.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Typical laminated, roller nose bar, without a riveted-on roller nose</td></tr>
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All the Holzfforma bars I’ve seen so far are of laminated construction. This means they are assembled from 3 layers of steel, spot welded together at multiple points. The middle layer is smaller all around than the outer layers, thus creating the chain groove. This construction is different from solid bars, sometimes referred to as “professional bars”, that are made from a solid plate of steel with a groove milled into the edge, and have a roller nose riveted on (unless they are solid nose).<br />Laminated bars are lighter and cheaper than solid bars, and good quality laminated bars are totally adequate for normal use.<br />All the shorter Holzfforma bars I’ve bought are normal laminated bars, with spot welding and an integrated roller nose.<br />The 3/8” pitch, 25” cutting length Holzfforma bar I bought for my Huztl MS660 kit chainsaw looked like a solid bar on the website, with a riveted roller nose. However on arrival I found the bar body is clearly laminated, as there are rows of spot welding marks on the bar. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-E3H7CBCnx-k/Wz3fWbINzOI/AAAAAAAABnI/d4RtLWJCv4sCFpxVz2RiEUx80GKf1T5zQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0298.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-E3H7CBCnx-k/Wz3fWbINzOI/AAAAAAAABnI/d4RtLWJCv4sCFpxVz2RiEUx80GKf1T5zQCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0298.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's the 25" bar on my Huztl 066. Looks like a solid bar with riveted roller nose - but it's not solid</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cyArCX8QulQ/Wz3fSwE2JzI/AAAAAAAABnE/aELWlkJHY10OGUn0Ii4w2DOPpazv_xaZACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0299.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cyArCX8QulQ/Wz3fSwE2JzI/AAAAAAAABnE/aELWlkJHY10OGUn0Ii4w2DOPpazv_xaZACLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0299.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's the riveted roller nose</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wyyNvO6hcIc/Wz3bGV48ivI/AAAAAAAABmQ/rrO38Hfb9ds9oAp91g9pOfcD0HxUqNunwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0295.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wyyNvO6hcIc/Wz3bGV48ivI/AAAAAAAABmQ/rrO38Hfb9ds9oAp91g9pOfcD0HxUqNunwCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0295.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">If you look closely, you may be able to see the rows of spot welds (small circular dimples) parallel to the bar edge, showing that this bar is laminated, not solid</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Is this faking it? I’m not sure, perhaps they use one roller nose for a range of 3/8” bars. I don’t mind that it’s not solid, but I suspect the riveted roller nose makes it a little weaker than a normal laminated bar. </span><br />
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Bar rails</span></h3>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ob3ZW9F22J8/Wz3bGK9HQBI/AAAAAAAABmM/desILhFO4h4w0wVa0Td4wkBo3AySxi1GACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0291.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ob3ZW9F22J8/Wz3bGK9HQBI/AAAAAAAABmM/desILhFO4h4w0wVa0Td4wkBo3AySxi1GACLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0291.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">See the light shining under the rail on the left side, but not on the right? The rails are way out of square and not fit to carry a chain until it's been ground or filed square</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The rails (sides of the bar groove, where chain side links slide) of Holzfforma bars clearly haven't been ground before painting and sale. Most are out of square when new, and need to be ground or filed before first use. I use a linisher attached to a bench grinder: grind the edges of the bar square to the bar face, and finish off with a light chamfer of the corners to reduce burring.</span><br />
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Steel quality</span></h3>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Holzfforma bars are made of carbon steel - you can tell by the way the spot welds are hard. This means the steel is harder than mild steel, but they don't appear to have been heat treated on the rails in the way genuine Stihl bars have to make them harder.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0e4mqezbM7E/Wa8KIL27p3I/AAAAAAAABOg/0pjwWgSmmVw8O1uEPsKF-AYFQ-UDfcMiQCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/DSC03557.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1065" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0e4mqezbM7E/Wa8KIL27p3I/AAAAAAAABOg/0pjwWgSmmVw8O1uEPsKF-AYFQ-UDfcMiQCPcBGAYYCw/s320/DSC03557.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> The blue colours on the bottom edge of this genuine Stihl bar show it has been heat treated to make it harder</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">All my Holzfforma bars that have done significant work have developed serious chipping problems:</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4d5bDTqjLXk/W0fScwm1g7I/AAAAAAAABno/S8o9hvgkjgkTLwzEb_RmeinC1PacZ4fwACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1346.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4d5bDTqjLXk/W0fScwm1g7I/AAAAAAAABno/S8o9hvgkjgkTLwzEb_RmeinC1PacZ4fwACLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1346.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One chip on the outside of a Holzfforma .325" bar</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0NLsFa8TJHg/W0fSdYK1stI/AAAAAAAABns/tO2yjW9U3R0mT2tE8OOp_z1Os0ydVTBLgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1347.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0NLsFa8TJHg/W0fSdYK1stI/AAAAAAAABns/tO2yjW9U3R0mT2tE8OOp_z1Os0ydVTBLgCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1347.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Same .325" bar, another chip on outside</td></tr>
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<tr><td><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RmDSKNQ3iq8/Wo5P64KBKYI/AAAAAAAABY4/9zTLlYpNOFwhU70wUWsR2ghziMQMlGByACPcBGAYYCw/s1600/IMG_1180.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RmDSKNQ3iq8/Wo5P64KBKYI/AAAAAAAABY4/9zTLlYpNOFwhU70wUWsR2ghziMQMlGByACPcBGAYYCw/s320/IMG_1180.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">3/8" Holzfforma bar with a chip on the inside of the rails</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mvek1HfI6Zg/W1b-R8o-dJI/AAAAAAAABpE/UFUAe12_o3I_E7WKjHbnxg8yyakn_MIIgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0312.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="987" data-original-width="740" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mvek1HfI6Zg/W1b-R8o-dJI/AAAAAAAABpE/UFUAe12_o3I_E7WKjHbnxg8yyakn_MIIgCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0312.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My friend Pete made a Huztl MS660 at the same time as me, and also tried the same model Holzfforma 3/8" x 25" Stihl-pattern bar. After one day's work - without doing any preparation of the bar - it was a mess, with bad chipping of the rails on the sprocket nose. This bar wasn't hammered or dressed at all. Now it's useless. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JbnXuX-i3H0/W1b-SJYnf2I/AAAAAAAABpI/FDqJn8vAFtcM-Tw6JWlqp1tmio_xx8qNgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0313.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="987" data-original-width="740" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JbnXuX-i3H0/W1b-SJYnf2I/AAAAAAAABpI/FDqJn8vAFtcM-Tw6JWlqp1tmio_xx8qNgCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0313.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Another picture of Pete's bar from the MS660. Beyond repair. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3Vyhl3eQcWc/W679N4a_2jI/AAAAAAAABtg/GUyhMoWz6ws51ji_Gn9W06TNzg00FEVSQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0342.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3Vyhl3eQcWc/W679N4a_2jI/AAAAAAAABtg/GUyhMoWz6ws51ji_Gn9W06TNzg00FEVSQCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0342.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is the roller nose of my Holzfforma 25" 3/8 bar - pictured up above on my Huztl MS660 - after a few hours use on an Alaskan chainsaw mill. It is starting to chip badly around the nose, despite not cutting with the nose area at all. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-05hd1qlUexM/W679Puf9WuI/AAAAAAAABto/kOSUBUlLS2wxfzZh2uhud_HWaheb96QqwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0344.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-05hd1qlUexM/W679Puf9WuI/AAAAAAAABto/kOSUBUlLS2wxfzZh2uhud_HWaheb96QqwCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0344.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Another picture of the chipping on my Holzfforma 25" bar.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-X4U9ZBiHDRs/W679PVWKFYI/AAAAAAAABtk/MMXhAckuW4Y4UMYPnVloveCYiITaEsfvQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0343.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-X4U9ZBiHDRs/W679PVWKFYI/AAAAAAAABtk/MMXhAckuW4Y4UMYPnVloveCYiITaEsfvQCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0343.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">And again - the nose is more chipped on the cutting side, seemingly getting damage where the chain comes off the sprocket. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This is a bit strange, it's similar to the damage bars get if they've been badly worn and not dressed: large burrs can develop and break off, taking pieces of rail with them. Holzfforma bars feel very soft to file when dressing (Stihl bars are quite hard, a partly blunt file will hardly cut them), so it seems strange they show signs of brittle breakage. I've never seen this sort of chipping, unconnected to bad burring, on a chainsaw bar before. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It doesn't look like<span style="text-align: center;"> these chips have been caused by my hammering, I've never had chipping with other bars after hammering, and my friend Pete's Holzfforma bar (pictured above) chipped very badly without any hammering. I expect it is due to steel quality - my old boilermaker father in law talks about working at times with poor steels that have invisible cracks from manufacture. </span><br />As with all bars, keeping the chain sharp and the rails square will reduce bar wear dramatically, along with spreading the cutting up and down the bar (not just cutting at the base of the bar). On most cuts, the chain should be pulling itself into the wood, and not need to be pushed in with the bar rails. </span><br />
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Bar groove gauge</span></h3>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Holzfforma bars are painted with a surprisingly tenacious paint, including the inside of the bar groove. Once the paint inside the groove is worn away by a little chainsawing, I find all Holzfforma bars are made with way over-gauge bar grooves: the chain can tilt way too far left and right because the groove is too wide. If the chain is perfectly sharpened, and the rails are nice and square, the saw will usually cut fine like this at first, but it will be trouble when everything isn’t perfect.<br />I hammer all my Holzfforma bars after a little sawing work has worn away some paint. After a few hours further use I find I need to hammer them again several times, as a little more wearing away of paint and steel quickly opens the groove again. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here's my video of how to hammer and dress a bar - in this case an old one:</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/49SSfLdJITs/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/49SSfLdJITs?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />It seems unfortunate that they’ve been made with such wide grooves. I’ve made one bar for an 024, using a 1.5mm Holzfforma bar (for Husqvarna) to take 1.6mm chain (standard for Stihl), by re-cutting the bar base pattern to fit. This has worked fine (but doesn't fix the steel quality problems). </span><br />
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What else could go wrong?</span></h3>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There are various potential problems I haven’t experienced so far: failure of the sprocket nose bearing; bending of the bar with normal use. We'll see. </span><br />
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Conclusion</span></h3>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Holzfforma bars are not worth buying with their current poor quality. If you’re going to use them, you need to be prepared to do some significant bar doctoring before first use, and again soon after. The bar doctoring skills and equipment needed to make these bars useable are useful for any chainsaw bar at some stage of its life.<br />For me, I don't regret trying these bars out, as they've enabled me to try a few things I wouldn't do with expensive bars. They've done a few dozen hours work for me, of significant value. The over-gauge bar grooves is an annoyance which can be managed with hammering. However, the chipping of the rails is a pretty terminal problem, which I think makes these bars not worth buying.<br /><br /> </span>Bruce Teaklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00911602199839526224noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796610487071943623.post-20798488201584701992018-04-12T07:45:00.001+10:002021-01-10T08:07:07.299+10:00Repairing a Stihl 024 (or 026) with Huztl parts<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0TiHRlAaET4/WsmdocSnu5I/AAAAAAAABeI/ok8QLhZb3f4ZLaDQ8JMu1UGW0U5yAnisgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1243.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><img border="0" data-original-height="991" data-original-width="1430" height="221" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0TiHRlAaET4/WsmdocSnu5I/AAAAAAAABeI/ok8QLhZb3f4ZLaDQ8JMu1UGW0U5yAnisgCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1243.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 18px;"><i>An old 024 gets repaired with Huztl parts and a compression problem is resolved</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">A few weeks ago I found the badly battered and incomplete carcass of a fairly small, old chainsaw in the metal bin at Mt Nebo tip. Because it looked like a Stihl (it had an inboard clutch) and a professional model (it had a metal crankcase visible from underneath), I brought it home in the cargo bike to see if it was any use. I was busy for the rest of the day but by the end of the afternoon, our son Jasper had dismantled the saw and identified it as a Stihl 024: the smaller precursor to the 026 (later the MS 260, then superseded by the MS261) which is a very popular and durable small, professional grade saw. <span style="background-color: white;">The 024 was produced from 1982-1994, 2.6HP from 41.6ccs. As I worked out later, it was an 024, not the more powerful 024S or 024AVS (AV for anti-vibration, S for Super) that superceded it. This saw could be 30 years old or more. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Once it was in pieces, we could see the piston had a big score on the exhaust side - a common way for a chainsaw to fail, often from overheating caused by unmixed fuel or too lean a fuel-air mixture. </span><br /></span>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lG8nlH_hTsU/Ws6A6cBUDjI/AAAAAAAABgs/ekv36ofdYVgkgapwlhzarPQwwA_d-mFYwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1266.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lG8nlH_hTsU/Ws6A6cBUDjI/AAAAAAAABgs/ekv36ofdYVgkgapwlhzarPQwwA_d-mFYwCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1266.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The big score on the little piston, exhaust side</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">This is probably why the saw had been dismantled and discarded. There was a hole in the oil tank - probably from being thrown into the bin. Lots of parts were missing: carby, air filter, bar and chain, all the covers including clutch cover, rewind starter, cylinder cover, air filter cover. There was some fairly deep corrosion in the metal chassis around the clutch - a common problem when a saw isn’t quickly cleaned after cutting palm trees (and perhaps some others). </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Worth repairing</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">It would be easy to conclude that this saw wasn't worth fixing (someone clearly already had), but the cheap and easy supply of non-genuine parts makes solidly built saws like the professional Stihls very much worth repairing for frugalistas like me. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">My confidence in fixing this type of chainsaw has been greatly improved by watching <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EN5bp8A0s_8&list=PLQAXpOOjFoVGlVXu74xP7zJcgujreXyMv" target="_blank">Andy Reynolds' videos on chainsaw repair,</a> and <a href="https://bruceteakle.blogspot.com.au/2017/11/huztl-farmertec-036-chainsaw-kit-review.html?showComment=1522831646987" target="_blank">making a Huztl 036</a>. </span></span><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span>We made a list of what was missing, and made an order of non-genuine parts from Huztl. The parts cost about $130 to fix the saw (but I also bought some spares - I like to have</span> in stock<span> what I expect to need). This seems very good to me - consider that the current comparable Stihl model, the MS241, costs AU$1350 new. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Everything went together fine, but there were a few lessons for me on the way. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Oil tank hole</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">I cleaned the oil tank carefully: first with solvent (mineral turps), then methylated spirits, then degreaser. I used some thick epoxy resin to fill the hole. This has worked fine. </span><br /></span>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6xEyWPnpeRI/Ws6A-jezTWI/AAAAAAAABg0/2lTdeiP4BHI133OPmM-151JYKapU7aMFQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1267.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6xEyWPnpeRI/Ws6A-jezTWI/AAAAAAAABg0/2lTdeiP4BHI133OPmM-151JYKapU7aMFQCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1267.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Epoxy glue sealing the hole in the oil tank</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Air filter</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">I installed a new Huztl carby and air filter, which were both different from the originals (which were missing). This is the old-style small 024 air filter:</span><br /></span>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oqfDMf36Krw/WuaXGRpkEWI/AAAAAAAABic/5-UhIPoQPPI4bwjv9f3A7I3YIVp8n468ACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0276.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oqfDMf36Krw/WuaXGRpkEWI/AAAAAAAABic/5-UhIPoQPPI4bwjv9f3A7I3YIVp8n468ACLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0276.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Here's the old type air filter, much smaller than the new ones</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">The old style filters aren't available from Huztl or any other non-genuine source I could find, so I had to change to the new style filter. </span><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">The old filters fit onto the old-style carby, which looks like this from the back:</span><br /></span>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-V1etP3o_N18/WvZVIJjVXOI/AAAAAAAABjY/uBlr9dFS86MdnFIVDTLHgCnZyb6o2-qsgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0281.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-V1etP3o_N18/WvZVIJjVXOI/AAAAAAAABjY/uBlr9dFS86MdnFIVDTLHgCnZyb6o2-qsgCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0281.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Old-type 024 carby, with tower-type fuel tank breather on left</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">The new style carby looks like this:</span><br /></span>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DjaVI7KY6Cc/WvZVLNAGgVI/AAAAAAAABjc/ggoDa4o3gVsr6zXf4Y1wzb3zm0L7eBigwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0280.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DjaVI7KY6Cc/WvZVLNAGgVI/AAAAAAAABjc/ggoDa4o3gVsr6zXf4Y1wzb3zm0L7eBigwCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0280.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">New-type carby for 024 or 026 with spout on top</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">They're actually pretty much the same, but the new carbies have that spout on the top, which is an extension of the diaphragm lid, that plugs into a hole in the air filter. </span><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">If you're going to use a new-style air filter on the old type carby, you need to plug the hole which the carby spout goes into, otherwise you'll have a hole that will suck chips and dirt into the engine. </span><br /></span>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pY-Se4NrhOY/WvZTF8yrqzI/AAAAAAAABjM/2vlp_A1o-mQvOsqA0A2wIq3tNkPaK5XAACEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_0283.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pY-Se4NrhOY/WvZTF8yrqzI/AAAAAAAABjM/2vlp_A1o-mQvOsqA0A2wIq3tNkPaK5XAACEwYBhgL/s320/IMG_0283.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Here's a new type air filter, with the carby spout hole plugged with roofing silicone</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">You'll also need to put on a new-style filter cover, because the old filter cover won't fit over the new-style filter. This is what an old-style 024 looks like with the filter and filter cover changed to new-style: </span><br /></span>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZWHzgwakFsE/WvaZFVOb6cI/AAAAAAAABkI/dZ-Fo2lfMVAxC7HJ22wk0nbuB3BkedzbgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1305.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZWHzgwakFsE/WvaZFVOb6cI/AAAAAAAABkI/dZ-Fo2lfMVAxC7HJ22wk0nbuB3BkedzbgCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1305.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This is another old-style 024 AVS with new-style filter and filter cover, and an old-style cylinder cover. A bit Formula 1? It works perfectly like this (I didn't need to modify the filter to make the filter cover latch on to this one). Some old 024s like this were made with only one bar nut, and the front stud un-threaded on the outside. I'm okay with this when I'm using such short bars.</span></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kZWXofTaU6Y/WvaZLL5xbOI/AAAAAAAABkM/-k2vffPb67o6ssNUgDukMoy1qM2Am09rACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1306.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kZWXofTaU6Y/WvaZLL5xbOI/AAAAAAAABkM/-k2vffPb67o6ssNUgDukMoy1qM2Am09rACLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1306.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Same saw from above</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Something about the Huztl air filter and filter cover wasn’t right. As supplied, the filter cover would slip on fine, but would keep popping up while the saw was in use, seemingly because of pressure from my right hand. This wasn’t okay while working - having to keep pushing it back down. For some reason, the peg on the back of the air filter was too short to securely latch into the filter cover lock. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">I fixed this with a piece of steel nail and (one of my favourite fixing tricks) string and epoxy resin. I found a nail that fit snugly into the slot in the air filter peg, glued it in with epoxy, then wrapped the peg and nail in string with epoxy. A layer of resin over the string gave a nice smooth finish. This has worked perfectly for quite a few hours of work so far. For some reason, I haven't had this problem on other 024s. </span><br /></span>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-w00kvQhmN88/Ws6A9gXE9xI/AAAAAAAABhA/OClLQzSURWM6BZ_LK_hY49trLcB8DUzUwCEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_1268.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-w00kvQhmN88/Ws6A9gXE9xI/AAAAAAAABhA/OClLQzSURWM6BZ_LK_hY49trLcB8DUzUwCEwYBhgL/s320/IMG_1268.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">See the extended peg on the air filter, to give the filter cover a positive latch-on</span></td></tr>
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<h3>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Fuel tank breather</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">The original fuel tank breather (it lets air into the tank as fuel is drawn out) on this saw was the tower type which extends up alongside the air filter, but only works with the old type small air filters. To fit on the modern air filter I got from Huztl, I needed to pull off (it just levers upwards with a screwdriver) the original breather and improvise a breather from a piece of plastic tube with a screw in the end - like some old saws came with when new. I softened the tube in hot water, expanded it by pushing in a tapered punch, then worked it over the spigot on the tank. This works fine, but will leak fuel if you leave your saw on its side with a full tank in the sun (like most breathers will leak too). </span></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oqfDMf36Krw/WuaXGRpkEWI/AAAAAAAABic/5-UhIPoQPPI4bwjv9f3A7I3YIVp8n468ACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0276.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oqfDMf36Krw/WuaXGRpkEWI/AAAAAAAABic/5-UhIPoQPPI4bwjv9f3A7I3YIVp8n468ACLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0276.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Here's the old type breather - the vertical black rectangle in the foreground - with the old type air filter behind it. </span></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7ev0tAHiIcw/WuaXIwr83ZI/AAAAAAAABig/EiMW-iHH7Pw-nne257vW7d-ruweab36WACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0277.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7ev0tAHiIcw/WuaXIwr83ZI/AAAAAAAABig/EiMW-iHH7Pw-nne257vW7d-ruweab36WACLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0277.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Here's the new type air filter with the improvised tank breather in low foreground: plastic tube with screw in top</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">You can buy a short breather (labelled a "tank vent") from Huztl very cheaply, it looks like this: </span><br /></span>
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<tr><td><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-USxmnoHiDZI/WvZTGm9-JvI/AAAAAAAABjE/rSCbe6zQj-U-9uqjX7ic4_CqGYT6YSymgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0285.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-USxmnoHiDZI/WvZTGm9-JvI/AAAAAAAABjE/rSCbe6zQj-U-9uqjX7ic4_CqGYT6YSymgCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0285.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The modern-type fuel tank breather, which fits on newer 026, 036, 044 etc, but doesn't fit on the old 024</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">But it won't fit in the tank spout of the old 024s with the small air filter and the tower-type breather. It's designed for the newer tank, like on this 026. That's why I needed to make a breather with tube and screw. </span><br /></span>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UhR28oessgA/WvZTIP9gl4I/AAAAAAAABjI/myoeZ2cP1Pk5JIMlbpZTzKrye0V5Z9t8wCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0284.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UhR28oessgA/WvZTIP9gl4I/AAAAAAAABjI/myoeZ2cP1Pk5JIMlbpZTzKrye0V5Z9t8wCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0284.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Here's an 026 with a newer-type tank top, with a small vent that fits underneath the big new-style air filter</span></td></tr>
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<h3>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Clutch drum and oil pump</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">The old clutch drum was worn, and the new clutch drum needed modifying to fit my old 024. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">The older models of 024 and 026 used a crude but effective oil pump arrangement which is now superceded. More modern saws only pump oil into the bar when the chain is running (actually when the clutch drum is turning), but this old 024 has a simpler setup that pumps oil whenever the motor is running. A short steel worm drive fixed to the crankshaft turns a gear on the pump unit. This is wasteful of bar oil if you leave the saw idling for long periods - which isn’t a good idea anyway, as idling causes extra wear of the clutch drum needle roller bearing. I bought the parts to convert it to the modern system, but decided not to use them yet: the old system works fine, I’m using free old fryer oil, I don’t yet know how to get the steel worm drive off the crankshaft, so the cheapest good-enough option is to leave it all alone. </span><br /></span>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-azWHKGjb8q4/Ws3fm4wPuMI/AAAAAAAABfs/OUpuSUN-1fwEOrqCSrq5cQnksGrcSK1EQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0263.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-azWHKGjb8q4/Ws3fm4wPuMI/AAAAAAAABfs/OUpuSUN-1fwEOrqCSrq5cQnksGrcSK1EQCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0263.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This is the oil pump on the old type continuous oiler, behind the clutch</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">024 and 026 saws with the old continuous oilers use a clutch drum that is just deep enough to fit over the centrifugal clutch. The modern ones have a deeper drum with a rim that extends past the clutch (on the motor side), where there is a little notch that engages with the wire quill that drives the pump. When the clutch drum starts to turn and drive the chain, it also drives the pump by pushing the wire around. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">The clutch drum I bought was of the modern wide type (I don’t think Huztl sells the old narrow type). This is too deep for the old style saws: the drum edge rubs on the oil pump. I wore a bit of a groove into my oil pump (without causing any problems) before I realised I had the wrong clutch drum width. </span><br /></span>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pUl1D9nQU0g/Ws3rqQ0OrMI/AAAAAAAABgI/XSiXDn4cIvobY1pam4nU3nASDtN9-mgJQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0262.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pUl1D9nQU0g/Ws3rqQ0OrMI/AAAAAAAABgI/XSiXDn4cIvobY1pam4nU3nASDtN9-mgJQCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0262.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">You can see the groove in the oil pump from the over-width clutch drum, centre of photo, showing some brass</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span>Fixing the clutch drum was simple enough, using the bush engineering technique of angle grinder and lathing in place. I simply reversed the clutch drum on the crankshaft where it could spin freely, and held an angle grinder up to it to grind and spin it at the same time. I ground until the oil pump quill </span>notch was gone, chamfered off the sharp edges, then </span><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">reversed and installed the clutch drum as normal. Here's a little video how:</span><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/VUj7LjY_O7M/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VUj7LjY_O7M?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Rim sprockets</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">The clutch drum I modified for the 024 was a spur sprocket. These have the sprocket permanently fixed to the clutch drum, so the whole drum and sprocket unit gets thrown away together when you replace the sprocket (usually you change the sprocket when you've worn out 3 rotated chains). Spur sprockets look like this:</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-W77_2obD2Fw/W5tLJrUrYwI/AAAAAAAABs8/HRm8UP45LW4fWyLw0_ulPr53LIHQOTa_wCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1426.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-W77_2obD2Fw/W5tLJrUrYwI/AAAAAAAABs8/HRm8UP45LW4fWyLw0_ulPr53LIHQOTa_wCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1426.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">024/026/MS260 spur sprocket - the whole thing needs replacing when the little star-shaped sprocket is worn</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QQKrjr5gSss/W5tLaIdbLeI/AAAAAAAABtM/XYLaSSOibkcYQZCrSwPZLvbAIkkE35fCQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1428.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QQKrjr5gSss/W5tLaIdbLeI/AAAAAAAABtM/XYLaSSOibkcYQZCrSwPZLvbAIkkE35fCQCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1428.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Spur sprocket installed, without washer and circlip</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wOllipjAwbc/W5tLZzhv8HI/AAAAAAAABtI/CHs4giCcg1whSd1vZv1MImQ-IF1YEzTtwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1427.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wOllipjAwbc/W5tLZzhv8HI/AAAAAAAABtI/CHs4giCcg1whSd1vZv1MImQ-IF1YEzTtwCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1427.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Spur sprocket fully installed with washer and circlip</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Some 026s use rim sprockets instead of spur sprockets. On these, the little rim sprocket can be changed, while retaining the clutch drum. They look like this:</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CjvJ7OAPVMA/W5tLJBx4ICI/AAAAAAAABtE/QvGuXQldxsoVlVQi9C57TMlfW_CsN_VeACEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_0338.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CjvJ7OAPVMA/W5tLJBx4ICI/AAAAAAAABtE/QvGuXQldxsoVlVQi9C57TMlfW_CsN_VeACEwYBhgL/s320/IMG_0338.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Rim sprocket in place, with washer and circlip removed to show it better</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uYSg7rlf4Wo/W5tLMAgT0qI/AAAAAAAABtQ/LY8OqB6GsqsRNu-LckBLNp_xFo5QcGF_ACEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_1425.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uYSg7rlf4Wo/W5tLMAgT0qI/AAAAAAAABtQ/LY8OqB6GsqsRNu-LckBLNp_xFo5QcGF_ACEwYBhgL/s320/IMG_1425.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">These are rim sprockets: 17mm inside diameter (excluding splines) on left, 19mm on right. Stihl 024 and 026 take the 17mm size</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Rim sprockets come in different sizes, for different sized chains, e.g. .325", 3/8" or .404". However in .325" sprockets (024 and 026 saws use .325" pitch chain and need .325" pitch sprockets and bars) there are 2 different sizes of internal splined hole: 17mm and 19mm (a 17mm cylinder would fit inside the 17mm sprocket). All the Stihl chainsaws I've seen that use .325" chains on rim sprockets, take the 17mm size. Of course I found this out by buying the wrong size first... I found it easier and cheaper to get non-genuine 17mm sprockets on Aliexpress than Ebay - Huztl doesn't stock .325 rim sprockets. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Even though you can change the rim sprocket on a drum several times, do check the drum when servicing the saw. The centre (where the roller bearing goes) or the inside of the drum (where the clutch grips) can wear and then you need to replace the drum as well as the rim sprocket. </span></span></div>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Cylinder squish and compression</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span>I had noticed that the old cylinder was probably useable: there was a bit of a score on the exhaust side, but only below the port. </span><span>However I installed </span><span>a new Huztl piston and cylinder. T</span><span>he saw ran and cut, but I felt like something wasn’t right. The saw seemed to be weak under power, had a lag on throttling, and most of all: pulling the starter cord was too easy. The motor would spin over too smooth and fast, without the noticeable lumpiness of the compression strokes. It seemed like the</span><span> compression</span><span> was low. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Looking at the Stihl specs for the 024, I could see that the 024 had both a shorter stroke and smaller bore than the 026, by 2mm each way. </span><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-N3u1v5Cu4TA/Wsmy4UFJ6wI/AAAAAAAABek/CgVMMnUjIZUJ8v21AhQgYIchBSFsMTrygCLcBGAs/s1600/024%2B026%2Bspecs.tiff" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><img border="0" data-original-height="574" data-original-width="844" height="217" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-N3u1v5Cu4TA/Wsmy4UFJ6wI/AAAAAAAABek/CgVMMnUjIZUJ8v21AhQgYIchBSFsMTrygCLcBGAs/s320/024%2B026%2Bspecs.tiff" width="320" /></span></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">But I saw that Huztl sold one crankshaft that was supposed to fit both 024 and 026. That caused me to wonder if the Huztl cylinder - which would presumably fit the Huztl crankshaft - was made for the longer stroke on the 024S. If so it would probably be 1mm too tall for the 024, which would give it low compression. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">I tried a "squish test" on the Huztl cylinder. I poked a piece of solder in thru the spark plug hole, right to the back of the cylinder, turned the crank over one revolution, then measured the thickness of the squashed end of the solder. I got 1.4mm (I needed to find some thick solder), which seemed big compared to what I could find online. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Then I swapped cylinders, re-installing the original Stihl cylinder (after cleaning up inside pretty carefully). On these saws, a cylinder swap is surprisingly easy, taking only a few minutes. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">On the Stihl cylinder, the squish test measured 0.9mm, which was 0.5mm shorter than the Huztl (some online sources proposed that about 0.5mm squish was good). This was consistent with my measurements of the 2 cylinders: the Huztl measured 61.9mm from base to squish ring (flat area around perimeter of head), and the Stihl measured 61.4mm. </span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-r7CT3qSG7m0/Wsp8I_QgM5I/AAAAAAAABfA/lEYhwik_UnEWp7PYg-7uV0agSqx546uQgCLcBGAs/s1600/DSCN5524.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-r7CT3qSG7m0/Wsp8I_QgM5I/AAAAAAAABfA/lEYhwik_UnEWp7PYg-7uV0agSqx546uQgCLcBGAs/s320/DSCN5524.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Measuring the depth of the cylinder with vernier caliper. Huztl cylinder is the dark one on left, Stihl is the light coloured one on right</span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aTSNIxfnUes/Wsp8JflTXFI/AAAAAAAABfI/_qztupCpw2kLhbEmbD-kzHm-05qB9K0fwCLcBGAs/s1600/DSCN5526.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aTSNIxfnUes/Wsp8JflTXFI/AAAAAAAABfI/_qztupCpw2kLhbEmbD-kzHm-05qB9K0fwCLcBGAs/s320/DSCN5526.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Looking into the 2 cylinders, you can see the "squish ring": the bright circle of flat machined metal around the cylinder crown, right at the bottom (which is really the top)</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">When I started the saw with the Stihl cylinder, I found a different saw. It was lumpy to pull over, and when it started, the idle speed was so high I had to back off the idle screw several turns (it had been almost all the way in). Cutting wood, it had heaps more power. It was now a really sprightly little saw. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">I’m hoping the old Stihl cylinder goes well for a long time. I feel the score below the port shouldn’t cause harm - the piston and rings need to go past all the ports, which are much bigger than a little score. If/when I need to replace the cylinder, if I’m still using the old crankshaft, I can restore good compression by shaving a little off the Huztl cylinder base: this can be done on a lathe (first machining a spigot to fit inside and hold the cylinder), but I imagine it could also be carefully done with a file. </span><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">It seems pretty clear that the Huztl cylinder made for the 024 is for 024S, with the longer stroke, same with their 024/026 crankshaft. </span></span></div>
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<h3>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Chain and bar</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Liking short bars (and son Jasper having a very satisfactory 13” bar on his 026), I made a very light 13” bar from a Holzfforma 16” bar from Huztl (I used a .325" pitch, 1.6mm or .063" gauge, small format bar for Stihl 025/MS250) ; this cost approx AU$10 when a genuine Stihl is about $75. <a href="http://bruceteakle.blogspot.com.au/2017/08/shortening-chainsaw-bar.html" target="_blank">My post on shortening bars can be found here</a>. I bought some long .325” chains from Huztl, and cut and shut them to 56 links for the short bar. I made 3 chains to rotate with the sprocket: all to be replaced together when the chains are worn out. </span><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">So far the Holzfforma bar isn't standing up particularly well, having chipped after a few dozen hours of use and careful servicing. </span><a href="http://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/2018/07/holzfforma-chainsaw-bar-review.html" target="_blank">My review of Holzfforma chainsaw bars can be found here</a><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">. The Huztl chains are satisfactory but have some quirks, I've reviewed them in <a href="https://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/2018/11/huztl-chainsaw-chain-review.html" target="_blank">my blog post here</a>. </span></span></div>
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<h3>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">The working saw</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">With its short bar, good compression, and compact, light motor, my 024 has become my favourite saw for thinning and pruning in the family forest at Stanthorpe, where it has done a lot of work cutting small White Cypress trees (which badly overcrowd the forest there). Once warmed up, it starts first pull over and over all day (I do a lot of stop/start). The continuous oiler certainly keeps the chain oily - if I was paying for oil from the shop I’d consider swapping over to the clutch drum-driven oil pump. It is very economical with fuel: a tank full will thin for well over an hour. I greatly value the saw's lightness when lifting it up and down to prune small branches off the trees, and bending over to cut them off near the ground. </span><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">I found the 024 so good for this work, I bought a couple more 2nd hand 024 AVS saws so that I can have spare saws on site. This means I can swap saws and keep working when I blunt a chain or run out of fuel, then sharpen and refuel in better circumstances later (sharpen in a vice, refuel after cleaning, repair breakdown etc.). </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">In conclusion, for light work, the old 024 is a great little saw. Robust, almost indefinitely repairable, gutsy, light. Worth fixing!</span><br /></span>
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</span>Bruce Teaklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00911602199839526224noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796610487071943623.post-91929467652796787822018-04-08T13:39:00.001+10:002020-01-23T08:53:03.976+10:00Xiongda 2-speed hub motor breakdown: slipping magnets<span style="font-family: "helvetica";"><i>The repair described below has lasted no problems for nearly a year now. If you have a broken down Xiongda 2-speed motor with similar symptoms to what I describe below, it's worth having a look at <a href="https://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/p/it-seems-clear-xiongda-2-speed-motor-is.html" target="_blank">my other post about fixing XD 2-speed motors</a> in case the cause is different. I also have a <a href="https://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_20.html" target="_blank">more general review of XD 2-speed motors. </a></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 18px;"><i>Re-gluing the magnets on a motor with oil lubrication</i></span><br />
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This week I had a new type of electric bike hub motor breakdown. The Xiongda 2-speed rear hub motor on my 26" wheeled bike started to make a harsh scraping sound - similar to a disc brake with pads worn to the metal. The sound only came when when power was applied against resistance (like going uphill), and the bike felt like it was losing power. Stopping at the roadside, I found I could stop the rear hub-motor wheel completely with the brake, run the motor with the throttle, and hear the motor turning inside the stationary wheel, making the awful scraping sound.<br />
Here's a short video of what happened when I powered the rear wheel, off the ground. First it runs in low speed and I apply the brake while leaving the throttle on, then I do the same in high speed:<br />
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The sound could be made in high or low motor speed. Limping the bike home (up the mountain…) I found I could run the motor on 3/5 power without it slipping and scraping.<br />
I dismantled the motor, expecting a sheared key on the freewheel plate, or some other sort of freewheel problem.<br />
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<tr><td><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-l1DbVJ8bGnc/WsmEST2MWjI/AAAAAAAABdQ/k7AecB-4FnE5fYuSF9yshlixujpDRJSNgCEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_1242.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-l1DbVJ8bGnc/WsmEST2MWjI/AAAAAAAABdQ/k7AecB-4FnE5fYuSF9yshlixujpDRJSNgCEwYBhgL/s320/IMG_1242.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.499999046325684px;">Here's the tool I made to unscrew the motor side plate</td></tr>
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After checking it all carefully, and trying a new freewheel plate which didn’t stop the sound, I noticed some of the magnets in the magnet drum were a fraction out of alignment with the drum edge. I found I could slip the individual magnets out with gentle levering. Evidently the magnets had come unglued and were spinning inside the drum, not turning the drum.<br />
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<tr><td><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EPLzxB8UPtY/WsmFInbcawI/AAAAAAAABdU/_BBi1CM8BVsTI-SjUaXldjpjs9H0VghtACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1221.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EPLzxB8UPtY/WsmFInbcawI/AAAAAAAABdU/_BBi1CM8BVsTI-SjUaXldjpjs9H0VghtACLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1221.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.499999046325684px;">Here are the magnets slipped out of their places, but still holding onto the drum with magnetism</td></tr>
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This motor is one of 2 XD 2-speed hubs I’ve put Automatic Transmission Fluid (ATF - a light oil) into, in the hope of improving cooling of the copper coils on steep climbs. It also makes the motor sound rather smoother - the XD 2-speed is a pretty noisy motor, with its complex gears and freewheels. <a href="https://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/p/burning-out-bafang-hub-motors.html" target="_blank">As I’ve discussed elsewhere in my blog</a>, the coils of a hub motor have trouble losing heat when labouring. To escape from the motor windings, heat must travel either by conduction through the laminated core to the axle, or by radiation from the coils and core to the magnet drum, then radiating again to the hub case - either way is very inefficient. Adding some ATF provides good lubrication throughout the hub, and the flow of fluid can be expected to carry some heat from the coils to the case. The drawback is that some leakage of oil can be expected through the axle bearings and elsewhere, especially if the bike is laid on its side. I haven’t yet concluded whether the ATF is making a significant difference to motor temperature but the motors certainly run quieter.<br />
I’m not sure what effect the ATF has had on the magnets coming loose in this case. Clearly however, once they came unglued, the oil would have made it much easier for the magnets to slide around inside the drum. Perhaps without ATF the magnets would stay in place without glue. But did the ATF have a role in ungluing them? This motor has had ATF in it for a few hundred kilometres and a few months (it's my less-used bike), but I have another XD motor which has had ATF for 1000 or 2000km and a few months, without trouble.<br />
The magnet drum has 20 curved high-strength magnets arranged around inside the drum cylinder, that rotate around the 18 poles of the armature. Before removing them, I marked the magnet ends with alternating patterns of file grooves: 1 groove and then 2 grooves. This represented the alternating polarities of the magnets, so I could replace the magnets with the right orientation, polarity and pattern.<br />
To repair the motor, I needed to glue the magnets back into the drum. The biggest challenge was cleaning the oil off the magnets and the drum. I used turps, metho and degreaser in turn.<br />
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<tr><td><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0PtXx_OLp6g/WsmEMvYMojI/AAAAAAAABdI/4CVt4nPeVYQ_CilhTmW-MHj6p57plnm3wCEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_1226.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0PtXx_OLp6g/WsmEMvYMojI/AAAAAAAABdI/4CVt4nPeVYQ_CilhTmW-MHj6p57plnm3wCEwYBhgL/s320/IMG_1226.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.499999046325684px;">Here are the magnets drying on a strip of sheet metal after cleaning - you can't just put them in a box or they'll smack together</td></tr>
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I left the 2 sealed bearings in the drum, and took care not to get solvent or degreaser into them. After cleaning, I sanded both surfaces, and ground a bit of roughness into the drum surface with a die grinder and disc. My main concern is that there be enough friction to prevent sliding.<br />
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<tr><td><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CytFneI6qCo/WsmEQABA18I/AAAAAAAABdM/WypmCLkc9dokypO57WMFW2ImwWgFsvqiwCEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_1228.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CytFneI6qCo/WsmEQABA18I/AAAAAAAABdM/WypmCLkc9dokypO57WMFW2ImwWgFsvqiwCEwYBhgL/s320/IMG_1228.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.499999046325684px;">The magnets being glued back into place with epoxy. Note the file marks on the magnet edges, so I could replace them in the right orientation and order.</td></tr>
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I used runny epoxy resin (like is used for fibreglassing) to glue the magnets in. The magnets hold themselves into the drum very firmly with their magnetism - no need for clamps. I left all magnets a little proud of the drum, and aligned them together by pressing the drum down onto a flat surface.<br />
I recognise that the epoxy will weaken when the motor is hot, but the glue's job is to resist shear forces - stopping the magnets sliding around inside the drum again - so even if it was softened by the heat it should do its job.<br />
Installed back on the bike, the motor is working perfectly again. Of course I can't be sure until it's done 5000km like this...</div>
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Bruce Teaklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00911602199839526224noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796610487071943623.post-73997992506588614012018-02-27T10:40:00.000+10:002018-03-12T21:20:56.564+10:00Reversing a Bafang 8Fun BPM motor<h2>
<span style="font-family: "verdana";"><i>How to modify a BPM hub motor to drive in the reverse direction</i></span><span style="font-family: "verdana";"><i>Using 2 BPM front motors to drive a cargo trike</i></span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">A friend recently asked me to modify a BPM motor to run backwards. The motor was one of a pair to be installed on the front of a Zeitbikes cargo trike (a Chinese box trike - I don't know if they are sold under that brand any more). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">These box trikes are very heavy, not stable at speed or on uneven surfaces, and this one was to live at Highgate Hill (Brisbane) and would need to do a lot of climbing with loads. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">An attempt had been made to drive the trike with a single rear motor, but this had proven to have inadequate torque at the low speeds the heavy trike was able to achieve safely. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7_xhoYbaEzU/WpSf6T_K31I/AAAAAAAABZY/aFbgarSGwFQ3WydtVaOrDi9pu-VkoIPmwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1064.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7_xhoYbaEzU/WpSf6T_K31I/AAAAAAAABZY/aFbgarSGwFQ3WydtVaOrDi9pu-VkoIPmwCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1064.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's the trike with a single rear hub motor: too fast, not enough torque</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">The frame was not suitable for installation of a mid-drive motor, having extra tubes around the bottom bracket.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">The new plan was to use 2 less powerful, higher torque, lower speed motors in the front wheels, one on each side of the cargo box. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">The Zeit trike uses hydraulic disc brakes on the front wheels (which work very well), with calipers on the box side of each wheel, so making the left side wheel turn opposite to normal was necessary so that the brake disc could be on the right hand side. </span></div>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "verdana";">Reversing the mechanics</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">It is relatively easy to make the internal motor of a geared hub to run backwards, just by the way it’s connected to the controller - as many of us find by accident when first wiring them up. However when the internal motor runs backward, it doesn't turn the hub backward, you just hear a whizzing inside a stationary hub. This is because geared motors use a freewheel, the main purpose of which is to allow the bike to coast along without resistance if the motor is not powered. In order to change the rotation of a geared motor, the freewheel needs to be reversed mechanically, as well as reversing the motor electrically. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">If you've opened a geared hub motor, you've seen the freewheel. It's a steel disc that mounts onto the main motor shaft thru its centre (with a slot and key to lock it in place). </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dGQvVMjeCWg/WpSifuopDWI/AAAAAAAABaU/8VfjX8rPZPcUPxMCBTUYWZleh7mOZ5YSQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1131.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dGQvVMjeCWg/WpSifuopDWI/AAAAAAAABaU/8VfjX8rPZPcUPxMCBTUYWZleh7mOZ5YSQCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1131.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's the freewheel straight out of the motor</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mlLF8_2Hf8s/WpSfwZcp4kI/AAAAAAAABZo/pWG01trMsxcQyssbPA9_G7TS2pSFv3IjwCEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_1083.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mlLF8_2Hf8s/WpSfwZcp4kI/AAAAAAAABZo/pWG01trMsxcQyssbPA9_G7TS2pSFv3IjwCEwYBhgL/s320/IMG_1083.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's a BPM freewheel with one gear removed</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">The freewheel disc carries the 3 nylon planet gears on 3 stub shafts attached near its perimeter. The "freewheel" part of the freewheel is 3 (not visible) sprung rollers that allow the circular plate of the unit to turn one way around the centre boss but not the other. To reverse the motor, we need to rearrange the freewheel so that the rollers allow movement in the opposite direction from normal. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">Reversing the freewheel involves: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">- removing the 3 stub shafts</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">- removing 3 small rivets that hold the freewheel plate together</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">- dismantling the freewheel body</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">- reassembling the body with the centre boss and the 3 stub shafts reversed to the other side of the plate. </span></div>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "verdana";">Step by step</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">First the 3 nylon gears were removed from the freewheel disc. This is easily done by removing the circlips from the stub shafts, I used circlip pliers (whose tips open when you squeeze the handles) and some rag around the job to catch any flying circlips. The nylon gears, along with their sealed bearings, slide off pretty easily. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ig8Bzvz9N8o/WpSf6oVkgmI/AAAAAAAABZs/2qX1KKEsmAcOz1o2JCyF4nAhSyNnLRz-QCEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_1084.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ig8Bzvz9N8o/WpSf6oVkgmI/AAAAAAAABZs/2qX1KKEsmAcOz1o2JCyF4nAhSyNnLRz-QCEwYBhgL/s320/IMG_1084.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Freewheel without gears, stub axle side</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jH0YsfwMpTQ/WpSf-mrq-vI/AAAAAAAABZw/5-0fB5l2fKwXlgqxmfHK3uJuivX3mokJQCEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_1085.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jH0YsfwMpTQ/WpSf-mrq-vI/AAAAAAAABZw/5-0fB5l2fKwXlgqxmfHK3uJuivX3mokJQCEwYBhgL/s320/IMG_1085.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Freewheel other side, with centre boss sticking up in the centre</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">Next job was to punch out the stub shafts, the serious part of the job. It's important to be very careful: you can't afford to have any impacts on the outside end of the stub shafts, or you risk damaging the circlip groove and making reassembly difficult. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">I have ground off the short riveted end of the stub shafts in the past, to open a freewheel and repair the sprung rollers <a href="http://bruceteakle.blogspot.com.au/p/bafang-freewheel-failure-and-perhaps.html" target="_blank">(link)</a>. But this loses a lot of metal from the rivet head, making reassembly difficult. Having recently been riveting a few chainsaw chains, it occurred to me that the stub shafts could be un-riveted the same way as a chainsaw chain is unriveted: by punching. When you punch apart a chainsaw chain rivet, you only lose a small ring of metal from the perimeter, leaving enough metal in the rivet usually to be able to peen and re-use the rivet to make a chain loop. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">Here is the freewheel on the anvil, having a stub shaft punched out. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SRzhtXt0GtU/WpSgBD-m_5I/AAAAAAAABZw/JXz6oAnbVwIe7S9Wtrs5B5JyporUugxygCEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_1133.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SRzhtXt0GtU/WpSgBD-m_5I/AAAAAAAABZw/JXz6oAnbVwIe7S9Wtrs5B5JyporUugxygCEwYBhgL/s320/IMG_1133.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Suitable punch on top of riveted axle end, the stub axle is inside the old nut below</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">The freewheel plate is supported by large nuts, bigger than the flange in the middle of the stub shaft. I used a punch a little smaller than the rivet head, driven by a 1.2kg blacksmithing hammer. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-86f0puRf6OM/WpSiVUo03xI/AAAAAAAABag/J1sJiVusNuE9Xo-niHgNHNbsa-SurksYQCEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_1091.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-86f0puRf6OM/WpSiVUo03xI/AAAAAAAABag/J1sJiVusNuE9Xo-niHgNHNbsa-SurksYQCEwYBhgL/s320/IMG_1091.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's the first stub axle punched out</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">Once the stub shafts have been driven out, 3 small rivets hold the laminations of the freewheel plate together. These are punched out, like the stub shafts but with a smaller punch. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">Once all the rivets are punched out, the 3 plates of the freewheel come apart - I carefully kept things together as much as possible. The centre boss (which fits onto the main motor shaft) is then lifted out and turned over to be re-inserted. <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6sA3S7vi7KM/WpSiV0ZMzTI/AAAAAAAABas/mZPD_dcK7SEhCXI6u0x8SmYNe3HkSlySgCEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_1093.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6sA3S7vi7KM/WpSiV0ZMzTI/AAAAAAAABas/mZPD_dcK7SEhCXI6u0x8SmYNe3HkSlySgCEwYBhgL/s320/IMG_1093.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Axles punched out, small rivets punched out, now the first plate can come off and reveal the freewheel rollers in their tapered slots</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nAE9CSXfit0/WpSiQ7Mik7I/AAAAAAAABag/3kj1_Qn-Dzw_wEWQvs7KJkXwzV0knAesgCEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_1097.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nAE9CSXfit0/WpSiQ7Mik7I/AAAAAAAABag/3kj1_Qn-Dzw_wEWQvs7KJkXwzV0knAesgCEwYBhgL/s320/IMG_1097.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here the centre boss is lifted out. The small steel rings at rear are the old rivet head rims, left on the punch after punching the axles out</td></tr>
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Installation requires the freewheel rollers to be pushed back into their spaces to let the centre boss in. You'll work it out. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">Once the centre boss is re-installed, the freewheel plates need to be riveted back together, with both the small rivets and the stub shafts. The stub shafts are inserted into the opposite side of the freewheel plate from where they came. With the centre boss reversed and the stub shafts reversed, the whole freewheel unit looks just the same as it did before being dismantled - the only difference being the plate freewheels in the opposite direction around the centre boss. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">Be careful! Don't reassemble the whole thing the same as it started. I liked having a spare freewheel unit on the bench to check I was doing things right.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GGqy72gsL5w/WpSim_w4IoI/AAAAAAAABas/CjWEytrFxAoXhYnmRhGUCyV2HOrNWgODgCEwYBhgL/s1600/_DSC4810.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1066" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GGqy72gsL5w/WpSim_w4IoI/AAAAAAAABas/CjWEytrFxAoXhYnmRhGUCyV2HOrNWgODgCEwYBhgL/s320/_DSC4810.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's the freewheel reassembled, with heads peened onto the axle ends and small rivets with a ball peen hammer<span style="font-family: "verdana";"> </span></td></tr>
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<h3>
<span style="font-family: "verdana";">Reversing the electrics</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">The internal motor is very easily reversed electrically if a sensorless controller is being used: simply swap any 2 of the phase wires and the internal motor will reverse. With a sensored controller (which I don't usually use), it takes more trouble: swap 2 phase wires, then try different arrangements of the 3 coloured sensor wires (leave the red and black alone). This has taken me some time in the past. </span></div>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "verdana";">It works!</span></h3>
<span style="font-family: "verdana";">The motor I reversed this way now works perfectly, in reverse. It and a normal non-reversed motor have been installed as the 2 front wheels of the box-trike. The motors are Bafang/8FUN BPM 500w code 13 front motors, laced into 20” rims. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JsYbKBKKwFk/WpSiuVw1wAI/AAAAAAAABac/9mh9BDDVFUQcnpdawqMAK7I2fTImQVJEgCLcBGAs/s1600/_DSC4856.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1066" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JsYbKBKKwFk/WpSiuVw1wAI/AAAAAAAABac/9mh9BDDVFUQcnpdawqMAK7I2fTImQVJEgCLcBGAs/s320/_DSC4856.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's the 20" wheel where a 24" was</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">The trike was manufactured with 24” front wheels, but we switched to 20” rims to reduce speed and increase torque - it worked very well and the trike runs fine with the smaller wheels. They are powered by 2 GreenBikeKit.com CON121 controllers, with a single thumb throttle wired into the throttle connections of both controllers in parallel. Both controllers are powered from one 36V battery, using 15/45A Anderson connectors. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nHqg-yAq1Vs/WpSicix2PII/AAAAAAAABak/wcXFKGtApLMgZIMLqk_VnmLi19AtIzEcwCEwYBhgL/s1600/_DSC4853.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1065" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nHqg-yAq1Vs/WpSicix2PII/AAAAAAAABak/wcXFKGtApLMgZIMLqk_VnmLi19AtIzEcwCEwYBhgL/s320/_DSC4853.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The box trike on a test ride, climbing a hill with the new motors</td></tr>
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<div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;">If you want to buy a spare freewheel unit before you start knocking the original apart (like I did), check that you get the right sort: there are 2 different freewheel types in BPM motors. Have a look at <a href="http://bruceteakle.blogspot.com.au/p/blog-page_8.html" target="_blank">my BPM page</a> for more info. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">The customer has been very happy with the trike, using it daily in hilly Highgate Hill, Brisbane. It has loads of torque, and powers up to about 20km/h. This is about as fast as these box bikes should go: their non-independent front steering - turning the whole box to steer - is very vulnerable to any bump on one side pushing that wheel back and forcing a turn. To me, the relatively high rider position also feels unstable when the trike tilts to one side due to the road camber or crossing a slope. </span></div>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "verdana";">The promise of 2 drive wheels</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">I think the 2-wheel drive system we installed on this trike has a lot of promise for cargo cycles. I know that a cantilevered axle (where the wheel is attached only on one side, like a car wheel, or a wheelchair wheel) appears a more elegant way to put wheels on each side of a vehicle. But using normal bike wheels bolted into dropouts on each side has many practical advantages. Most importantly: there are heaps of wheels like this available, in all sorts of formats: electric hubs of various types and speeds, disc braked, etc.. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">Imagine how much help some electric assistance would be to these hard-working charcoal makers:</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-J4xmLfU862M/WpSlFq9MO-I/AAAAAAAABbI/A6hF7rtZAYE5IirYtHVEf4GBw8KxhouVACLcBGAs/s1600/Phnom-penh%2BCharcoal%2Bdelivery%2B1996.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="302" data-original-width="450" height="214" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-J4xmLfU862M/WpSlFq9MO-I/AAAAAAAABbI/A6hF7rtZAYE5IirYtHVEf4GBw8KxhouVACLcBGAs/s320/Phnom-penh%2BCharcoal%2Bdelivery%2B1996.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Phnom-Penh charcoal delivery trikes (sorry I have no credit for this photo)</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">I quite fancy some sort of delta, recumbent cargo trike format, like this:</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-z0u_0rcY8dQ/WpSlFo5_ACI/AAAAAAAABbE/DYO3jqDSPHQ352MagACFEuOl-QpQGwX3QCLcBGAs/s1600/SUV.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="216" data-original-width="500" height="138" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-z0u_0rcY8dQ/WpSlFo5_ACI/AAAAAAAABbE/DYO3jqDSPHQ352MagACFEuOl-QpQGwX3QCLcBGAs/s320/SUV.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(sorry, no photo credit again)</td></tr>
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Bruce Teaklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00911602199839526224noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796610487071943623.post-37684780025888510472018-01-08T07:23:00.000+10:002019-02-25T10:40:51.637+10:00Fixing a wobbly Dahon frame hinge<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 18px;"><i>How to fix a steel Dahon frame hinge that wobbles, even when tightened</i></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TWgvWT28HIA/WlKKya6QgnI/AAAAAAAABXg/h0prDvCFij8EU3tfFJmizy1E-9NJ3eRLACLcBGAs/s1600/_DSC4877.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1066" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TWgvWT28HIA/WlKKya6QgnI/AAAAAAAABXg/h0prDvCFij8EU3tfFJmizy1E-9NJ3eRLACLcBGAs/s320/_DSC4877.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The closed and clamped hinge. Grab this and push it up and down to see if it wobbles</td></tr>
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Between our family and our friends, we use Dahon folding bikes a lot. My heavily modified (including electric hub motor) Dahon Boardwalk has done around 20,000km of heavy riding, carrying my 80kg self plus panniers on our steep (and some rough) mountain roads (here's <a href="https://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_17.html" target="_blank">my page about my electrified Dahon Boardwalk</a>, here's my post on the <a href="https://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_20.html" target="_blank">Xiongda 2-speed motor I'm using on my Dahon</a>, here's <a href="https://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/2016/10/dahon-handle-post-repair.html" target="_blank">my post about fixing a broken Dahon handle post</a>). Our friend Bradley also does heaps of distance on his Dahons, mostly 2 Speed TRs (one is also electrified). It is tremendously useful to us to have folding bikes, especially living on a mountain where getting a lift in a friend’s car can save a lot of time and effort.<br />
On the other hand, Dahons have also caused us a lot of bike mechanic grief. It seems to me that the culture of marketing and “innovation”, with almost annual “new models”, means that the designs aren’t refined, but are simply shuffled. All of the Dahons I’ve known have had serious design flaws, providing fairly major bush engineering challenges to keep them on the road: splitting seat tubes, frame and steerer hinge problems, headset problems (especially with threadless). We’ve only bought steel-framed Dahons, very conscious of the repairability of steel, as well as how fragile and unreliable aluminium frames are in diamond frames, let alone under the greater stresses of folding bike geometry.<br />
We’ve had to repair nearly all the frame hinges that have done reasonable distances. This is what happens:<br />
Even with regular tightening of the hinge adjusting bolt, frame hinges tend to eventually get a wobble. This is an up and down wobble, found by grasping the hinge of an unfolded bike, and lifting it up and down while holding the rest of the bike down.<br />
What seems to be the problem is that the mating faces of the hinge are manufactured flat, so any tiny wear at top and bottom allow a small rocking movement, regardless of how tight the hinge is. A little rocking brings huge pressures on the surface at top and bottom and leads to more wear, making more wobble even when tightly adjusted. Once worn slightly convex, clamping pressure only acts on the middle of the hinge faces. What is needed is to spread the clamping pressure back to the top and bottom of the faces.<br />
On our steel Dahon frames, we have found a remarkably simple remedy: laying a very small pad of stick welding at the top and bottom of the male mating face, filed smooth (I use a 2.6mm mild steel rod, at 130A). This creates pressure points at the very top and bottom of the hinge mating face, and leaves a slight gap in the middle - where the faces were rocking. The raised pads are perhaps a little more than 1mm high after filing.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZVkqX2LJDFg/WlKKy_emjUI/AAAAAAAABXk/owW3pGlFGIc1aaXDmJzEn5XZdcLcpPhlACLcBGAs/s1600/_DSC4876.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1065" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZVkqX2LJDFg/WlKKy_emjUI/AAAAAAAABXk/owW3pGlFGIc1aaXDmJzEn5XZdcLcpPhlACLcBGAs/s320/_DSC4876.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The welded pads are on the left side hinge face, top and bottom. At the top of the right side face you can see the worn area which has caused the wobble</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MjswSe87sok/WlKKkNQKVbI/AAAAAAAABXo/QnsqCbujrBoN5yY7Fmi1sPcYuMS6XA6OACEwYBhgL/s1600/_DSC4873.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1066" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MjswSe87sok/WlKKkNQKVbI/AAAAAAAABXo/QnsqCbujrBoN5yY7Fmi1sPcYuMS6XA6OACEwYBhgL/s320/_DSC4873.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Before welding, the hinge clamp is undone by removing a small circlip from a vertical pin and removing the pin so that the clamp can be folded out of the way. </td></tr>
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What this achieves is to distribute the hinge clamping pressure onto 4 discreet points on the perimeter of the hinge faces: top and bottom welded pads, hinge pin on one side, clamp on the other.<br />
I’ve done this repair on (I think) 4 Dahon frames, with excellent results.<br />
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Bruce Teaklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00911602199839526224noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796610487071943623.post-42571039980674820312017-12-28T15:39:00.001+10:002023-01-17T09:04:25.735+10:00Starting a top bar bee hive<h4>
</h4>
<h4>
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">December 2018 update: The post below describes my first attempt at starting a top bar hive. My cunning plan didn't work out as I hoped, so I ended up trying a different approach - which did work. I describe my successful use of a <a href="https://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/2018/12/starting-top-bar-hive-with-brushed-swarm.html"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #551a8b;">"brushed swarm" in my later post here</span></a>. However the process described below was useful for getting me some comb on top bars, which made the brushed swarm much easier. My evolving <a href="https://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/2019/01/top-bar-hive-design.html" target="_blank">hive </a></span></i></span><span face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><i><a href="https://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/2019/01/top-bar-hive-design.html" target="_blank">design is described in my post here</a>. </i></span></h4>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 18px;"><i><br /></i></span></span>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 18px;"><i>Today I started my first top bar bee hive. This has been coming for some time, and taken a lot of thinking, planning and building. Now to see if it works!</i></span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5Cd2MstEHW0/WkR9H6WkyRI/AAAAAAAABW4/aiSh9SxfHFsdjFsdYNnPr3_tYnVUYU1jQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1150.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5Cd2MstEHW0/WkR9H6WkyRI/AAAAAAAABW4/aiSh9SxfHFsdjFsdYNnPr3_tYnVUYU1jQCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1150.jpg" width="239" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="font-size: small;">The brown top bar hive is on top of (and part of) the white 10-frame hive. The queen excluder is below the top white (brood) box.</span></td></tr>
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<h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="font-size: small;">
Why top bar?</span></h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">There’s been a long lead up to this: Erika and I kept bees for years (I started by catching a swarm in Abney Park Cemetery, Stoke Newington, London with my mate Gomez in 1985), until family life overwhelmed and we gave our hives away. A couple of years ago I got sucked back into beekeeping when Erika’s mother and brother started hives in Stanthorpe. They bought 10 frame, full depth boxes, so I ended being the only person who knew how to do bees, wasn’t scared of stings, and was tall enough and strong enough to lift the boxes.</span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">10 frame full depth boxes (supers) are very heavy things, when full of honey. They need to be lifted high: onto a hive of up to 4 boxes (sometimes more), which is already on a stand to keep the hives above the grass and away from toads, termites, ants, etc.. Most times you go to do anything with the bees, it starts with climbing up and lifting a 40kg+ box full of sting-ready bees down off the top. I’m finding this is at the limit of my strength, which I don’t think is a good idea. I’m also squashing a lot of bees, especially when replacing heavy boxes onto crowded hives. This feels bad and gets the bees cranky.</span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">There is no way my late-70s mother in law with arthritic fingers is going to be doing anything much at all with these he-man hives, which is a real pity. My strong but short brother-in-law is also not able to do much work on his hives when the honey is flowing. Both of them miss the pleasure of learning about the bees, the hives get neglected between my visits, and I end up responsible.</span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">So I’m feeling pretty strongly motivated to find a way of keeping bees that doesn’t involve frequent heavy lifting from ladders.</span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Top bar hives fix this. They use a single box - one level. They don’t use supers (unless you get clever), so nothing heavier than a single comb (equivalent to a single frame) needs to be lifted (unless perhaps the hive has a heavy lid). They are managed by frequent, low-intensity visits, instead of periodic major exercises. I’m hoping they are suited to a determined old lady who has a fascination with nature.</span><br />
<h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="font-size: small;">
Home made</span></h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">I also like the whole top-bar style. Especially that I can make every part of the hive myself, from wood we have grown and milled, with my existing tools. The top bars can be sawn from off-cuts which would otherwise be firewood.</span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">The hive I started today has been made in my workshop at Mt Glorious, and brought out to Stanthorpe this week. I’ve made 2 nucleus hives (small hives to start a new colony in). One has an open bottom and is designed to fit on top of a standard 10-frame box - that’s how I’m planning to start the hive with a colony of bees.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ohEZSrGJo-k/WkR9G_iES8I/AAAAAAAABW0/7lcgih67SiQXs8rpfLDCswCYb7tMl39KQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1151.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ohEZSrGJo-k/WkR9G_iES8I/AAAAAAAABW0/7lcgih67SiQXs8rpfLDCswCYb7tMl39KQCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1151.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="font-size: small;">This brown top bar hive has no bottom, so it's open to the 10-frame brood box below it. The lid has a layer of pine boards on top of the top bars for insulation, then a corrugated iron roof.</span></td></tr>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">The other box has a bottom and is planned to be self-contained, housing the new colony when it is separated from the 10-frame hive.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HtvXy4F-3SA/WkR9JicRcII/AAAAAAAABXA/e4ET90y1RzsGzoYj_0ZXAZzT82mCRo5MgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1154.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HtvXy4F-3SA/WkR9JicRcII/AAAAAAAABXA/e4ET90y1RzsGzoYj_0ZXAZzT82mCRo5MgCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1154.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="font-size: small;">This is the top bar nucleus hive with a bottom, intended to house the independent colony when it's separated from the mother hive. </span></td></tr>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">The boxes are made from un-treated slash pine boards I cut years ago with a chainsaw mill, but which have been slightly attacked by borers (because I didn’t treat the wood with borax after milling), so the wood can’t be used for furniture. If it works for a few years as bee hives, I’ll be pleased - and in the dry Stanthorpe climate I expect them to last fine. The boxes have one coat of water-based paint (from the tip).</span><br />
<h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="font-size: small;">
What design?</span></h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">I’d like to benefit from other people's expert experience, but it took some time to decide on a design - I even started and then abandoned some bars and a box after deciding they weren’t the way to go (bars too short and box too deep).</span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">My main concern with hive design is to avoid combs breaking off on hot days, due to being too deep and narrow. I’ve used the top bar design of <a href="http://www.fortheloveofbees.com/why-topbar/" target="_blank">Les Crowder</a>, whose <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gkz34d_L5w" target="_blank">excellent youtube video</a> is very helpful, and whose book I bought. Les uses bars 20” long, which I metricised to 505mm. I was a bit torn between Les’s size and the <a href="https://mistressbeek.com/2009/05/03/diagram-and-plans-for-a-top-bar-hive/" target="_blank">“Standard top bar”</a> size of 19 1/2” (495mm), but if I ever want to I can easily cut mine down to standard length. I’ve made the box sides from 250mm wide boards, tilted at 60* to horizontal. This all results in internal dimensions of 464mm max width (at top) and 200mm depth.</span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">To make the top bars, I’ve dressed my timber to 35 x 25mm section, 505mm long. I have then rebated both sides and ends of the bars, to leave a bar 18mm thick, plus a square ridge along the bottom for the bees to start their comb on. I ran melted beeswax down the ridge, which is advised to help the bees start their combs where you want them to.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CVKE-afizSk/WkR9Joa_HPI/AAAAAAAABW8/-4X_SVhbF4sGh_e53OQsVMiSXv9m3nlPgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1153.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CVKE-afizSk/WkR9Joa_HPI/AAAAAAAABW8/-4X_SVhbF4sGh_e53OQsVMiSXv9m3nlPgCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1153.jpg" width="239" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="font-size: small;">Top bar, with waxed ridge planed into the bottom face (upside down in picture)</span></td></tr>
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<h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="font-size: small;">
Getting bees into the top bar hive</span></h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Today’s great event is simply the placement of the open-bottomed top bar box onto one of the family's 10-frame hives. This took some thinking, right up to this morning, and I hope it works.</span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Bee keeping context is that it is mid-summer, with a good flow of honey from local Orange gums (first Orange gum flowering in about 10 years). I’ve chosen a strong 10-frame "mother hive” which is working hard on honey production.</span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">My first step was to take off a full box of honey from the top of the "mother hive". I can extract this tomorrow with some other boxes.</span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Then I inverted the order of boxes on the mother hive: I took off the 2 (half filled) honey supers from the brood box, and removed the queen excluder from the brood box. I took the brood box off the base board and put it aside. The 2 honey supers were then placed onto the base board, and the queen excluder placed on top of the honey supers. The brood box was then placed on top of the queen excluder, making a 3-box hive with brood box on top. The open-bottomed top bar box was then put on top of the open-topped brood box, with top bars and a lid on top of the top bar box. There are no openings in the top bar box.</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-g9lMEvyTQJ0/WkR9GmBW8VI/AAAAAAAABWw/funVi7tHzDoVwlBUeQF1mwNKM2RGTpvfQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1152.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-g9lMEvyTQJ0/WkR9GmBW8VI/AAAAAAAABWw/funVi7tHzDoVwlBUeQF1mwNKM2RGTpvfQCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1152.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="font-size: small;">Hopefully the bees are building combs exactly along the bottoms of the top bars</span></td></tr>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Now the bees have access to the top bar box, to hang combs from the top bars. The queen has access to lay eggs in the new comb. My plan is that brood and honey combs will be built into the top bar box, and when it’s all looking sweet, I can transfer the combs (on the top bars) into the other top bar box, where the bees will find themselves queenless and rear a strong (but fair) queen and we will have an independent top bar hive to work from.</span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Once a colony is established with a queen in the nucleus top bar hive, I can build a longer hive (I'm planning on 1200mm) and shift the colony into that, for proper production next year (if I'm lucky).</span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">The main risk (I can see) is that the bees ignore my instructions and build their comb all over the place. I’m hoping weekly visits will be able to push things into line. In hope of encouraging compliance, I have made 3 top bars with central grooves instead of ridges, and attached some strips of foundation wax into the grooves with hot wax. At the last minute I realised that I’ve put in the foundation in the wrong orientation: normal comb has vertical lines in the hexagons, I’ve put the foundation in with horizontal lines. I don’t know if bees will work with wrongly-oriented foundation, let’s call this an experiment…</span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">The other risk is that the queen rearing is unsuccessful, and the top bar hive dwindles on separation. If that happens, I can re-unite it with the 10-frame hive and try again when the season is good.</span><br />
<h3>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="font-size: small;">
Update 24 August 2018</span></h3>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Progress has been slow with the top bar hive. About the time I installed the top bar super, the Orange gum honey flow stopped. As there are only very few honey-producing tree species locally, and it's been very dry, honey production has been stopped since. </span></div>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">The consequence of this for the top bar project has been that without a honey flow, there has been no comb building, and the top bar box has been pretty much empty. A few months ago a little burr comb was built on the tops of the brood box frames, so I tied some of that onto a top bar to help get things started. The bees did anchor the comb to the top bar, but really nothing happened more than that. </span></div>
<div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Today, however, I had a look and found grand progress! A few bushes and trees, mostly not native locals, are flowering, and giving the bees a light honey flow, so they're building some comb. Here are some pictures: </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4thqvT187Cg/W3-WD2s62DI/AAAAAAAABsQ/KZfycrC3b_ALa-geJw3Fx8CYvx8mNFQTgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1391.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4thqvT187Cg/W3-WD2s62DI/AAAAAAAABsQ/KZfycrC3b_ALa-geJw3Fx8CYvx8mNFQTgCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1391.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="font-size: small;">This bar had some wild comb tied on, and is the end frame of the top bar super. Honey and comb!</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tGsRLryrRME/W3-WD5jh9bI/AAAAAAAABsM/QB1bV13d1vg8Six9DGCRpoeGBUTQFUZ0wCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1390.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tGsRLryrRME/W3-WD5jh9bI/AAAAAAAABsM/QB1bV13d1vg8Six9DGCRpoeGBUTQFUZ0wCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1390.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="font-size: small;">The second top bar, with beautiful brand new comb</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XgKeyCxwy1k/W3-WDg-vj5I/AAAAAAAABsI/l3SyW3hCuO4BNhWH4ylceLcU8Aaia30ZwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1389.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XgKeyCxwy1k/W3-WDg-vj5I/AAAAAAAABsI/l3SyW3hCuO4BNhWH4ylceLcU8Aaia30ZwCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1389.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="font-size: small;">Just getting started on this bar</span></td></tr>
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<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">To my surprise, the comb is being built exactly where I asked them to. Consequently it was easy to lift out the bars to inspect the comb. To try to build on this alignment, I shuffled the 2 first bars apart and added in a bare top bar between them, hoping this will guide the construction of a new comb on the bare bar. </span></div>
Bruce Teaklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00911602199839526224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796610487071943623.post-53484370816746292422017-12-14T21:18:00.000+10:002019-07-03T20:46:21.064+10:00Makita electric chainsaw review<i>Makita UC4041A: a good electric chainsaw for recutting firewood in the shed</i><br />
<h3>
Why I bought a new saw</h3>
I use electric chainsaws quite a lot, mostly inside the shed, cutting pole wood into firewood blocks. My old Stihl E140 was working fine, but I like to have a backup for the tools I depend on, so I went looking for a new electric chainsaw (see <a href="http://bruceteakle.blogspot.com.au/2017/12/getting-most-from-electric-chainsaws.html">my blog post on electric chainsaws here</a>).<br />
<h3>
The options</h3>
<div>
I didn’t see very many options for a good quality electric chainsaw. The Stihl MSE 170 looks like it would be good, but it’s expensive at $380 and I suspect parts are costly too. Stihl has dropped most corded electric chainsaws from its Australian catalogue (they want to sell cordless) and the 170 is the last one standing. In Germany Stihl list 9 corded chainsaws, including a 2.5kw model which runs 3/8” chain on a 16” bar, that costs around $1000. Husqvarna sells a 2kW corded chainsaw in Europe, but not in Australia. Clearly Australia has a weak market for corded electric chainsaws.<br />
There are a few low cost, low quality corded saws available, which I took no interest in. The time spent and the materials wasted on poor quality, un-repairable machines are not worth it. Saws in particular have to work well to work at all. <br />
The Makita was priced at around $200, was available from many retailers, and importantly, had easy and low cost availability of spare parts. Tradetools priced a replacement armature (commonly burnt out) at $62. <br />
<h3>
The Makita</h3>
I like the new Makita chainsaw. It’s sturdy and well made, has good power (for an electric saw), and is comfortable to use.<br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DsBDkgGi-28/WjGaHxDRb6I/AAAAAAAABVA/_4D1kUM3rbAOC6uLl1KR3nnJEtGL988JQCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC03441.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1066" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DsBDkgGi-28/WjGaHxDRb6I/AAAAAAAABVA/_4D1kUM3rbAOC6uLl1KR3nnJEtGL988JQCLcBGAs/s320/DSC03441.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jGqIL9tNAEg/WjGbxDl7L7I/AAAAAAAABV4/iWaSwEupZ1UQn7-C9zqzDFQEorWromP3gCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC03470.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1066" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jGqIL9tNAEg/WjGbxDl7L7I/AAAAAAAABV4/iWaSwEupZ1UQn7-C9zqzDFQEorWromP3gCLcBGAs/s320/DSC03470.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Makita with Stihl E140: same format really</td></tr>
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<h3>
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<tr><td><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OeT9eUQMbtE/WjGapjU9wtI/AAAAAAAABVY/UEuiD9EjKykSp_3I---l0MiVNljVLrXOQCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC03450.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1066" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OeT9eUQMbtE/WjGapjU9wtI/AAAAAAAABVY/UEuiD9EjKykSp_3I---l0MiVNljVLrXOQCLcBGAs/s320/DSC03450.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">This is the Makita chain sprocket, which will need replacing every 2 or 3 chains</td></tr>
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</h3>
<h3>
Bar and chain</h3>
In Australia the Makita is only sold with a 16” bar, but in other countries the same body and motor is sold with 12” and 14” bars – much better suited to the motor’s power. In Australia, our timbers are generally harder and tougher than other countries, so a shorter bar makes more sense here, to reduce the load on the motor and provide more power per tooth. I'm not sure why Makita thinks Australians need the long bar, something with Aussie blokes?...<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ffDwI7TYkv0/WjGbl4SWLcI/AAAAAAAABVw/tq1dbjR0UqICsQy2CNkQwrylOd0ZB-iUwCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC03473.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1065" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ffDwI7TYkv0/WjGbl4SWLcI/AAAAAAAABVw/tq1dbjR0UqICsQy2CNkQwrylOd0ZB-iUwCLcBGAs/s320/DSC03473.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Makita box image appealing to buyers with bar inadequacy issues</td></tr>
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A long bar is easily swapped for a short bar, so that wasn’t a deal breaker.<br />
The Makita uses Oregon 3/8” Low Profile chain, which is normal on small chainsaws. The chain and bar supplied were narrow 1.1mm gauge, which cut a narrow kerf (the slot cut into the wood), reducing the load on the motor. The teeth are shorter than standard 3/8LP chain, promising a shorter chain life - they will file away sooner.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-p8qhNA60oDE/WjGbLmxGJzI/AAAAAAAABVs/2I1MAuTwe7MYNP8lCl2sDesl7DU78h85ACLcBGAs/s1600/DSC03467.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1066" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-p8qhNA60oDE/WjGbLmxGJzI/AAAAAAAABVs/2I1MAuTwe7MYNP8lCl2sDesl7DU78h85ACLcBGAs/s320/DSC03467.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Standard Stihl 3/8LP chain above, Makita (actually Oregon) low kickback chain below - note the short teeth and the kickback-reducing ramps in front of the depth gauges</td></tr>
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Makita uses the same chain bar base pattern as Husqvarna, so there are plenty of non-genuine 3/8”LP replacement bars available.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cgaJSiNkjX4/WjGbqoGDJdI/AAAAAAAABV0/CnTT-jNRQEsdE8AZa-Aqq7ujY0GIGfGJwCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC03468.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1066" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cgaJSiNkjX4/WjGbqoGDJdI/AAAAAAAABV0/CnTT-jNRQEsdE8AZa-Aqq7ujY0GIGfGJwCLcBGAs/s320/DSC03468.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Makita bar above, Husqvarna bar below - same pattern</td></tr>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Y7QCiZv7Pok/WjGa_y_3pZI/AAAAAAAABVo/tCEPPmonm9Md22l40C-Dai-RCeAh-mKLgCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC03454.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1066" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Y7QCiZv7Pok/WjGa_y_3pZI/AAAAAAAABVo/tCEPPmonm9Md22l40C-Dai-RCeAh-mKLgCLcBGAs/s320/DSC03454.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
I was able to buy a couple different 12” bars cheaply online, one of them was described as for 3/8” chain when it was for 3/8” LP. I also buy chain loops from Huztl.net which work very well. Interestingly, different bars sold as 12” were different lengths, needed different numbers of chain links and definitely weren’t 12” long in cutting length. <br />
<h3>
Cheap bars and chains: some feedback</h3>
One of the short bars I bought for the Makita was sold with a “Mondis” branding on ebay, with a chain, for $28 - very cheap. It fit straight on and worked, but needed some attention and understanding to work fully.<br />
Like many cheap Chinese bar and chain sets, the bar groove was significantly too wide for the chain supplied, and the bar rails (the edge where the chain slides along) were not level. I found it worthwhile to hammer and dress the bar before its first use, closing the rails together to fit the chain without sideways slop, and grinding the rail surface square and smooth (see <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49SSfLdJITs&index=2&list=PLYqSJXKM4jaLvWAojCuXJEul8SSxUKNkc">my video on hammering and dressing chain bars here</a>).<br />
The Mondis chain also has some problems of geometry. The cutter top plates are too narrow to cover the full width of the kerf, leaving about 1mm between left and right teeth which isn’t directly cut. This is fine for crosscutting, but means the chain won’t rip because it leaves a wafer of wood uncut down the middle of the teeth. For most firewood cutting, this is no problem, but it does mean this chain can’t be used for ripping.<br />
For someone who just wants a machine that works and pays a shop to do repairs, cheap bars and chains are often a dud: they need some work to be useable, or at least will need some after a short cutting life. However if you are willing to do some saw doctoring, they will do a lot of work and save you some money. <br />
<h3>
Chain kerf</h3>
Trying different chains, I noticed significantly different kerf widths. The Oregon narrow chain supplied with the Makita cuts a kerf of 5.5mm, where the 3/8”LP chain on the Mondis cuts a kerf of 6.8mm: 25% wider than the Makita. Standard Stihl 3/8LP 1.3mm gauge chain (after a few sharpenings - which makes them narrower) cuts a kerf of 6.0mm (10% wider). I’m not sure how much more power the wider kerf takes to cut, presumably more, but I don’t believe it would be 25% more, it certainly doesn’t feel like it is working harder. The main load in normal crosscutting is in cutting the end grain of the fibres, which is the same whatever the kerf width. <br />
<h3>
Bar and chain adjustment</h3>
My preference for simple, durable and repairable, instead of complex and sophisticated, makes me mistrust the tool-free chain and bar adjustment system in the Makita (and plenty of other new consumer chainsaws). My mistrust is comforted, to a large extent, by my assessment that when/if these components break in the Makita, I'll be able to make a relatively simple bush mechanic repair. <br />
Instead of old-fashioned bar nuts, the Makita has a sort of plastic folding wing nut, designed to be undone without using a spanner.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vGCwpsHimjI/WjGaindVOvI/AAAAAAAABVU/ZsIkeUJJHUw0ZGd0GtUhwcGe27kETXIiwCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC03447.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1066" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vGCwpsHimjI/WjGaindVOvI/AAAAAAAABVU/ZsIkeUJJHUw0ZGd0GtUhwcGe27kETXIiwCLcBGAs/s320/DSC03447.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Clutch cover with plastic folding wing nut</td></tr>
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This seems robust enough, but if it gave trouble, it is easily replaced with a normal M8 nut, or (more likely for me) a standard Stihl bar nut which has a bigger bearing surface and can be turned with a normal chainsaw tool (and is available very cheaply from Huztl.net). <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5kpba4d9lVc/WjGby-lv36I/AAAAAAAABV8/HYelE7TkpkkUNmazoM0-dz2Lg1wYAbNLACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1135.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5kpba4d9lVc/WjGby-lv36I/AAAAAAAABV8/HYelE7TkpkkUNmazoM0-dz2Lg1wYAbNLACLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1135.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">See: a Stihl standard bar nut spins straight on. That feels better. </td></tr>
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More potentially problematic is the chain tensioning mechanism, with a finger wheel, presumably using a pair of bevel gears to drive the chain tensioning thread. This works fine but feels flimsy. If it broke, it looks like it could be easily enough removed and bypassed by drilling through the plastic housing beside the bar, to install a traditional bar-side chain tensioning screw (oh for simple, reliable, old-style machines...). <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rX1tcDVVyW0/WjGatx0VPDI/AAAAAAAABVc/WMXAjUZs4r0WQm0kFHtPvEnyFP2V6mX8gCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC03451.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1066" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rX1tcDVVyW0/WjGatx0VPDI/AAAAAAAABVc/WMXAjUZs4r0WQm0kFHtPvEnyFP2V6mX8gCLcBGAs/s320/DSC03451.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The black metal bit below pushes the bar forward to tension the chain. I reckon it could easily be replaced with a traditional bar-side screw by drilling thru the plastic </td></tr>
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This vulnerable-looking chain adjustment mechanism is probably the aspect of this saw I feel most sceptical about. However I see it as easily repairable, and thus something I can easily live with. <br />
<h3>
Safety</h3>
The Makita has all the usual safety features of good electric chainsaws. It has a thumb button which must be depressed to use the main switch (I want to call it the throttle, but it isn’t). It has an effective chain brake for kickback. It has a run-down brake which stops the motor quickly when you take your finger off the main switch. <br />
The chain supplied by Makita is low-kickback chain, which has a geometry that reduces the digging-in of teeth when they’re going around the bar nose. The disadvantage of this type of chain is that it also makes the chain poor at boring cuts, where you do want the chain to cut as it turns around the bar nose. I prefer to use standard chain and be able to do boring cuts, but for the infrequent chainsaw user, the low-kickback chain is safer. <br />
<h3>
Summary</h3>
The Makita works very well. 1800 watts of power is noticeably more than my 1400w Stihl, and makes it easy to maintain high motor rpm (this is very important to avoid overheating the motor - see my post on electric chainsaws). It seems robust and well built, and after a few hours of use I’m very happy with it. I’m careful not to do frequent starts (which heat the motor) when cutting small pieces: I take the risk of keeping the motor running between multiple cuts. I would advise avoiding cutting with the full bar length, and considering a shorter bar and chain. Overall, this seems to me like the best buy for an electric chainsaw in Australia.<br />
<h3>
Update - 18 months later</h3>
</div>
<div>
Recently I broke the chain tensioner on my Makita saw. A falling branch gave the bar and chain a bit of a pinch, which managed to break off the little stud that pushes the bar forward when tensioning. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YTLxAcBWsOc/XRyDVy_W1RI/AAAAAAAAB7M/hMvykjZUmEglzASxeuPRRwgxCj-UI3g0wCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0501.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YTLxAcBWsOc/XRyDVy_W1RI/AAAAAAAAB7M/hMvykjZUmEglzASxeuPRRwgxCj-UI3g0wCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0501.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The bar tensioning stud is missing from the black rectangle which slides back and forth under the bar stud - it broke off</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
To repair, I split the case and dismantled the chain tensioner. I drilled out the remains of the stud, cut a piece of spring steel from a garage door spring, and brazed it into the hole where the original stud had been. A simple enough repair - if you have access to brazing gear. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
While the case was open, I took a couple of pictures:</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GbbAk1yyWWE/XRyDWX3MouI/AAAAAAAAB7Q/ccAIhoyYkV091-oy-WRGqwHkKUCrceTcgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0500.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GbbAk1yyWWE/XRyDWX3MouI/AAAAAAAAB7Q/ccAIhoyYkV091-oy-WRGqwHkKUCrceTcgCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0500.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is the right hand side of the case - the gear drives the chain sprocket. On the right of the gear is the cover for the chain tensioner mechanism. The gears are steel and appear robust. I packed in some extra grease before reassembling. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5ZK3-8i-KPI/XRyDTMwOaeI/AAAAAAAAB7I/7tWOEbIl12I8MeqRraKJk2ZljEQDw8YYgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0499.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5ZK3-8i-KPI/XRyDTMwOaeI/AAAAAAAAB7I/7tWOEbIl12I8MeqRraKJk2ZljEQDw8YYgCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0499.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's the left side of the case - that includes the motor. The little gear is on the end of the motor shaft, and to its left is the oil pump. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<br /></div>
Bruce Teaklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00911602199839526224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796610487071943623.post-89130973880316432172017-12-03T08:34:00.000+10:002018-02-22T14:52:02.149+10:00Getting the most from electric chainsaws<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6jxsFtNy8ck/WePj43cjKQI/AAAAAAAABO8/Av0xTyrtWPMNW-iyRW6eLSacKBO-vYKnACLcBGAs/s1600/DSC03472.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1066" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6jxsFtNy8ck/WePj43cjKQI/AAAAAAAABO8/Av0xTyrtWPMNW-iyRW6eLSacKBO-vYKnACLcBGAs/s320/DSC03472.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
Here I explore some of the issues for electric and low-powered
chainsaws, including the sensitive question of bar length<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<h3>
The benefits of electric chainsaws</h3>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We have a shed full of petrol chainsaws, which are a
marvellous technology: powerful, fast, reliable and able to work anywhere. No other household technology can deliver such a big energy return on
energy invested: delivering large amounts of wood fuel energy from a small
amount of fossil fuel. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Compared to petrol saws, electric chainsaws are much less
powerful and much slower for bigger cuts. They are also more fragile: their
motors can be quickly wrecked by labouring them. But if you treat them right,
electric chainsaws are an economical and helpful asset for the frugal
household. They are cheap to buy and run, and last a long time if used
carefully. They start instantly and easily – a boon to the house without bush
mechanic skills. In our household electric chainsaws use free surplus solar electricity
from our PV panels (we only use them when it’s sunny) to produce wood energy. They
make no smoke and can be used comfortably in a shed. They are relatively quiet
and don’t fill our valley with motor noise. They require much less time on
maintenance – the motors go for years needing only cleaning with compressed air.
When used for the right jobs, with care and understanding, they’re great. <o:p></o:p></div>
<h3>
Cordless electric chainsaws</h3>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5J0tqDJVLPQ/Wo5KAYqMP4I/AAAAAAAABYM/TybkD_CKUQo87-YOWDojbDE2mMjvHC2yACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1145.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5J0tqDJVLPQ/Wo5KAYqMP4I/AAAAAAAABYM/TybkD_CKUQo87-YOWDojbDE2mMjvHC2yACLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1145.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Stihl cordless electric chainsaw: I wouldn't have one</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Battery-powered chainsaws are becoming prominent in the
shops, but they look like a poor deal to me unless you’re doing a lot of
something that really uses their cordless characteristics (perhaps like pruning
trees in an old people’s home). Lithium batteries are remarkable energy
carriers, but they are very expensive, use a lot of energy and valuable materials to
produce, and they only last a few years. I love lithium batteries for electric
bikes, where their power is a good match for the job, and they help to take a whole
car off the road. But I think cordless chainsaws are pushing the battery thing
past its effective zone: only just enough power for a very small chainsaw, a
short charge life, requiring frequent recharging or multiple batteries, expensive
saws and expensive batteries, and expensive replacement in a few years. <o:p></o:p><br />
I service a family cordless chainsaw (a Stihl), and I'm very unimpressed: the chains are extra narrow to reduce cutting load, but have tiny teeth with a very short life. The bars are also small, light, weak and short-lived. Over time, the cost (money and resources) of the saw, plus batteries, plus chains, bars and sprockets, promises to be far more than a larger saw. Really, the only plus is that they're quiet and don't need an extension cord. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If your goal is frugality and energy efficiency and your
product is household firewood, I'd leave cordless chainsaws alone. I expect far less cost and fossil fuel will be
invested in using a petrol saw to cut wood into lengths in the forest, then
recut back at the shed with a corded electric saw, than the embodied manufacturing
energy in a cordless saw and batteries. <o:p></o:p></div>
<h3>
My experience with electric chainsaws</h3>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ve had good and bad experience with electric chainsaws,
over 20+ years. My first was a Stihl E20, a marvellous 2kW machine made for
professional use, comfortably pulling 3/8” chain on a 16” bar. It did a lot of
work before its armature was cooked while a friend was using it. I was unable
to get a replacement armature at the time, so it went into a sack in the shed.
I was recently quoted $355 for an armature: this seems excessive to me so I don’t
plan to repair it currently. Stihl no longer sells the bigger electric saws in
Australia.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I then bought a Stihl E140 (1400W), which has worked well
for over 10 years and cut many tons of wood. It’s mostly used in the shed for
firewood: re-cutting short poles of smaller diameter wood to stove length. It cuts clean wood, up
on a saw horse, so chains stay sharp for surprisingly long and have long lives.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7LmV0qU6VPQ/WebisR0jBZI/AAAAAAAABPU/ZU75IYPPKeg0_Rzye-FI2e7P-rUHwad4ACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1101.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7LmV0qU6VPQ/WebisR0jBZI/AAAAAAAABPU/ZU75IYPPKeg0_Rzye-FI2e7P-rUHwad4ACLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1101.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's my Stihl E140, on the saw horse where it's cut many tons of wood</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I’m very careful to maintain a high motor speed while using this saw, being
conscious of the many power tools I’ve seen that have had their motors burnt by
being worked too hard and run too slow. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My E140 was supplied with a 14” bar running 3/8 low profile
(LP) x 1.3mm gauge chain. This has always been obviously too much bar for the
saw: the motor can’t pull that many teeth through wood without being overloaded.
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I now have a Makita 1800w electric chainsaw, reviewed in the
next post. It's good, cheap and repairable at reasonable cost - I think Stihl has lost me as an electric saw customer. <o:p></o:p><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XfkvUpBaDig/WePkB4EkoII/AAAAAAAABPA/fayxAMbsz_o23xfePUnuGCRgYpYBWFqaACLcBGAs/s1600/DSC03470.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1066" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XfkvUpBaDig/WePkB4EkoII/AAAAAAAABPA/fayxAMbsz_o23xfePUnuGCRgYpYBWFqaACLcBGAs/s320/DSC03470.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Makita and Stihl E140 side-by-side: basically the same layout</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<h3>
Who’s got the biggest bar?</h3>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To get the most from small saws, especially electric, we do
need to talk about bar length. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Marketing of domestic chainsaws seems to focus on exploiting
blokes’ macho anxieties, and I reckon most small chainsaws are sold with bars
that are simply too long for them. It’s as if people are being told they’re
getting more saw if the bar is long – but they’re not. <o:p></o:p><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-h4BCNYyjE6c/WePj28DjIUI/AAAAAAAABO4/FkQYj4ILoNUU-AX697bwT4JF6oqVS6mDACLcBGAs/s1600/DSC03473.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1065" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-h4BCNYyjE6c/WePj28DjIUI/AAAAAAAABO4/FkQYj4ILoNUU-AX697bwT4JF6oqVS6mDACLcBGAs/s320/DSC03473.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Box photo designed to plug in to bar-length anxiety disorder</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
With all chainsaws, you get the best out of them with the
shortest bar that will do the job, and this is much more so with low powered
saws like electric ones. Short bars are safer: their noses are less likely to contact
another piece of wood behind the cut and cause kickback, if they do kickback
they have less leverage over the operator’s arms, and they are simply safer by
being more compact. Short bars make a saw lighter to carry, quicker to sharpen,
and lubricate bar and chain better with a given amount of oil. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On top of all this, a short bar makes your saw more powerful
(in effect). There’s less chain dragging through less bar groove and wasting
power on friction. Most importantly, a short bar sets a maximum number of teeth
that can cut wood at the same time, which has real advantages. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
With all types of saw, a key issue is <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">power per tooth</b>. When a saw is cutting, the motor power must be
divided amongst the teeth that are actually cutting wood. The closer together
the teeth are, the more teeth bite at once in a given cut, and the less power
each tooth can have.<br />
Up to a point, the more power each tooth gets, the more
efficient the whole sawing process is: the tooth can cut deeper, lift chips
instead of dust, and the tooth will stay sharp longer because it isn’t "rubbing" (rubbing is when a saw tooth rubs dust off the surface instead of biting under and lifting chips or a shaving. It happens to any type of wood saw if it's too blunt or underpowered).<br />
A tooth that is biting deeply and cutting good chips will produce a high volume
of chips, that are more likely to fill the space between the saw teeth,
potentially overloading the cut with sawdust. Wider tooth spaces and shorter
cuts can remedy this. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Lots of low-powered saws are sold with 16” bars (including the
Makita reviewed in my next post). This is (I find in practice) too long for
them. These saws don’t have enough power to pull 16” of teeth cutting at full
depth, and if you try, their motors will overload and bog down, risking motor
damage. To avoid overload, the operator can hold the saw back and make the
teeth rub, which is slow and inefficient and also
blunts the saw. He (or she) may rock the saw so that fewer teeth are cutting at any one time – clumsy and ineffective. If the operator pulls the saw back and uses the outer
half of the bar, it will reduce the number of teeth cutting. However this
seriously risks kickback, as the spikes are not engaged in the wood and the tip
of the bar is pushed into the back of the cut, with a lot of leverage over the
operator’s arms. These issues of power and safety are easily addressed by using
shorter bars. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you really need a long bar on a low-powered saw because
you can’t do your cut any other way, you can increase the power per tooth by
reducing the number of teeth along the chain. One way to do this is using “skip
tooth” chain, which has 2 (or sometimes 3) blank links between teeth, instead
of the usual 1. This is often done in chainsaw milling, where long bars are
often used cutting in a difficult orientation (teeth ripping across end grain).
Another option, also used in chainsaw milling, is to take a normal chain and grind
away most of the top plates of a proportion of the teeth, following the style of Granberg ripping chain (have a google) - this doesn't have to be just for milling. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Photo of modified
chain<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you’re using a long bar so you can cut wood on the ground
while standing up, there are often better ways. Squatting and kneeling are both
good for your body! And you will reduce your cutting into the ground – the
reliable way to blunt your saw and wear your bar. <o:p></o:p></div>
<h3>
Getting a shorter bar</h3>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My advice (if it isn’t already obvious) is to use a short
bar on an electric chainsaw: 12” is a good size for most. You may be able to
ask for a short bar on purchase, but most saws come in a box without options,
so you may need to change bar and chain yourself. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you want to buy a bar for a saw, you need to first know
the chain pitch: this is a measure of how big the teeth and links are. Most
consumer electric saws have a pitch of 3/8” Low Profile (also called 3/8LP or
3/8P). 3/8” means that the average length of a link in the chain is 3/8 of an
inch (measure the distance between one rivet and the second one on, and halve
it). A saw with a pitch of 3/8” LP will have a drive sprocket (on the motor) of
3/8” LP, and the bar will also have a nose sprocket of 3/8” LP. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
3/8” Low Profile is different from and not compatible with
standard 3/8” saw chain. It is specially made for small saws. Stihl calls it
“picco” chain. 3/8LP has largely superceded the old ¼” chain for small saws,
because it has 1/3 fewer teeth. In line with the principle explained above: on
a lower powered saw, you want fewer teeth so that they each have more power. I’ve
noticed that 3/8” LP bars are often sold as 3/8” (without mention of low
profile), which is not helpful. This can make buying online a bit risky, but
I’ve never heard of a 12” 3/8” not-low-profile bar, so that helps. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The chainsaw bar and chain have another critical measure:
the pitch. This is a measure of the thickness of the chain drive links: the
hook-triangle shaped bits that run in the groove. If the sprocket on the
chainsaw is 3/8” LP it can drive any gauge of 3/8” LP chain. However the bar and
chain need to be the same gauge, or the chain will be too tight or too loose
side-to-side. If you are getting a new bar for your chainsaw, you don’t need to
use the same gauge as your old bar, but you need to ensure you get chains
of the same gauge as the new bar. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Chain of a particular pitch and gauge can be bought either
in ready-made loops, measured by the number of drive links, or you can buy a
roll (usually 25 or 100 feet long) and make your own chains. Riveting chain into loops is
relatively easy, and doesn’t need any bought tools if you have a little
metalworking ability. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Cheap Chinese bars are okay, if you are willing to give them
some attention before using them. The ones I’ve been trying on my electric saws
seem to mostly be made for pole saws: 12” bars, taking 3/8” LP 1.3mm gauge
chains. A number of these I’ve tried seem to have too wide a gauge of bar
groove for the chains supplied with them (like some Baumr chainsaws – see my
review here). This will probably work fine when new, but will become a problem
after a while. Hammering a new bar to fit the chain gauge is a reasonable
solution, which I’ve used sometimes. Cheap bars sometimes also need dressing: filing, grinding or linishing the bar rails (the surface the chain runs on around the edge) to make them square. Here's a video on how to hammer and dress an old bar:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/49SSfLdJITs/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/49SSfLdJITs?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<h3>
Electric motors</h3>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A key thing about electric chainsaws is that they have electric
motors (!), and that these are very different from petrol motors. What kills
petrol chainsaw motors is (roughly speaking) going too fast or too dry (too little oil or too lean a fuel mixture). What
kills electric motors is going too slow. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The faster an electric motor goes, the less power it draws.
The slower it goes, the more current it draws and the more heat it generates in
the motor. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When you first switch on an electric motor, it draws a huge
current for a short time until it spins up. Next (before it gets a job to do)
it uses minimum current when spinning at top speed with no load. Then, as the
motor is loaded up and slows down, it draws more current and becomes more
powerful. However if the motor is further loaded and slowed even more, the
current increases but the output power decreases. When it’s bogged down, a high
proportion of the electric energy stays in the motor as heat (instead of
leaving as shaft power), and the copper windings heat up. If the copper
windings get hot enough, their insulation will start to fail, and electricity can
then find short circuit paths through the motor, making even more heat and
“burning the motor out”. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Brush motors, as used in mains powered chainsaws, drills,
circular saws etc., often show this sort of winding failure as arcing around
the brushes. This is usually a symptom of winding failure in the armature: the
spinning rotor in the centre of the motor. Burnt armatures can’t generally be
repaired, but they can often be replaced if reasonably priced. I recommend
checking the price of a replacement armature when considering a new electric
chainsaw (or other large brush-motor power tool). <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Some electric chainsaws, including my Stihl E140, are made
with a thermal cutout switch, to help protect the motor. This switch doesn’t
sense the temperature of the motor windings, instead it is designed to heat
internally in a similar way to the motor, and to switch off when the current
has been high enough for long enough. <o:p></o:p></div>
<h3>
Electric chainsaw consumables</h3>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you’re using an electric chainsaw to produce firewood, or
some other repeating task (not just pruning the garden twice a year), it’s
worth being conscious of what parts you can expect to consume over time. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Chains and sprockets are the main consumables of any
chainsaw. These parts wear and are replaced together, like the chain and
sprockets of a bicycle. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s most economical to rotate 2 or 3 chains together with
one sprocket, then replace chains and sprocket when the chains are sharpened
away. As most chainsaws are sold with a single chain and a new sprocket, it’s
good to decide on what bar you intend to use soon after you get your saw, and
get 2 or 3 chains to suit. This could be from the seller, or from another
supplier, especially if you are chainging bars. I change chains and turn over
my bar (to wear both edges evenly) every few sharpenings, swapping to the chain
with the longest teeth. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I usually use chains until teeth start breaking off, because
the teeth have been sharpened so far back. By the time they are this worn, they
cut a narrower kerf and are more difficult to use. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The sprocket will take a long time to wear – you’ll have to
wear out 2 or 3 chains first. However I like to have these things in stock well
ahead of time: living out of town it saves a lot of cost and trouble to be well
stocked. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The bar will last for a few sprockets – which is years of
cutting. Unless they get bent by a big log falling on them, well maintained bars
wear out by the groove becoming too shallow for the chain – so the drive links
reach the bottom. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Electric chainsaws, used with care, will eventually wear out
their motor brushes: the carbon blocks that conduct electricity into the
spinning armature. Some brushes are made so that they stop working before they
wear down to their springs and damage the commutator on the armature (the ring
of copper bars on the rotor). Sometimes a power tool suddenly stops working,
appears to be dead, but simply needs a pair of new brushes worth a few dollars.
<o:p></o:p></div>
<h3>
Summary</h3>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Electric chainsaws can be a useful and
economical part of a firewood cutting system. If you want a long and productive
life from your electric chainsaw, keep them spinning fast and running cool and
avoid frequent starts. As a key to working your saw within its capabilities, I
recommend looking sceptically at the supplied bar length and considering how
you can give the fragile electric motor an easy life with a short bar. Running
2 or 3 chains in rotation will reduce maintenance costs. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Bruce Teaklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00911602199839526224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796610487071943623.post-4270989901062387352017-11-30T07:06:00.000+10:002017-11-30T07:06:21.649+10:00Easy Sourdough Bread<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<i style="text-align: start;">This is a well-tried method for making cheap and easy bread for daily use. I’ve used this method (with variations) for decades, making some tons of bread (you could say our children are made of it).</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zMp3Ke1QVUQ/Wh8gUK0BewI/AAAAAAAABUA/oRaaMnqU9bwyVn7JES3_TXv1qIMvBX30gCLcBGAs/s1600/DSCN5088.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zMp3Ke1QVUQ/Wh8gUK0BewI/AAAAAAAABUA/oRaaMnqU9bwyVn7JES3_TXv1qIMvBX30gCLcBGAs/s400/DSCN5088.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<h2>
Recipe in brief<o:p></o:p></h2>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This recipe makes 2 medium-sized loaves of bread, using a sourdough starter. It’s quick and easy, and suitable for baking several times a week. <o:p></o:p></div>
<h3>
Ingredients<o:p></o:p></h3>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: Wingdings;">§<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span>Flour: 1kg<o:p></o:p></h4>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: Wingdings;">§<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span>Lukewarm water: 1litre<o:p></o:p></h4>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: Wingdings;">§<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span>Sourdough starter (see below for method)<o:p></o:p></h4>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: Wingdings;">§<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span>Optional: 1 tsp salt, 2 tbsp linseeds, sesame seeds <o:p></o:p></h4>
<h3>
Method<o:p></o:p></h3>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: Wingdings;">§<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span>Put flour (and salt) into a large mixing bowl.<o:p></o:p></h4>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: Wingdings;">§<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span>Add water and sourdough starter to flour in bowl, using the water to wash all starter from the jar.<o:p></o:p></h4>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: Wingdings;">§<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span>Stir with a strong wooden spoon until evenly mixed.<o:p></o:p></h4>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: Wingdings;">§<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span>Refill the starter jar about half full with some of the mix from the bowl. Store the jar in the fridge for the next batch of bread. <o:p></o:p></h4>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: Wingdings;">§<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span>Add linseed to dough if preferred. <o:p></o:p></h4>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: Wingdings;">§<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span>Allow mixture to grow in a warmish place until obviously risen in the bowl (takes several hours).<o:p></o:p></h4>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: Wingdings;">§<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span>Stir mixture in the bowl with wooden spoon.<o:p></o:p></h4>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: Wingdings;">§<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span>Scoop dough into greased bread tins with spoon (scatter sesame seeds in tin before dough).<o:p></o:p></h4>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: Wingdings;">§<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span>Use wet spoon or spatula to smooth loaf top (after scattering sesame seeds over dough).<o:p></o:p></h4>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: Wingdings;">§<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span>Allow loaves to rise for approx 30min (use judgement – may need longer to show some rise) before baking approx 1hr in a moderate oven (~180C). Adjust time and temperature to your judgement. </h4>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/IMZEoxqCDEY/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IMZEoxqCDEY?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<br />
<h2>
Notes on recipe<o:p></o:p></h2>
<h3>
Ingredients<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I prefer to grind fresh flour for each batch (usually
organic wheat). This way the nutrients in the grain, especially oils in the
wheatgerm, don’t have time to oxidise and go bad before you eat them. You can
mix flours, perhaps adding white flour for lightness, or rye for heaviness and
flavour. You can add all sorts of seeds and additives, if you really want to,
but I only use linseed and sesame seed. <o:p></o:p></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jhPZU0LwtZs/Wh8gYzicN7I/AAAAAAAABUI/_y0AHoLrhlgio0T-03Wkx4ck5OpFMc2pACLcBGAs/s1600/DSCN5096.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jhPZU0LwtZs/Wh8gYzicN7I/AAAAAAAABUI/_y0AHoLrhlgio0T-03Wkx4ck5OpFMc2pACLcBGAs/s320/DSCN5096.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The humble starter jar, freshly re-filled</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h3>
Sourdough starter<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The starter is a small amount of wet dough kept in a jar
(about 400 – 500ml jar size). The starter grows the yeasts and bacteria which
rise and flavour the bread. With each batch of bread the jar is emptied into
the bowl and then half filled again with fresh dough.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You can use some starter from a friend, or make your own.
When I lose my starter (maybe it’s been thrown out by a keen fridge-cleaner, or
I’ve forgotten to save some when baking) I usually find out when I want to bake
bread, so I use a quick and easy method to start again. I simply make bread
with the same proportions, but instead of using starter I put a teaspoon of
dried yeast into the water before mixing the dough. After mixing the batch, I
save a scant cupful of this normal yeast dough in a jar, and use this mixture
as starter for the next batch. The new starter made from yeast can be slow to
rise the next batch but will gain in strength with use. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After a couple of generations the starter will culture a
suitable range of microbes and produce the complex and slightly sour flavours
you want. You will learn how to manage your starter to keep it vigorous and get
the flavour you want in your bread. More time and more warmth – for the starter
jar or for the bowl of dough - makes more sour flavour. To manage this, the starter
jar is kept in the fridge between batches to slow down the yeasts and bacteria
living in it. This helps to avoid it going too sour and vinegary, and keeps it
vigorous when mixed into the dough.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you don’t plan to bake again for 4 days to a week, put the
starter in the fridge straight after being put in the jar. However if you’re
baking again tomorrow, leave it on the bench for an hour or 3 to grow – until you
can see some bubbles growing. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sourdough starter is a culture of yeasts and bacteria. The
yeasts eat sugary parts of the flour, and produce carbon dioxide gas (which
rises the bread) and alcohol. This is the same process as fermenting drinks.
Bacteria then eat the alcohol and produce vinegar – just as happens to wine if
air gets into the bottle. The longer you leave the mixture, and the warmer it
is, the more dominant the bateria are and the more vinegary it gets. Giving the
yeast fresh flour favours the yeasts, gives less alcohol food to the bacteria,
and makes a sweeter dough. When the starter is cold in the fridge, all the
organisms grow more slowly, so it takes longer to go sour. So if your dough is
smelling too sour, and making bread which is too sour, then you are leaving the
mixture too long, or your starter is staying too warm or getting too old before
baking. If your bread is taking extra long to rise, but has no sour smell, then
you are probably putting the starter in the fridge too soon, not giving the
yeast population time to build up, so the dough needs more time for yeast to
reproduce and grow. <o:p></o:p></div>
<h3>
Mixture<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This recipe uses 1:1 flour and water by weight (1000ml of
water weighs 1000g). This is a pretty wet mix, too wet to knead, but quick and
easy to mix with a spoon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You can change the proportion of flour to water as you like,
which will significantly change the wetness of the finished bread. For pizza
dough I use 650ml water per 1000g flour. This mix is kneadable, and is good for
free-form loaves baked on a tray or on the floor of a masonry wood-fired oven.
Alternatively you can use more water than 1:1, which will tend to make moist, flat-topped
loaves in the tins. In general, I recommend using as wet a dough as you can
manage for the type of loaf you are baking, for moist, longer-lasting
loaves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Using your preferred proportions you can make any sized
batch, but bigger batches may take a little longer to rise, as the starter
needs longer to grow. I usually use 400g – 500g of flour per medium-sized loaf.
If I’m making 5kg or more (usually for a pizza party) I might mix the starter
with some flour and water the night before so I’ve got a bigger starter to grow
into the big batch. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To make lots of bread, I mix multiple bowls with approx 1.5kg
of flour each (3 loaves worth), and use as many bowls as I need (and can bake).
<o:p></o:p></div>
<h3>
Rising dough<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Most bread-making problems come from trying to bake un-risen
dough. Getting the rising right requires getting a feel for the microscopic
organisms which are doing the work of digesting and rising your dough.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Before going into tins, the dough needs to be left in the
bowl long enough to rise up and get a full, swollen look. This takes my dough 5
– 10 hours, depending on the temperature. To get to this stage the microbes in
the starter must multiply and eat flour to make the carbon dioxide bubbles
which rise the dough. The yeasts which do most of the work like to be warm,
wet, and have plenty of fresh food. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If the dough is cold the yeasts will take much longer to
rise the dough, but it does rise. Some bakers like the qualities of colder,
slower-raised doughs (some people raise their dough in the fridge!). It’s just
a matter of giving the dough enough time to rise, longer in cooler weather than
warm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For baking in the evening in winter I mix the dough in the
morning, using warm water, and try to find a warm place for it. In summer I
might wait until lunchtime before mixing the dough, and use water from the cold
tap.<o:p></o:p></div>
<h3>
Baking<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Loaves should show some sign of rising in the tins before
baking in a pre-heated oven. While in the oven, bread is tougher than cakes and
is less likely to collapse from a shock or opened oven door. When done, the
loaves will be browned (lightly or darkly), and give a hollow sound when patted
on the bottom. Don’t try testing with a skewer (like a cake) as bread stays
sticky until the loaves are cold. You will learn to get a feel for when bread
is done. <o:p></o:p></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mH20hJ2MVh0/Wh8gxaRwlII/AAAAAAAABUM/bH2134qfaaMMsNiiyzZ6PN3cI9pe_IDkQCLcBGAs/s1600/DSCN5091.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mH20hJ2MVh0/Wh8gxaRwlII/AAAAAAAABUM/bH2134qfaaMMsNiiyzZ6PN3cI9pe_IDkQCLcBGAs/s320/DSCN5091.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sprouted grain in the jar</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h3>
Sprouted grain<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Recently I’ve made sprouted grain an occasional part of my
bread. This adds a range of nutrients and gives a good flavour and texture. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My current method is to take about 200g of wheat from the
batch (before milling to flour) and sprout it instead of milling it to flour. I
put the wheat in a jar, soak it in water for a few hours, then periodically
rinse the wheat with fresh water. The wheat sprouts in the jar during the day. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
An hour or so before I put the dough in the tins, I put the
sprouted wheat in a blender with a little water, and blend it to a paste which
I then mix into the dough. The dough takes a little longer to rise after this,
so I might wait 40 – 50 minutes after putting in tins before baking. <o:p></o:p></div>
<h3>
Fruit bread<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sometimes I make fruit bread – with dried fruit and spices –
as a treat or for a local café. For this I use something like the following
recipe:<o:p></o:p></div>
<h4 style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">§<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Sourdough bread dough with 50% stoneground + 50%
white flour<o:p></o:p></h4>
<h4 style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">§<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->About 500g flour per loaf (a bit bigger than
normal loaves)<o:p></o:p></h4>
<h4 style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">§<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->About 1 ½ cups of mixed dried fruit per loaf<o:p></o:p></h4>
<h4 style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">§<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Spices mixed with the fruit before adding: dried
ginger, cinnamon<o:p></o:p></h4>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The bread is made as a normal 1:1 (flour to water) mix, and
raised during the day without the dried fruit. Fruit is added when mixing the
dough just before placing into the baking tins. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I suspect that something in our dried fruit (perhaps some
sulphur preservative) inhibits the yeast, because mixing in the fruit seems to
really slow down the yeast. It can take up to an hour to rise the loaves before
baking. As normal, watch the rising bread and bake when ready. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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Bruce Teaklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00911602199839526224noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796610487071943623.post-15967368862274704462017-11-19T16:12:00.000+10:002020-06-20T07:10:24.726+10:00Huztl Farmertec 036 MS360 chainsaw kit review<div style="font-size: 13px; line-height: normal;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CYyjXC7NgQA/WhEU2hpfKhI/AAAAAAAABP4/imfu87VpNIYCYQebyw3XpsVPdv2bU43GgCEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_1118.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="956" data-original-width="1280" height="239" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CYyjXC7NgQA/WhEU2hpfKhI/AAAAAAAABP4/imfu87VpNIYCYQebyw3XpsVPdv2bU43GgCEwYBhgL/s320/IMG_1118.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Huztl 036 after 10 hours hard work (with home-shortened bar)</span></td></tr>
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<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">July 2019 update</span></i></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i style="font-size: 13px;">My Farmertec MS360 is still working fine, and so are several other Farmertec kit saws we've made. Since </i><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>making</i></span><i style="font-size: 13px;"> the MS360, friends and I have made 4 Farmertec MS660s and another MS360 on our kitchen table - it is an addictive behaviour! I'm using my two 660s for chainsaw milling and <a href="https://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/2018/10/holzfformahuztl-alaskan-chainsaw-mill.html" target="_blank">I've reviewed the Holzfforma Alaskan mill in this post</a>. The 660s are probably the easiest saws to work on (like an old car with plenty of room under the hood), very powerful, good for chainsaw milling, but they're heavy for day-to-day use. I've also made extensive repairs on Stihl 024 saws (the smallest Stihl professional forestry saw) with Huztl parts, <a href="https://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/2018/04/repairing-stihl-024-or-026-with-huztl.html" target="_blank">described in my blog post here</a>. </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i style="font-size: 13px;">If you're wondering whether making a Farmertec saw kit is a good idea for you, it depends mostly on you. You need to use a bush engineering attitude: don't expect things to be perfect, be ready to diagnose and solve problems and focus on what you can learn and how to get the show on the road. These kits aren't a product for a consumer mindset. You can't waste energy being critical of the manufacturer when things aren't perfect - remember the price! I Haven't used any genuine parts on any of my saws so far, and they have done a lot of hard work for me. </i></span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></i></div>
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<h3>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">November 2017</span></h3>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We recently made an <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">MS360</span> chainsaw from a Huztl/Farmertec kit of non-genuine parts. It was fun and educational, and the saw is working well. Overall I think these kits are a great product for someone who wants to develop their mechanical skills and get a good chainsaw, at a low cost, that they know how to repair.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">
Choosing a saw</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The MS360 is the smallest professional forestry saw kit sold by Huztl (see below for a definition of "professional" chainsaws). At 62cc it is powerful enough to comfortably run a 16" bar and cut hardwood firewood. It's a good all-rounder for someone who only wants one saw for firewood and general use. It's too small for chainsaw milling, but I find it a bit heavy for forest thinning if I'm spending all day cutting small saplings - but if you're doing either of these things you probably have a few different saws in the shed. </span></div>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">
Repairable chainsaws</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">If you want a saw that can do a lot of work and last a long time, and you want to do your own mechanics, it’s important to know that some saws are more repairable and durable than others.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Some brands of saw are easier to get parts for, as well as being good quality. In Australia, Stihls are clearly the easiest to get parts for, including non-genuine parts. Husqvarna would be the second easiest, and appears to be Stihl’s main competitor for quality. In Australia, Stihl has a near-monopoly in chainsaws, with other makes being pretty unusual, with the exception of consumer saws in hardware shops, which tend not to have much spare parts availability or range of sizes, as well as most being of poor quality. My experience has been mostly in Stihl, so I prefer to stick with them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Stihl chainsaws come in 2 distinct qualities, which are very different in repairability.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The older design type of saws, often described as “professional” saws, have a metal chassis which forms the structure of the saw. It comes in 2 cast metal halves with a vertical joint, sealed with a gasket, forming the oil tank and the crankcase, and having moulded flanges to carry the external parts of the saw. The cylinder bolts on top of this crankcase and is easily removed or replaced, without necessarily dismantling much of the saw. A worn or damaged piston and/or cylinder can be quickly and cheaply exchanged. These saws are highly repairable and, unless they have serious accidents, can have almost indefinite life expectancies. When I first bought Stihl chainsaws, this was the only type of saw they sold. However it seems that market pressure pushed Stihl to produce another line of cheaper, less repairable saws for less intense use. The professional saws are still made and sold, at significantly higher price.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hcquP6Fxj_c/WhEXK4C01-I/AAAAAAAABQQ/V8lqmhQnnxcJdAFx2nrGWJUM18yW2XoagCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1098.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="956" data-original-width="1280" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hcquP6Fxj_c/WhEXK4C01-I/AAAAAAAABQQ/V8lqmhQnnxcJdAFx2nrGWJUM18yW2XoagCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1098.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">This is a typical metal chassis from a Stihl professional saw (in this case a Stihl 024), viewed from the flywheel side (see tapered crankshaft with keyway). Oil tank is on left, piston is on top (cylinder is removed). </span></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aanfWjilKTo/WhEXLOTTgII/AAAAAAAABQU/Wq0BLKO091YAWjbFLrmwJP76V6Qekk_PwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1099.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="956" data-original-width="1280" height="239" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aanfWjilKTo/WhEXLOTTgII/AAAAAAAABQU/Wq0BLKO091YAWjbFLrmwJP76V6Qekk_PwCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1099.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">The same 024 from clutch side, bar studs on right. This saw is old and in poor condition, but quite repairable with non-genuine parts. Worst damage is corrosion around clutch, perhaps from corrosive palm tree sawdust.</span></td></tr>
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</div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The newer “consumer” design of Stihl has a plastic body that wraps around a more self-contained metal engine. The cylinder and the top half of the crankcase are a single metal barrel, and a metal pan is bolted on the bottom to close the crankcase. Removal or replacement of the cylinder involves a major dismantling of the saw, to extract the motor from within the plastic body.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VsfLWwpxLKg/WhH860UeSqI/AAAAAAAABSI/EMUqsCooabIkQSnFV-pA42VgjLHTB4YMACLcBGAs/s1600/029engine.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="425" data-original-width="421" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VsfLWwpxLKg/WhH860UeSqI/AAAAAAAABSI/EMUqsCooabIkQSnFV-pA42VgjLHTB4YMACLcBGAs/s320/029engine.tiff" width="316" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">This is the type of engine in "consumer" saws, which is bolted into a plastic body (I think this is for a Stihl 029)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The 2 different types of Stihl chainsaw can be generally identified by their model numbers, using a sort of Stihl numerology. In the old model numbers starting with a zero (mostly from the 1990s, when the modern designs started), the even numbers (e.g. 026, 036, 046) were the professional saws. The later odd numbered models (e.g. 017, 025, 039) were the plastic bodied consumer saws. With the new model numbers starting with “MS” (when for example the 026 was renamed the MS260), most of the professional saws now have an even number as the middle digit (e.g. MS381, MS461) and the consumer saws have an odd digit in the middle (e.g. MS170, MS250). This is not quite a perfect system, e.g. MS180 is a consumer saw.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">For me, wanting a saw with an engine about 60cc, there are 3 Stihl options: the old 036 (</span></span>MS360) professional saw (no longer sold new, but available second hand or as a non-genuine kit), the MS361 which is a more modern and complex professional saw, or the MS391 which is the similar-sized consumer saw. My preference was for the MS360 as it is a simpler design than the MS361, and more durable and repairable than the MS391.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Huztl sell smaller saw kits than the </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">MS360: the MS250 and the MS180. These are both plastic bodied, non-professional saws. They're not bad saws: they're light to carry around and can be repaired with Huztl parts, but they won't be as durable or repairable as the professional saws. My sister-in-law does many hours of forest thinning with an MS180, because it is so light to carry and is strong enough for small saplings. </span></div>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
Huztl non-genuine kits</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Through watching youtube videos about chainsaw repair, I discovered the recently emerged option of buying a kit of “Complete repair parts”: a full set of non-genuine chainsaw parts, which can be built into a working chainsaw. The principle source of these kits is <a href="http://www.huztl.net/">www.huztl.net</a> (a name appparently made from “Husqvarna” and “Stihl”), who sell a huge range of non-genuine parts, mostly branded as “Farmertec”.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For anyone repairing their own chainsaws (or brushcutters etc.), the Huztl web shop is astonishing in its scope and its prices. The accessibility alone is revolutionary: Genuine Stihl parts are difficult to find without walking into a Stihl dealer’s shop – you can’t browse or price parts online. The Huztl site has huge catalogues of parts listed with photos, viewable by chainsaw model.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The quality of parts sold by Huztl will take some time to discover. Some parts are clearly fine because they work from new, e.g. clutch covers, carburettors, bolts. Some will be quick to evaluate: chains, bars. Some, however, will take some time to be confident in: pistons, cylinders, crankshafts, bearings, seals. If the quality of Huztl parts is good enough (and I am so far happy), it offers a great resource to backyard chainsaw mechanics. The question of quality and durability is fundamental to my writing this entry, so I will try to report as well as I can on my experiences over time. </span></div>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
Ordering the MS360 kit</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Huztl MS360 kit is astonishingly cheap: mine cost about AU$300 delivered, plus bar and chain for another ~$25 (a new Stihl MS361 is listed at about AU$1600). I made the mistake of ordering parts for other chainsaws, along with the 036 kit, which meant we had some troubles working out what was what – most parts are not labelled. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I ordered a couple T-handled T27 torx tools with my kit. This is the main tool needed for tightening bolts (brilliantly, Stihl saws are almost entirely held together with torx T27 bolts and screws). I also bought a Huztl crankcase splitter tool, in case we made a mistake and needed to open the crankcase. I bought a flywheel puller (2 in 1) tool, to make it easier to remove the flywheel in case of crankshaft seal trouble.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I also ordered some extra gaskets for the crankcase and cylinder, and some spare crankshaft seals. These seemed at significant risk of damage during assembly - we did need to replace one crankshaft seal we damaged while assembling the crankcase.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
Assembling the MS360 kit</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hjzvduyjEMw/WhEfyoR6XkI/AAAAAAAABRE/RTlDAEJ7ct0RC85LllBqu1j2X8MIV_5kQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_4422.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hjzvduyjEMw/WhEfyoR6XkI/AAAAAAAABRE/RTlDAEJ7ct0RC85LllBqu1j2X8MIV_5kQCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_4422.jpg" width="240" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Unboxing the parts on the kitchen table</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Nearly all the assembly was done by our son Jasper, who couldn’t keep his hands off the kit. There are no instructions at all, and almost no labels on the parts. Luckily our neighbour and friend had a Stihl 036 we could borrow to look at and to exchange parts. Most importantly there is a rich resource of youtube videos specifically on how to assemble these kits.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here are the videos we found most useful:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Afleetcommand’s 036 assembly series<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Part 1:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FGQPHHtLHs">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FGQPHHtLHs</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Part 2:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpHG2F1WJMU">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpHG2F1WJMU</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Matthew Olson’s “bolt by bolt” 036 assembly series:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc51btmvc14">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc51btmvc14</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There were some other youtube videos on assembling the crankcase which were helpful, mostly found by searching for Huztl. As, well, I liked Andy Reynolds’ chainsaw repair series on youtube, which share some of his accumulated experience with chainsaw maintenance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For most of these saw kits, construction begins with assembling the crankcase. For us, this was the only difficult bit. We used our wood-burning cooking stove to heat the 2 shells, and used a wooden mallet from our woodwork shop to make adjustments. We damaged a crankcase seal on the clutch side, but it wasn’t difficult to replace (for crankcase seal replacement see <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znC1HfkCzC8&t=8s">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znC1HfkCzC8&t=8s</a>). With heat, patience, and a wooden mallet, it isn’t too hard. Oil the shaft to make it easier to slide into the bearings and less likely to damage the oil seals. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-06tD8h5TvCA/WhEfyeg_HJI/AAAAAAAABRA/vX1wBbJPp58YHrNVrlX1sZaUHBif1JLOwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_4438.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-06tD8h5TvCA/WhEfyeg_HJI/AAAAAAAABRA/vX1wBbJPp58YHrNVrlX1sZaUHBif1JLOwCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_4438.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">036 coming together on the kitchen table</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Once the crankcase is assembled, it’s just a matter of bolting everything else together.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jj92kCWouCQ/WhEU2kACSFI/AAAAAAAABP8/kVn9DUsHOF8l3_o6URFNsk4JIiveagYcQCEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_1115.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="956" data-original-width="1280" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jj92kCWouCQ/WhEU2kACSFI/AAAAAAAABP8/kVn9DUsHOF8l3_o6URFNsk4JIiveagYcQCEwYBhgL/s320/IMG_1115.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Huztl 036 - without an 036 label on the flywheel cover - otherwise looks just like any other 036</span></td></tr>
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<h3>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
Carby troubles</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Once assembled, I filled the fuel and oil, and adjusted the carby jet screws to 1 turn from closed (the standard startup setting). I was able to start the saw and run it at high revs, but I couldn’t get it to idle. There was clearly a problem with low speed mixture: adjusting the low-speed jet seemed to make no difference. After doing a crankcase pressure/vacuum test to see if we had damaged a gasket or crankshaft seal, I tried swapping carbies with our neighbour’s genuine Stihl 036. With a genuine carby the saw worked perfectly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Huztl promptly sent a replacement carby once I sent photos of the non-working part. The new carby worked perfectly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">During the first few hours of use, I found the idle speed variable. Tilting the saw on its side would drop the idle speed and sometimes stall it. Again I worried about crankcase vacuum leaks (I’ve had some bad experiences…). I then realised that the idle speed ajustment screw wasn’t changing the idle speed. Looking closely, I could see that the throttle connection wire (from the plastic throttle finger lever to the carby) was a fraction too long, so the throttle butterfly lever wasn’t sitting on the idle ajustment screw. After I removed, slightly bent and re-installed the wire, idle speed was fully adjustable.</span><span style="font-size: 13px;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
Bar and chain</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I wanted to try the Holzfforma bars available from Huztl, but wanted a shorter bar than they supply: the shortest 3/8" bar they offer is 18". So I tried something I'd been wondering about for a long time: cutting a bar down to a shorter length. I did, and it has been quite successful, see my blog post about this at <a href="http://bruceteakle.blogspot.com.au/2017/08/shortening-chainsaw-bar.html">http://bruceteakle.blogspot.com.au/2017/08/shortening-chainsaw-bar.html</a> . </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I can't recommend the Holzfforma bars. I've written <a href="http://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/2018/07/holzfforma-chainsaw-bar-review.html" target="_blank">another post that gives more details about their quality</a>. They certainly aren't a plug and play option for novices, nor a reliable option for professionals. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Huztl chains seem to be good. I was worried about them being soft and blunting quickly: they seem softish to file, but in use we have found them fine so far. Again, their cost is so low it is worth it to do a little more sharpening - but I can't say I've found they blunten noticeably more quickly. I've had to buy longer chain loops and shorten them for some bars, as they only come in particular lengths. I've written <a href="https://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/2018/11/huztl-chainsaw-chain-review.html" target="_blank">more detail on Huztl chains in my review here</a>. [I have stopped using Huztl chains since they switched to chisel tooth]</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Using the low cost Huztl bars and chains has given me confidence to try using waste deep frying canola oil (from a neighbour's cafe) as bar oil. <a href="http://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/2018/08/using-vegetable-oil-for-chainsaw-bar-oil.html" target="_blank">I've written a more extensive review of using used vegetable oil in chainsaws on another post.</a> This has worked fine, and doesn't appear to have led to a higher rate of wear. Again, even if the bar did wear a little faster, another $10 or $15 bar from Huztl is fine if it's saved me $100s in bar oil (and I've already saved a few 20 litre drums of expensive bar oil). Importantly, the vegetable bar oil means I'm more confident in using my sawdust for composting and garden mulch. </span></div>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
Decompression valve</span></h3>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">After the saw had done a few hours work, one day the plastic head from the decompression valve fell off. This was easy to repair: I peened the head of the valve stem a little so that it had a bit of a burr all around, so it couldn't slip down thru the valve body into the cylinder. Then I pushed the plastic head back on with some epoxy glue.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LSDC7oUao4o/W1Tx7qALUeI/AAAAAAAABoQ/jx9NGj_uS6M3GxnFVSnWNndshxpCKXzlgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0302.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LSDC7oUao4o/W1Tx7qALUeI/AAAAAAAABoQ/jx9NGj_uS6M3GxnFVSnWNndshxpCKXzlgCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0302.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The same thing happened to the decompression valve on my Huztl MS660. Here's the cap that just fell off while sawing. </span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0KHxc1_OSy0/W1Tx_O0a1fI/AAAAAAAABoY/HNokwRJtnSIvSFw9hPverHyx6X8XGYccgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0303.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0KHxc1_OSy0/W1Tx_O0a1fI/AAAAAAAABoY/HNokwRJtnSIvSFw9hPverHyx6X8XGYccgCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0303.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here's the Huztl decompression valve removed, showing the lid off the valve stem</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mgGXPIBFWcQ/W1Tx-ydomdI/AAAAAAAABoU/Pv_Os7UMSts842pbMESqZlnrOAskrLXYgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0305.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mgGXPIBFWcQ/W1Tx-ydomdI/AAAAAAAABoU/Pv_Os7UMSts842pbMESqZlnrOAskrLXYgCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0305.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I peened the top of the decompression valve stem with a hammer - you can see the mushrooming if you look closely on the left-hand end</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XEsPXhZ1Wgg/W1TyH3k4omI/AAAAAAAABoc/jPcxgSm9-ZwPpKY0V-cegJSi0vRAXbaSACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0306.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XEsPXhZ1Wgg/W1TyH3k4omI/AAAAAAAABoc/jPcxgSm9-ZwPpKY0V-cegJSi0vRAXbaSACLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0306.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The peened end is only slightly wider than the stem, but too wide to fit thru the valve body - so it's safe for the engine. After this, I warmed up the plastic head and tapped it back on (this time with no glue). It so far seems fine. </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Since then, every Huztl/Farmertec saw I've made has lost the head off its decompression valve within a short time of starting work. On each saw, I've peened the top end of the valve stem, warmed up the plastic head and tapped/pushed the head back on, without any further trouble. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The valve stem can fall into the cylinder after losing its head. This happened to a friend with a saw we built in our kitchen.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rphgsG1Xjyg/XSZXU3_3SqI/AAAAAAAAB7k/8M1Uxub9GKwH0dIW7Qks7O7b2Qw33kYIACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0512.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="520" data-original-width="693" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rphgsG1Xjyg/XSZXU3_3SqI/AAAAAAAAB7k/8M1Uxub9GKwH0dIW7Qks7O7b2Qw33kYIACLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0512.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">On this saw the decompression valve stem fell into the cylinder after losing its plastic head. The stem got bent somehow in the process, but didn't cause damage to the cylinder or piston. </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This isn't a good thing to do: just pulling the engine over with the decompression valve stem rattling inside could do serious damage, getting in the squish space or falling part way through a port while being pulled over. If this happens, it should be pretty easy to get it out: remove the muffler, turn the engine over until the piston is at the bottom, and shake the piece out through the exhaust port. </span><br />
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Flywheel key shearing</span></h3>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's important to tighten the flywheel nut adequately, and to assemble a clean flywheel onto a clean shaft taper, to avoid shearing the key. This wasn't a problem on my Huztl <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">MS360</span> but my (later built) Huztl 066/MS660 did break down this way.<br />The 660 had been working fine after being built, but one day it wouldn't run properly. It would start, with difficulty, but ran poorly: it was smokey, wouldn't run up to speed, and wouldn't idle. It seemed like it was running rich, so after checking the mixture screws I took the carby off (twice!) and checked the float needle (if it's being kept open by some dirt it can cause flooding). When the carby didn't help, I thought of timing, then removed the flywheel and found the sheared key. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-poEUpPw6kHc/W3NKmNCcCrI/AAAAAAAABrA/4Mp7E8FytNYTFEffpySTOr4TCeN5FbyoACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0315.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-poEUpPw6kHc/W3NKmNCcCrI/AAAAAAAABrA/4Mp7E8FytNYTFEffpySTOr4TCeN5FbyoACLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0315.JPG" width="239" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here's the crankshaft taper that holds the flywheel. The piece of key is still in the slot. I carefully picked out the piece of key so I could use it as a model for making the new one.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2wKzi6gf9-0/W3NKoEqWGQI/AAAAAAAABrE/CKsIRMHeBq06Tr1gfhxv2P0xny7W4rRjACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0316.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2wKzi6gf9-0/W3NKoEqWGQI/AAAAAAAABrE/CKsIRMHeBq06Tr1gfhxv2P0xny7W4rRjACLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0316.JPG" width="239" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here's the tapered hole in the flywheel, with a piece of sheared key still in the slot. </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I made a new key from mild steel (the key should be softer than the crankshaft) to copy the sheared one. I forged a small piece of flat bar down to 9mm x 2mm section, then ground and filed the bar end into the right arc before hacksawing off 4mm from the end.<br />I think the key sheared because I made 2 mistakes:<br />I tightened the flywheel nut with an impact driver (an impact driver is a very quick and easy way to remove the flywheel nut or the clutch body), instead of taking the time to do the proper bush mechanic's method: lock the crankshaft by taking out the spark plug and pushing in a length of soft cord (like rewind starter cord), then tightening the nut with a socket. It would have been even better to use a torque wrench (I should get one).<br />Also when I took the flywheel off the shaft, I found the tapered crankshaft end and the inside of the flywheel were greasy. I like to grease things as I assemble, but in this situation it would cause the flywheel to float on grease instead of bedding down tight. Then I read the workshop manual to find it advises cleaning the shaft and flywheel hole with degreaser before assembling (if all else fails, read the instructions…). </span><br />
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Piston pin clips</span></h3>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There is a lot of discussion online about problems with Huztl/Farmertec piston pin clips, and I eventually became convinced this could become a problem for me. I was particularly influenced by posts on the facebook Huztl Farmertec Chainsaw Builders group, about saws that worked fine for hundreds of hours, then had piston and cylinder damage from the piston pin clips fully or partly coming out of place. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Piston pin clips are circular spring wire clips that hold the piston pin in the piston. They spring into grooves inside each end of the piston pin hole. The pins are made of round wire, and the groove is semi-circular in section, so the clips can't be replaced with a normal internal circlip. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9AW1LngJ6js/XF0eti4dGNI/AAAAAAAAB3A/tNIvXRb8EnA_6S2HjUrGTFHXEAZVyoU3QCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0396.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9AW1LngJ6js/XF0eti4dGNI/AAAAAAAAB3A/tNIvXRb8EnA_6S2HjUrGTFHXEAZVyoU3QCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0396.JPG" width="239" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here's a piston, showing the piston pin in its centre. You can also see the piston pin clip if you know what to look for, with the tail curling into the centre. </span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OJFX2SXk5v8/XF0e5BjeOFI/AAAAAAAAB3E/FRkWZd6iXmQ1o2NCa1A8XR6vmHgpNCUHgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0398.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OJFX2SXk5v8/XF0e5BjeOFI/AAAAAAAAB3E/FRkWZd6iXmQ1o2NCa1A8XR6vmHgpNCUHgCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0398.JPG" width="239" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here's a Farmertec piston pin clip as supplied, with a long tail curling into the centre</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The problem seems to be that the Farmertec clips have a long tail in their centre. This is very helpful for installing and removing the clips, but it seems these tails can break off after some time in use. Especially if the tail is horizontal, the tail can wiggle back and forth under the inertia caused by the piston's movement up and down - more than 150 times up and down per second at higher speeds. This waggling can cause fatigue and the tail can break off, and jam between the piston and the cylinder - you can imagine that's not good. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Two main solutions are discussed to avoid clip problems: buying genuine Stihl clips, or cutting off the tails. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Genuine Stihl clips have no tail at all: just a circular spring steel clip with a gap. I was quoted AU$2.75 each at my local Chainsaw shop. I'd have to pay up front in store, then wait a week or so, so I progressed without them. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My main youtube chainsaw builder, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/afleetcommand" target="_blank">Afleetcommand</a>, seems to be happy with using the Farmertec clips, but he cuts off the tails, and he has built heaps of chainsaws that have heaps of hours on them. So I decided I'd follow his lead. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I opened up all 3 of my home-assembled Huztl chainsaws, and fixed their piston pin clips. On each saw I removed the cylinder, took out the piston clips, cut off the tails with an abrasive cutting disc, and replaced the original clips back into the piston. I put the gap in the clip facing either up or down, to minimise the forces from accelerating up and down with the piston. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IrFs6gJMd-s/XF0etbsQnXI/AAAAAAAAB28/iSpBVcwb1_AMgmlwalV5M4oKX1NIDdTgwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0394.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IrFs6gJMd-s/XF0etbsQnXI/AAAAAAAAB28/iSpBVcwb1_AMgmlwalV5M4oKX1NIDdTgwCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0394.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Heres the Farmertec clip with the tail cut short</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-C86p4uUAZvA/XF0fK9uOBdI/AAAAAAAAB3c/8NBPl5oSs8k28fB0sVfAjvrf9zyMCuIxgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0403.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-C86p4uUAZvA/XF0fK9uOBdI/AAAAAAAAB3c/8NBPl5oSs8k28fB0sVfAjvrf9zyMCuIxgCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0403.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The tail-less clip has been re-installed in the piston. You can see the tail stub near the top of the piston pin hole. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">
I had a surprise when I opened up my Huztl <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">MS360</span> (after I finished both MS660s). One of the clips was badly distorted out of round. I don't know how it got like this, perhaps we damaged it during assembly, perhaps it was distorted in use (I think we are the more likely cause). When I grasped it with the needle-nose pliers, it fell straight out of the piston - clips in good condition are quite hard to remove. Clearly it was on a path to causing major damage in short time. I was lucky to have found and fixed this so easily. Luckily I had spare clips in my parts stockpile, and was able to replace the distorted clip with a new one with the tail cut off. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
This little service task reminded me of the value of having the professional format of saw. It was quick and easy to remove the cylinder, only having to remove the shroud and muffler, and loosen off the rubber carby boot. Doing this job on a plastic-cased saw would require removing the whole engine (tho I haven't actually done it myself). </div>
<br />
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uu1nBieKjrE/XF0e-2mZ9OI/AAAAAAAAB3M/GCJSLzDLUoYHgYzGfY__YXVXJhOzVoWgACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0399.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uu1nBieKjrE/XF0e-2mZ9OI/AAAAAAAAB3M/GCJSLzDLUoYHgYzGfY__YXVXJhOzVoWgACLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0399.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's the surprise: the damaged clip still in the MS360 piston. You can see on the top right side of the piston pin hole, the arc of the clip is not seated in its groove</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-X3Ro4FIdvvw/XF0fBlNkO7I/AAAAAAAAB3Q/o00p6GZH4pU--grvqBWhDEXzuxXr2bl2gCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0401.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-X3Ro4FIdvvw/XF0fBlNkO7I/AAAAAAAAB3Q/o00p6GZH4pU--grvqBWhDEXzuxXr2bl2gCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0401.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's the distorted clip after removal</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wZEUqbLTWJM/XF0fHSz6pXI/AAAAAAAAB3U/lBSKu0xbbgoVmBnEnPJ73Wj9m6rttVVnACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0402.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wZEUqbLTWJM/XF0fHSz6pXI/AAAAAAAAB3U/lBSKu0xbbgoVmBnEnPJ73Wj9m6rttVVnACLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0402.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's a pin from my MS660 after having its tail cut off</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rziHXctoe3c/XF0etD9a0uI/AAAAAAAAB24/t5PXQ05d4j8XjQ3ytneu4hPsKJdgk3TSwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0395.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rziHXctoe3c/XF0etD9a0uI/AAAAAAAAB24/t5PXQ05d4j8XjQ3ytneu4hPsKJdgk3TSwCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0395.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">The MS660 piston with tail-less clip re-installed. I use a block of wood with a slot in it for the con-rod, to hold the piston up while working on it. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span></div>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
Using the Huztl MS360</span></h3>
<div style="font-size: 13px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Once carby problems were sorted, the Huztl <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">MS360</span> worked like a brand new Stihl. Compared to other cheap chainsaws, it has the advantage of Stihl’s excellent design. The <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">MS360</span> is a really good saw for my work, lighter than the Stihl 038 and MS381 that we have used a lot over the last 20 years, but still powerful and having the 3/8 pitch chain advantages.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Once the saw was working, I attached a cheap digital hour meter. This adds up the run time, so I can add up the short runs that are usual for chainsaws.</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-K0Iloqx6IxQ/WhEU2reubJI/AAAAAAAABP8/jsc0J62alZMK21HvGc7xkJCIgCEJR231wCEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_1116.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="956" data-original-width="1280" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-K0Iloqx6IxQ/WhEU2reubJI/AAAAAAAABP8/jsc0J62alZMK21HvGc7xkJCIgCEJR231wCEwYBhgL/s320/IMG_1116.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Here's the digital hour meter on the cylinder cover. A wire from the meter wraps around the spark plug lead</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So far it’s done 19 hours, which is actually a lot of chainsawing: several days in the forest. It’s been a mix of long, light work thinning cypress (soft wood, small diameters) and hard, continuous, full throttle cutting dead stringybarks into firewood blocks. Nothing has broken or failed, and I’m very happy with the saw.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/--yDUp_3ib7g/WhEd5GOW5dI/AAAAAAAABQ0/PYIn8jeoPH4ijOk3FCAKFm90tcli62zSgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0155.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/--yDUp_3ib7g/WhEd5GOW5dI/AAAAAAAABQ0/PYIn8jeoPH4ijOk3FCAKFm90tcli62zSgCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0155.jpg" width="240" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The 036 working in the cypress thickets</span></td></tr>
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</div>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
Is the Huztl MS360 any good?</span></h3>
<div style="font-size: 13px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So far, I’m very happy with the Huztl <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">MS360</span> It’s fair to say it’s seriously changed my understanding of chainsaws.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The first advantage is that we needed to put it together. My son and I learnt a lot from making it: once you put a machine together like that, it is never a complete mystery again. We know every part, and feel confident that we can deal with mechanical problems.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Easy, low cost access to a complete range of parts for these kit chainsaws, that appear to be of good-enough quality, is also pretty revolutionary for chainsaw users like me. It stops chainsaws being throw-away consumer goods when there is a breakage or failure – not necessarily because genuine parts aren’t available, but the cost of genuine parts and dealer labour is often too big a risk for an old saw which might have other problems. If a saw you made yourself wears out a piston and cylinder, and the parts cost AU$30 to replace and you have confidence to do it yourself; then that saw is likely to be repaired and work on. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Remember that the low money cost of these parts is balanced by the need to be your own mechanic and do some quality control for yourself. It’s very different from stopping off at the Stihl dealer and picking up a new saw that is immediately ready for work. If you do buy these parts, be ready to take the time to check the parts, put things together carefully and if needed, to ask for replacements. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<h3>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Breakdowns</span></h3>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One of the MS360 kits made on our kitchen table had a major engine breakdown after a few dozen hours use. Somehow the big end bearing (between the con rod and the crank) rollers fell out, leaving the con rod bore hammering on the crank pin until it wouldn't go any more. The rollers rattling around in the cylinder wrecked the piston and cylinder, then seem to have been spat out of the muffler - I couldn't find any rollers at all. I replaced crankshaft, piston and cylinder, and the saw is working fine again now. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I put this failure down to some quality control problem with the big end bearing. </span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5w0VCAYPKlE/Xu0ogV4pm-I/AAAAAAAACDM/6eIUJZ8j9DAdvbgHKURMdnPTNtyPgggEwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_0615.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5w0VCAYPKlE/Xu0ogV4pm-I/AAAAAAAACDM/6eIUJZ8j9DAdvbgHKURMdnPTNtyPgggEwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_0615.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's the piston, with its crown bashed up by fallen-out rollers</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PfBk_Y_DnKY/Xu0onzDqHxI/AAAAAAAACDU/szgH4Th_QvATQp0k9IwDT5ur9gbXFOfJACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_0616.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1196" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PfBk_Y_DnKY/Xu0onzDqHxI/AAAAAAAACDU/szgH4Th_QvATQp0k9IwDT5ur9gbXFOfJACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_0616.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The top of the cylinder also got a hammering</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OfeNy-_WnAE/Xu0okch4iZI/AAAAAAAACDQ/PsY_dkYiX6ArhwtiVvA9SEcp4WEZhG6BACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_0618.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OfeNy-_WnAE/Xu0okch4iZI/AAAAAAAACDQ/PsY_dkYiX6ArhwtiVvA9SEcp4WEZhG6BACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_0618.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I pressed the crankshaft apart in a bench vise (surprisingly easily) to show the parts. Front left is the roller bearing cage, missing all its rollers and hammered between the con rod and crank pin. Front right is the con rod, with a big burr on the upper side of the crank pin bore, from running for a little while with no rollers. The crank shaft itself is fine. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Bruce Teaklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00911602199839526224noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796610487071943623.post-23229899378725635872017-08-30T13:21:00.001+10:002021-05-09T14:52:10.210+10:00Shortening a chainsaw bar<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><i>Shortening chainsaw bars has worked very well for me - most of my chainsawing is done with saws using bars I've shortened. This post outlines the reasons for shortening a chainsaw bar, and explains how to do it. </i></span><br />
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><i>This is a revised (June 2020) version of an old post, incorporating what I've learnt over the past couple of years. Some of my other posts relevant to this one are:</i></span><br />
<div class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">
<a href="https://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/2018/07/holzfforma-chainsaw-bar-review.html" target="_blank"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Holzfforma chainsaw bar review</span></a></div>
<div class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">
<a href="https://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/2020/02/baumr-sx45-chinese-4500-45cc-chainsaw.html" target="_blank"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Baumr SX45 (Chinese 4500 45cc chainsaw) Review</span></a></div>
<div class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">
<a href="https://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/2017/11/huztl-farmertec-036-chainsaw-kit-review.html" target="_blank"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Huztl Farmertec 036 MS360 chainsaw kit review</span></a></div>
<div class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">
<a href="https://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/2018/10/holzfformahuztl-alaskan-chainsaw-mill.html" target="_blank"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Holzfforma/Huztl Alaskan Chainsaw Mill Review (with Huztl MS660)</span></a></div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lejzP8MNO9Y/WaYcxFT5KcI/AAAAAAAABM8/w_9M49Wn7cMJ5UdwxpbKye3-t77NXYkuQCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC03546.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1066" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lejzP8MNO9Y/WaYcxFT5KcI/AAAAAAAABM8/w_9M49Wn7cMJ5UdwxpbKye3-t77NXYkuQCLcBGAs/s320/DSC03546.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Shortened bar on a Huztl 036 kit saw</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h3>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"></span><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Why shorten a chainsaw bar?</span><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"></span></h3>
<h3>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"></span></h3>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">I like my chainsaws to have bars as short as practical. This has many advantages: a lighter unit to lift, gives the motor an easier life, less bar and chain to lubricate, more power for the teeth in the cut, quicker sharpening, cheaper, etc.. A short bar is easier and safer to use when thinning thick re-growth, as I spend a lot of time doing. Overall, a chainsaw is more powerful and easier to use, when it has a short bar. <br />Despite this, chainsaws tend to be sold with way oversized bars. This is a modern fashion. For example, the 036, Stihl’s 60cc professional saw in the early 1990s, had recommended bar lengths of 37cm (15”) and 40cm (16”) and I think they were right. The current Stihl catalogue shows the current version of this saw, the MS362, fitted with a 50cm (20”) bar as standard. In Australian hardwoods, that's a toddler wearing daddy's boots...<br />Short bars are hard to get, unless you want to pay full price for a genuine Stihl bar (which is an option worth considering). Cheap chainsaws come with way-too-long bars, and cheap bars tend to come in long sizes. If you have a few chainsaws hanging around, you’ll probably have too many long bars and too few short - I do. That’s what made me want to try shortening bars. </span><h3>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">How long a bar should I use?</span></h3>
<h3>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"></span></h3>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Here’s what I reckon about suitable bar lengths for chainsaws in the woods I cut (a range of Australian woods, mostly hardwoods). It mostly depends on engine power, which depends on engine size in cubic centimetres (cc). </span><h4>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">30cc - 40cc</span></h4>
<h4>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"></span></h4>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">I recommend 30cm (12”) - that’s what I use on electric saws and Stihl MS 170 and MS180. Saws this size usually use 3/8” low profile (often shortened to 3/8LP or 3/8P) chain. This is the smallest type of chain these days. 3/8LP has the same number of teeth per length as 3/8” chain, but the teeth and links are smaller. <br />3/8LP bars and chains on new saws are often 1.1mm gauge (the thickness of the drive links that go into the bar groove), which is very thin and has very small teeth. This reduces the load on the engine, but the teeth are tiny and sharpen away quickly. I usually use the thicker 1.3mm gauge bars and chains, which are more robust and last longer. <br />A 12” bar ideally uses a chain with 44 drive links (44DL) - a multiple of 4 is best. However some (including the Hurricane brand 3/8LP 12” bars) come with a 44DL chain, but after the chain has stretched it needs to be shortened to 43DL or you can’t tension the chain - the bar is a little too short. That’s bad design. </span><h4>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">40cc - 50cc</span></h4>
<h4>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"></span></h4>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">I recommend 33cm (13”). This is what I use on all my Stihl 024 (42cc) and Baumr SX45 (45cc) saws. Saws this size usually use .325” pitch chain. Husqvarna uses 1.5mm gauge and Stihl uses 1.6mm gauge - but the engine part of the saw doesn’t care what gauge the chain is. 1.6mm gauge is easier to use if you’re shortening a bar, because you can get 1.6mm thick cutting discs for your angle grinder. If you’re cutting down an old 1.5mm gauge bar, it probably is worn enough to take 1.6mm gauge chain. If you’re cutting down a new 1.5mm gauge bar, check if a 1.6mm gauge chain will fit: most Chinese and some GB bars marked as 1.5mm are wide enough to take a 1.6mm chain no worries. <br />A 13” long, .325" pitch bar normally takes a 56DL chain. </span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LQIa0NreH5k/XuxzLfmsbmI/AAAAAAAACC0/iM1AD3hVQMUL7bvQumN7MSUyiXoy03RKwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_0694.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LQIa0NreH5k/XuxzLfmsbmI/AAAAAAAACC0/iM1AD3hVQMUL7bvQumN7MSUyiXoy03RKwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_0694.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's a 45cc Chinese chainsaw with a 13" bar, with 56DL .325" chain. Just right.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h4>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">60cc</span></h4>
<h4>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"></span></h4>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">I recommend 40cm (16”). Saws this size use 3/8” pitch chain. Stihl 036 or MS360 is a good medium-sized saw for cutting medium-sized logs into firewood or cutting up bigger tree heads. With an 18” or 20” bar it struggles to pull the chain through hardwood, but with a 16” bar it’s in the zone. <br />The first bar I tried cutting short was an 18” Holzfforma bar (the shortest they sell), that I cut down to 15” for my MS360 Huztl kit saw. 15” (56DL) is really nice on an MS360. <br />A 16”, 3/8”pitch bar should take a chain with 60DL</span><h4>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">70cc</span></h4>
<h4>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"></span></h4>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">I recommend up to 50cm (20”). Saws this size use 3/8” pitch chain. I use Stihl 038s a lot (the new version is the Stihl MS381), that have 72cc motors and are fine with bars up to 20”. A 16” bar is great on an 038 for cutting hardwood - not only shorter but noticeably lighter, and you start to feel the weight of this size of saw. <br />A 20” bar should take a 72DL chain. </span><h4>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">90cc</span></h4>
<h4>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"></span></h4>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">20” to 29” is good. These saws usually use 3/8” pitch chain. If you’re cutting timber that needs longer bars than that, you probably need a bigger saw with .404” pitch chain. I usually keep 28” and 29” bars with 3/8” chains on my Huztl MS660 kit saws, mostly for freehand ripping and Alaskan milling. A saw that heavy with that long a bar is hard work to carry around, so you’ll probably only use it for big cuts. </span><h3>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">What bars do I cut short? Cheap, old or small</span></h3>
<h3>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"></span></h3>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Most of the bars I shorten are cheap Chinese bars. Lately I’ve cut down a few on Chinese 45cc/4500 chainsaws (like the Baumr SX45 I review in this post) that are usually sold with 18” bars but do very well with 13”. I cut the 18” bars short, put on a 1.6mm gauge chain (the bars are way over-gauge for the 1.5mm gauge chains they come with) and they work very well. <br />The cheap bars from Huztl/Farmertec don’t come in short lengths, so I’ve cut down a few of them too. To make a 13” x .325” pitch x 1.6mm gauge bar, I buy the 16” x .325” x 1.5mm gauge bars for Husqvarna, cut them short and use 1.6mm gauge chain (all Chinese bars seem to be way over-gauge). To make a 16” x 3/8” x 1.6mm bar, I reckon a 20” x 3/8” x 1.5mm bar for Husqvarna would be a good start. Remember these aren’t great quality steel, so you’d do this because you couldn’t afford a good quality bar or you didn’t plan to do a lot of work with it. <br />I’m reluctant to cut down a genuine Stihl bar, unless it’s badly worn at the base - this often happens when lots of firewood is cut with a blunt chain: the saw is pushed down hard, the wood close to the engine for more effective pushing. <br />I have occasionally cut genuine Stihl bars I thought I’d never use, like 16” .325” pitch bars. </span><h3>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Horsepower per tooth</span></h3>
<h3>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"></span></h3>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">There’s an important way to think about saws: horsepower per tooth. <br />If a saw tooth has enough horsepower, it can bite into the wood and peel off a reasonably thick chip of wood. If it doesn’t have enough power, biting in can overload or stall the motor driving it, so an underpowered saw tooth tends to rub on the surface and scratch off a fine dust, because the person using it will tend to hold the saw back. Chopping wood into fine dust takes more energy than making chips, thus wasting what little power is available and bluntening the tooth much more quickly. Up to a point, taking a deeper cut and making a thicker chip uses the saw’s power more efficiently. <br />Too much horsepower per tooth risks breaking the tooth or the chain, or loading too much sawdust into the kerf (saw cut), but this is a rare problem in chainsaws. <br />You get more horsepower per tooth with a bigger motor, and less with more teeth in the cut. So a saw with a small engine and a long bar, cutting a wide piece of wood, has not much horsepower per tooth. The motor will tend to be overloaded, so the operator tends to rock the saw up and down to keep fewer teeth cutting, and/or hold the saw back so the teeth dig in less. The sawdust will tend to be fine, the teeth will blunt more quickly, and it won’t be much fun. </span><h3>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Depth gauges</span></h3>
<h3>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"></span></h3>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">You can limit the power each chainsaw tooth uses with the depth gauges - the little ramped pegs in front of each tooth. The shorter the depth gauge is, relative to the top of the tooth, the deeper the tooth can bite in. If the depth gauges are too high (and the teeth are sharp), the teeth can’t get enough bite into the wood and you can’t load the engine up with work - quite like having blunt teeth. If the depth gauges are too low (and the chain is sharp), the motor will be overloaded - sometimes I’ve wondered if I have an engine problem, but I’ve just had too low depth gauges (common with new Chinese chains). <br />As chainsaw teeth are sharpened, they get shorter and lose height. This reduces the difference in height between the teeth and their depth gauges, so reduces the depth of cut. To maintain the amount of bite of the teeth, the depth gauges need to be filed down a little from time to time. <br />Manufacturers recommend trimming the depth gauges with a special file guide to a standard height. However you can adjust the heights to suit the saw and chain. A 72cc Stihl 038 with a 16” bar can pull a chain with lower depth gauges (a greater depth of cut) than a smaller saw with the same type of bar and chain, and cut better. A small saw carrying a long bar needs higher depth gauges, so each tooth doesn’t need so much horsepower. I tend to adjust my depth gauges on feel: if the chain is freshly and properly sharpened and the bar is in good condition, does the chain pull the bar into the wood and load up the motor just right? If not, maybe the depth gauges need a trim. But be careful - a chain with too-low depth gauges overloads the motor and is hard to use. Don’t get tricked into trimming the depth gauges when you have a blunt chain. </span><h3>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Skip tooth chains</span></h3>
<h3>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"></span></h3>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">You can get more horsepower per tooth if the teeth on your chain are further apart, meaning you have fewer teeth cutting at one time. You can buy “Skip tooth” chain, made with more links between the teeth, so they have fewer teeth. You can also modify chains by fully or partly removing some of the teeth, like “Granberg ripping chains”. <br />If you really need to use a long bar on a small motor, skip tooth chain, modified chain and high depth gauges are all useful tricks to avoid overloading the motor. </span><h2>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">How to shorten a chainsaw bar</span></h2>
<h3>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"></span></h3>
<h3>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">What tools do you need?</span></h3>
<h3>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"></span></h3>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">The main tool is an angle grinder with cutting discs: this machine is what makes shortening bars possible in the home workshop. </span><br /><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">I recommend buying a box of 1.6mm thick discs (normal cutting discs are 1mm these days) - these are great for cutting the chain groove. I get them from Smith and Arrow, and I’ve been happy with them. Take care: I’ve found that when they’re brand new, cutting discs tend to have a bit of surplus grit around the perimeter, which can cause them to cut a groove wider than 1.6mm. Make sure you do some lower accuracy cutting with a new disc to wear the perimeter down to size, before cutting a chain groove. </span><br /><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">A drill press is really good for drilling the holes in the bar. It could be done with a hand-held drill if necessary, but you’re more likely to break your drill bits. If you don’t know how to sharpen drill bits, this is a good time to learn, as bits get blunt a lot when drilling high carbon steel (like chainsaw bars), especially when you run into the spot welds. </span><br /><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">A bench grinder is good for grinding the outside profile of the bar, after cutting with the angle grinder. </span><br /><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">A flat file will help clean the bar stud slot after drilling and cutting. </span><br /><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">A linisher is good for finishing the bar rails, but you could do this with a bench grinder and a file. </span><h3>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Decide on the finished length </span></h3>
<h3>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"></span></h3>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">It’s good to get the bar length right so that the drive link count is a multiple of 4, that way you have evenly spaced left and right teeth all the way around. It also makes it easier to make loops from a roll of chain because you only need to cut each length once. </span><h3>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">No bar to copy?</span></h3>
<h3>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"></span></h3>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">If you don’t have a bar to copy, start by making a chain the length you want. Here’s some photos from me cutting down a cheap Holzfforma bar to fit a chain with 56 drive links.</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">I looked at a 60 link chain on a 16” bar and rim
sprocket:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0gSoBmziMrs/WaYoIWCndeI/AAAAAAAABNo/REsMKuXr3wooqVBFaTN5EhtZKOpP6a4nwCEwYBhgL/s1600/DSC03503.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1065" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0gSoBmziMrs/WaYoIWCndeI/AAAAAAAABNo/REsMKuXr3wooqVBFaTN5EhtZKOpP6a4nwCEwYBhgL/s320/DSC03503.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Measuring the gap on a 16" bar</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kZXJzzvOZWE/WaYZb4QJkcI/AAAAAAAABLo/Euhs0if3xsIkRBZODIX9qD0-opGZN9VwgCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC03505.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1065" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kZXJzzvOZWE/WaYZb4QJkcI/AAAAAAAABLo/Euhs0if3xsIkRBZODIX9qD0-opGZN9VwgCLcBGAs/s320/DSC03505.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">The 56 link chain trying the bar for size</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">I used a genuine Stihl bar to mark out the pattern of slot
and holes on the Holzfforma bar. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br /></span>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jxUyQGM9D-g/WaYoE2dIM2I/AAAAAAAABNk/l8r3CZu2NXs-xtr8vkUg8OGDrE5KOyW1wCEwYBhgL/s1600/DSC03506.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1065" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jxUyQGM9D-g/WaYoE2dIM2I/AAAAAAAABNk/l8r3CZu2NXs-xtr8vkUg8OGDrE5KOyW1wCEwYBhgL/s320/DSC03506.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Using the Stihl bar to mark the slot and holes</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Then I punched and drilled the bar. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DlfmkuinmOs/WaYaIa2qhmI/AAAAAAAABL8/cCVBIzd9pbQmZqz6GvdkFUFWLN501qbjACLcBGAs/s1600/DSC03508.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1066" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DlfmkuinmOs/WaYaIa2qhmI/AAAAAAAABL8/cCVBIzd9pbQmZqz6GvdkFUFWLN501qbjACLcBGAs/s320/DSC03508.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Drilling the holes</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lPznlHs9T10/WaYZ-Z9JBlI/AAAAAAAABL0/Z9sZF7bp3JgGoiFo8Emqk_T354RjcXrPACLcBGAs/s1600/DSC03510.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1066" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lPznlHs9T10/WaYZ-Z9JBlI/AAAAAAAABL0/Z9sZF7bp3JgGoiFo8Emqk_T354RjcXrPACLcBGAs/s320/DSC03510.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">cutting the slot with angle grinder with cutting disc, using a steel bar as guide</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">I did have an interesting challenge in this process. When
centre punching one of the bar tensioner holes, there was a small bang, and I
found myself with a splinter of steel surprisingly deep in my pinky finger, a
punch with a flattened point and no mark left on the bar. By chance the
tensioner holes aligned with spot welds from laminating the bar layers, which
had left hardened patches of steel (spot welding brings spots of steel to melting
temperature, and when the electrical resistance heat is suddenly stopped, the heated spots are
quenched by the cold steel around, which will cause hardening in carbon
steels). I first tried to deal with this by moving the hole a little, but ended
up having to temper the steel with heat to make it drillable. Thus the
tensioner holes are a little misaligned. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PiOv15VTfis/WaYaDAUW6dI/AAAAAAAABL4/fakgp7DEObMlftHvCnkN4zYbE7wZyuVNACLcBGAs/s1600/DSC03511.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1066" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PiOv15VTfis/WaYaDAUW6dI/AAAAAAAABL4/fakgp7DEObMlftHvCnkN4zYbE7wZyuVNACLcBGAs/s320/DSC03511.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">The bottom hole is right on the hard spot weld - see the failed punch mark</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wU_Y_W5Qslw/WaYabz3TjSI/AAAAAAAABMA/k-e5AS3mo8wGLO5S5n9LNVOjFYYTXmiawCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC03512.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1066" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wU_Y_W5Qslw/WaYabz3TjSI/AAAAAAAABMA/k-e5AS3mo8wGLO5S5n9LNVOjFYYTXmiawCLcBGAs/s320/DSC03512.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Cutting the slot between the holes</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-99_Bw9qDyZw/WaYaoaPIcpI/AAAAAAAABMI/Q40Kxl0wlFwfaOziTuEWNSng6tyxx46dQCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC03514.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1066" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-99_Bw9qDyZw/WaYaoaPIcpI/AAAAAAAABMI/Q40Kxl0wlFwfaOziTuEWNSng6tyxx46dQCLcBGAs/s320/DSC03514.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Filing the slot after grinding</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3LICr7aGhO8/WaYalbeX1fI/AAAAAAAABME/gt-t3sCdCe0v-uCLydkNVioV_F0gO0jXgCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC03515.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1066" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3LICr7aGhO8/WaYalbeX1fI/AAAAAAAABME/gt-t3sCdCe0v-uCLydkNVioV_F0gO0jXgCLcBGAs/s320/DSC03515.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Chamfering the hole edges</span></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yFHa_hp-z5Y/WaYbIDECdvI/AAAAAAAABMQ/BAkOmpLuNJs0KIn5YNLCAb21EKE1OVR4QCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC03516.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1066" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yFHa_hp-z5Y/WaYbIDECdvI/AAAAAAAABMQ/BAkOmpLuNJs0KIn5YNLCAb21EKE1OVR4QCLcBGAs/s320/DSC03516.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Chamfering the hole ends</span></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DCMzx5z5KgU/WaYbLCtLziI/AAAAAAAABMY/P6zS7_pcpgoVhSbFfRGKqzfJ0-gyRj9sgCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC03517.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1066" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DCMzx5z5KgU/WaYbLCtLziI/AAAAAAAABMY/P6zS7_pcpgoVhSbFfRGKqzfJ0-gyRj9sgCLcBGAs/s320/DSC03517.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Cutting the bar to length - there's no turning back now!</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-N8tEXFME6co/WaYbImrl0oI/AAAAAAAABMU/9mPKvFrfbMUA1R7u5LE5h615Xu103DJqACLcBGAs/s1600/DSC03521.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1066" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-N8tEXFME6co/WaYbImrl0oI/AAAAAAAABMU/9mPKvFrfbMUA1R7u5LE5h615Xu103DJqACLcBGAs/s320/DSC03521.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">cutting off the corners</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-abjYAcjwilM/WaYb5kuVn_I/AAAAAAAABMo/xozOZDw6v5001lHMCdACYZg6kNKIGwJrQCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC03524.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1066" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-abjYAcjwilM/WaYb5kuVn_I/AAAAAAAABMo/xozOZDw6v5001lHMCdACYZg6kNKIGwJrQCLcBGAs/s320/DSC03524.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Grinding a curve onto the bar</span></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xhyPAV1ukHE/WaYbpvsMXbI/AAAAAAAABMc/XOgtX-ZZeiczjNvAg-wCHLF5v0XdmkrsQCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC03525.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1066" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xhyPAV1ukHE/WaYbpvsMXbI/AAAAAAAABMc/XOgtX-ZZeiczjNvAg-wCHLF5v0XdmkrsQCLcBGAs/s320/DSC03525.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Smoothing the bar shape on a linisher</span></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5Ae6hnG-MnQ/WaYb5dJuIeI/AAAAAAAABMk/Vm5fm3f8aioX-ikHv_c0lgdSo0_fssNVACLcBGAs/s1600/DSC03530.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1065" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5Ae6hnG-MnQ/WaYb5dJuIeI/AAAAAAAABMk/Vm5fm3f8aioX-ikHv_c0lgdSo0_fssNVACLcBGAs/s320/DSC03530.jpg" width="213" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Grinding the bar slot into the bar base with a 1mm cutting disc </span></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-skCZeDpAR98/WaYcnHLga7I/AAAAAAAABM0/c0_oPFNupAo1Tyr4UWlZtSa2BPwb20fqgCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC03542.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1065" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-skCZeDpAR98/WaYcnHLga7I/AAAAAAAABM0/c0_oPFNupAo1Tyr4UWlZtSa2BPwb20fqgCLcBGAs/s320/DSC03542.jpg" width="213" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Tempering the bar with LPG-air torch to enable drilling</span></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qBr7VzUngdQ/WaYceVHZqaI/AAAAAAAABMw/XevLK5Vh1MkvB_gGiEsz8HQ6kadx5TjyACLcBGAs/s1600/DSC03543.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1066" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qBr7VzUngdQ/WaYceVHZqaI/AAAAAAAABMw/XevLK5Vh1MkvB_gGiEsz8HQ6kadx5TjyACLcBGAs/s320/DSC03543.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Drilling the bar after tempering</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LI8s2swPM_I/WaYcnxyh_qI/AAAAAAAABM4/F7TEDZw-FpQnkOQ-GDMUSj4NE3qHkErjQCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC03544.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1066" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LI8s2swPM_I/WaYcnxyh_qI/AAAAAAAABM4/F7TEDZw-FpQnkOQ-GDMUSj4NE3qHkErjQCLcBGAs/s320/DSC03544.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Drilling the oil holes using the old bar base as template</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TMpVMyI4ifU/Wa8HABqnszI/AAAAAAAABOM/aha6x3xZrLwzJo__kXpfUyHDSQcZqxy1wCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC03555.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1066" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TMpVMyI4ifU/Wa8HABqnszI/AAAAAAAABOM/aha6x3xZrLwzJo__kXpfUyHDSQcZqxy1wCLcBGAs/s320/DSC03555.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">The new bar fitted to the motor</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h3>
</h3>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lejzP8MNO9Y/WaYcxFT5KcI/AAAAAAAABM8/w_9M49Wn7cMJ5UdwxpbKye3-t77NXYkuQCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC03546.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1066" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lejzP8MNO9Y/WaYcxFT5KcI/AAAAAAAABM8/w_9M49Wn7cMJ5UdwxpbKye3-t77NXYkuQCLcBGAs/s320/DSC03546.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Shortened bars can look a little wider than normal at the base, but I can live with that</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h3>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">
Bar hammering video (for worn or badly gauged bars)</span></h3>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/49SSfLdJITs/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/49SSfLdJITs?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br /></span></div>
<h3>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">
Shortening a .325" bar</span></h3>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Here's some phtos of shorteneing .325" pitch bars for a Stihl 024 (<a href="https://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/2018/04/repairing-stihl-024-or-026-with-huztl.html" target="_blank">my post on repairing 024s and 026s here</a>).</span><div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cPvtJCw02Zk/WzN78nDJAvI/AAAAAAAABk4/0olMSl0G-OctQFeMvmRWB3ZIGHCpTEC9wCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0278.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cPvtJCw02Zk/WzN78nDJAvI/AAAAAAAABk4/0olMSl0G-OctQFeMvmRWB3ZIGHCpTEC9wCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0278.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Here's the genuine Stihl 13" bar alongside the Holzfforma 16" bar</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pGwwmRmSsgE/WzN7-REAwCI/AAAAAAAABk8/Ks0p-H1iKVA_PExUL-2QeF6XyV7IldNSwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0279.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pGwwmRmSsgE/WzN7-REAwCI/AAAAAAAABk8/Ks0p-H1iKVA_PExUL-2QeF6XyV7IldNSwCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_0279.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">I traced directly from the Stihl bar, but the new bar will need to have an open-backed slot because of the existing slot</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lelWBhyILj0/Wo5P5n6jx_I/AAAAAAAABYo/5zWdrg7-_5spFPU6K-hW6y-AnHIyomozwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1178.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lelWBhyILj0/Wo5P5n6jx_I/AAAAAAAABYo/5zWdrg7-_5spFPU6K-hW6y-AnHIyomozwCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1178.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Here's the freshly repaired 024 with the freshly shortened .325" bar </span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<br /><div style="text-align: center;">
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-O9aqfG1JzvM/Wo5P-jBmUuI/AAAAAAAABYw/hZ1wy2YMFOIC3LEAV1uV4cu2yRJ9TVXzwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1179.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-O9aqfG1JzvM/Wo5P-jBmUuI/AAAAAAAABYw/hZ1wy2YMFOIC3LEAV1uV4cu2yRJ9TVXzwCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1179.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Both chain tensioner holes ran into hard steel from the spot welding: the burnt-looking areas around the holes are where I softened the steel with an oxy flame</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h3>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">
Shortened bars work well</span></h3>
<div>
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">My friends and I have now done many hours of cutting on many saws with bars I've shortened. We’ve had no problem at all with the hand-modified bars (tho I've had <a href="https://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/2018/07/holzfforma-chainsaw-bar-review.html" target="_blank">serious quality problems with the Holzfforma bars</a>). This is a technique that works well and is very useful. </span></div><div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Bar lengths</span></h3><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">As I said above, I often start off by copying an existing bar. Watch out for this, sometimes bought bars are shorter than ideal, meaning that you may need to shorten chains as they stretch beyond the limits of the chain tensioner. <br /></span></div><div><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> </span></div><div><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">13" bar, 56DL, .325" pitch (used on my Chinese 45cc chainsaws): 395mm bar length (this is 10mm longer than the GB bars). <br /></span></div><div><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> </span><div style="text-align: left;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br /></span></div></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<h3>
</h3>
Bruce Teaklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00911602199839526224noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796610487071943623.post-23710041095817491962017-05-21T15:12:00.002+10:002017-06-30T07:35:13.399+10:00Baumr SX82 Review – first impressions<div class="MsoNormal">
Model: Baumr-Ag SX82<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My friend Alan asked me to have a look at his new Baumr
chainsaw. It’s the 82cc saw, which cost him just over $200, delivered. Before
even starting it, Alan made some modifications as suggested by Scott O’Malley
on youtube, replacing fuel lines and chain adjusting system which are known
problems. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So far, it has done an hour or so of work, working really well apparently. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here are the new fuel lines.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pMEV-4_S81o/WSEdHkCq-TI/AAAAAAAABKY/HvRDsGcK0JQtYfFGwf1SbI7MQIOAnJDfQCEw/s1600/IMG_0974.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pMEV-4_S81o/WSEdHkCq-TI/AAAAAAAABKY/HvRDsGcK0JQtYfFGwf1SbI7MQIOAnJDfQCEw/s320/IMG_0974.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">these are some of the replaced fuel lines</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here’s the chain adjuster. The original bevel gear adjuster clearly had soft teeth and appears to have burred over almost on first use.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CTxDWhoe2k4/WSEbyQmz6jI/AAAAAAAABKY/1iy6lGoKZ8c16sE0EwJGfhahw2lzhN_cACEw/s1600/IMG_0957.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CTxDWhoe2k4/WSEbyQmz6jI/AAAAAAAABKY/1iy6lGoKZ8c16sE0EwJGfhahw2lzhN_cACEw/s320/IMG_0957.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">damaged spiral gear on the chain tensioner</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-b6glGZxmNmI/WSEZWPn0wvI/AAAAAAAABI4/0xSPX8uIRzwK7rKgmGn7ghkTmOKGDV4FgCEw/s1600/IMG_0956.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-b6glGZxmNmI/WSEZWPn0wvI/AAAAAAAABI4/0xSPX8uIRzwK7rKgmGn7ghkTmOKGDV4FgCEw/s320/IMG_0956.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Modified adjusting screw on chain tensioner</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He also replaced the decompression valve, after early
failure. <o:p></o:p></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-r4-zURlIi8I/WSEdCfWayQI/AAAAAAAABKY/aQajDnjJ7YQJJGqRN4QXhZkn_TquORknACEw/s1600/IMG_0973.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-r4-zURlIi8I/WSEdCfWayQI/AAAAAAAABKY/aQajDnjJ7YQJJGqRN4QXhZkn_TquORknACEw/s320/IMG_0973.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">replaced decompression valve</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h3>
Obvious issues</h3>
<h3>
<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div class="MsoNormal">
- Plastic cover melted by muffler<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wro7kRO7Cx0/WSEZPatJqeI/AAAAAAAABI4/IOSClQRlMvUMs6nynQoieXphPNcqs0ypACEw/s1600/IMG_0954.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wro7kRO7Cx0/WSEZPatJqeI/AAAAAAAABI4/IOSClQRlMvUMs6nynQoieXphPNcqs0ypACEw/s320/IMG_0954.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
- Very weak bumper spike/dog, only on left side of bar. No spike
mount provided on the clutch cover, but it could probably be improvised.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-agdxMOp4aTI/WSEZTTg99XI/AAAAAAAABI4/XModN17Fl581ro8C92qxQtgpnZHs4hFIgCEw/s1600/IMG_0955.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-agdxMOp4aTI/WSEZTTg99XI/AAAAAAAABI4/XModN17Fl581ro8C92qxQtgpnZHs4hFIgCEw/s320/IMG_0955.jpg" width="239" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9muC-rxvh_E/WSEdSonHciI/AAAAAAAABKY/waHbEWwGeZglo-srrQx7NZPWz92IILchACEw/s1600/IMG_0975.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9muC-rxvh_E/WSEdSonHciI/AAAAAAAABKY/waHbEWwGeZglo-srrQx7NZPWz92IILchACEw/s320/IMG_0975.jpg" width="239" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The saw would probably crosscut vertically
down fine, but it wouldn’t be much fun to use in felling where you depend on
the spikes more. Freehand ripping (e.g. cutting logs lengthways into beams) often depends on good spikes, so I wouldn't try it unless I'd installed better spikes. </span><br />
<h3>
Chain and bar<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The design of the chain bar is very similar to a 3/8” Stihl
bar, with tensioner and oil feed holes in about the same places, but has
narrower slot for bar studs. <o:p></o:p></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Bpr4r-0vBY0/WSEbEkr2VII/AAAAAAAABJI/7UN8Zj_1BBYPNpNg2o78hGg50U-7Bx5RACEw/s1600/IMG_0959.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Bpr4r-0vBY0/WSEbEkr2VII/AAAAAAAABJI/7UN8Zj_1BBYPNpNg2o78hGg50U-7Bx5RACEw/s320/IMG_0959.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Baumr bar on studs</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KKsHCr75cZY/WSEbxWP-t4I/AAAAAAAABKY/Z6eEPgHReiA5Xm9zDF9s_nAXQHOIam13QCEw/s1600/IMG_0961.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KKsHCr75cZY/WSEbxWP-t4I/AAAAAAAABKY/Z6eEPgHReiA5Xm9zDF9s_nAXQHOIam13QCEw/s320/IMG_0961.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Baumr bar on left, Stihl on right</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fV9IwxpsUMg/WSEbwCYGR5I/AAAAAAAABKY/NaX1WDamPMMILMYAYshuf_evPZHGUq2KQCEw/s1600/IMG_0960.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fV9IwxpsUMg/WSEbwCYGR5I/AAAAAAAABKY/NaX1WDamPMMILMYAYshuf_evPZHGUq2KQCEw/s320/IMG_0960.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stihl bar doesn't fit - could with suitable bushes</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In nearly new condition, the chain has a lot of clearance in
the bar slot, with the chain able to tilt with the tooth corner in line with
the bar face. <o:p></o:p></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RHu538LebSw/WSEcI-1-JJI/AAAAAAAABKY/ql8Cbxn3d8UM_8HDCoFy647NpC5eQjdzQCEw/s1600/IMG_0962.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RHu538LebSw/WSEcI-1-JJI/AAAAAAAABKY/ql8Cbxn3d8UM_8HDCoFy647NpC5eQjdzQCEw/s320/IMG_0962.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">There should be daylight between straightedge and bar face</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qsgOBc1Om2U/WSEcEYSxvSI/AAAAAAAABKY/a0hhWLVj1WAJafa1R97AwDb01lURwrfowCEw/s1600/IMG_0964.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qsgOBc1Om2U/WSEcEYSxvSI/AAAAAAAABKY/a0hhWLVj1WAJafa1R97AwDb01lURwrfowCEw/s320/IMG_0964.jpg" width="239" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H5offcF-fzs/WSEcCXryunI/AAAAAAAABKY/K38CuCNs5o0i40DTMdcC1OY3B8OVs0MbACEw/s1600/IMG_0963.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H5offcF-fzs/WSEcCXryunI/AAAAAAAABKY/K38CuCNs5o0i40DTMdcC1OY3B8OVs0MbACEw/s320/IMG_0963.jpg" width="239" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This means the chain is right on the edge of having no
clearance, and the bar becoming bound in its own kerf. With a little bar slot
wear, and the teeth losing set by being sharpened and shortened, the saw would
cut very poorly very soon. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Normally if a bar and chain have this problem, I’ll consider
hammering the bar slot to make it tighter. However in a new saw this didn’t
look like a good idea. Measuring with a vernier caliper, I found the chain
drive links measure at 1.4mm and the bar at 1.6mm. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-y2rEG2cYg90/WSEcYYU6XYI/AAAAAAAABKY/7AeME0IHxkc-XooAt_AvarErJ-jCVeTLgCEw/s1600/IMG_0965.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-y2rEG2cYg90/WSEcYYU6XYI/AAAAAAAABKY/7AeME0IHxkc-XooAt_AvarErJ-jCVeTLgCEw/s320/IMG_0965.jpg" width="239" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WES5-AWpeQE/WSEcnhtrzTI/AAAAAAAABKY/29t2ZfoP9PI_pZjXgt0S3TX-ROd38v5IACEw/s1600/IMG_0969.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WES5-AWpeQE/WSEcnhtrzTI/AAAAAAAABKY/29t2ZfoP9PI_pZjXgt0S3TX-ROd38v5IACEw/s320/IMG_0969.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I tried a Stihl 3/8 chain of
1.6mm gauge (which interestingly measured at a shade over 1.5mm), and it fit
well. I would say that the saw was delivered with the wrong gauge chain – I
don’t know if they all have this problem. With a 1.6mm gauge chain, bar and
chain would fit well. <o:p></o:p><br />
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<!--StartFragment-->
<!--EndFragment--><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
It looks like they do all have this problem. On the Edisons
page where the saw is sold [<a href="https://www.edisons.com.au/baumr-ag-24-e-start-pro-series-82cc-petrol-chainsaw-sx82/">https://www.edisons.com.au/baumr-ag-24-e-start-pro-series-82cc-petrol-chainsaw-sx82/</a>],
the chain is specified as .058” gauge, which is just under 1.5mm - just what I found. However the
spare chains they sell [<a href="https://www.edisons.com.au/baumr-ag-24-tru-sharp-3-8-pitch-chainsaw-chains/">https://www.edisons.com.au/baumr-ag-24-tru-sharp-3-8-pitch-chainsaw-chains/</a>]
specifically for this saw are specified as .063”, which is 1.6mm - the right gauge for the bar supplied. <o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3Kvv9XWC-dA/WSEcZuAHASI/AAAAAAAABKg/4bvHfxoELKwGljPduDVgI6J2hK3g_yqBACEw/s1600/IMG_0966.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3Kvv9XWC-dA/WSEcZuAHASI/AAAAAAAABKg/4bvHfxoELKwGljPduDVgI6J2hK3g_yqBACEw/s320/IMG_0966.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1.6mm gauge chain fits snugly</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After cleaning, I noticed chipping on the bar slot rails,
just behind the roller nose unit. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jeaH_AEO9Vk/WSEdVytrAFI/AAAAAAAABKY/zG9wrFcA7C08gxs2MF59a0jd9LmaI2nVgCEw/s1600/IMG_0977.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jeaH_AEO9Vk/WSEdVytrAFI/AAAAAAAABKY/zG9wrFcA7C08gxs2MF59a0jd9LmaI2nVgCEw/s320/IMG_0977.jpg" width="239" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is where the bar might get some
hammering from a slightly loose chain. I’ve seen chipped bar rails plenty of
times before, but usually only after bad burring after a lot of wear and
neglect to dress the bar. Chipping on a new bar suggests a problem with heat
treatment – but perhaps indicates the bar has been heat treated which is at
least an attempt at good quality. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The rim sprocket was a perfect match for a standard Stihl
3/8” rim sprocket. <o:p></o:p></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-OVJy3H5Amws/WSEcwDXwWyI/AAAAAAAABKY/2DR60y02EDUNClr8yxH9QaoH_1wUZT50QCEw/s1600/IMG_0970.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-OVJy3H5Amws/WSEcwDXwWyI/AAAAAAAABKY/2DR60y02EDUNClr8yxH9QaoH_1wUZT50QCEw/s320/IMG_0970.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Baumr sprocket</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-svmFX5CvHFE/WSEc51tqX3I/AAAAAAAABKY/9d3OGd3-lE4oHWH6uTCHJxdUeylMFXG4ACEw/s1600/IMG_0971.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-svmFX5CvHFE/WSEc51tqX3I/AAAAAAAABKY/9d3OGd3-lE4oHWH6uTCHJxdUeylMFXG4ACEw/s320/IMG_0971.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stihl sprocket</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h3>
Oil pump [added 30 June 2017]</h3>
<div>
Our neighbour Shaun also bought an SX82 and gave it a first run recently. After a little cutting, Alan noticed that the chain wasn't getting oil, and there was oil running out from under the clutch cover. Dismantling revealed missing hold-down bolts for the oil pump: easily replaced and the saw back in action soon. During this exercise the clutch drum bearing was found to be totally dry - risking damage to the crankshaft. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Mqn6b8ebRzs/WVVyZykogbI/AAAAAAAABK8/xXN6v3-iYLwWezCrIL8gTS_HGAdUAqYfQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_6629.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Mqn6b8ebRzs/WVVyZykogbI/AAAAAAAABK8/xXN6v3-iYLwWezCrIL8gTS_HGAdUAqYfQCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_6629.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
Conclusions<o:p></o:p></h3>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This saw is incredibly cheap. It works and seems quite
powerful, but has a range of problems from new which really need to be
addressed in order to use it at all. You need to be pretty handy to do all
these things. The things that need attention before first use so far include:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>replacing chain with 1.6mm gauge chain (or bar to 1.5mm) </li>
<li>replacing fuel lines with silicone fuel hose</li>
<li>greasing clutch drum roller bearing</li>
<li>checking oil pump bolts</li>
</ul>
<br />
We’ll see how this saw lasts over time. Maybe the motor
itself is fine, and the saw will become reliable after initial problems are
addressed. Perhaps I’ll update this post later...</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
Bruce Teaklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00911602199839526224noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796610487071943623.post-87107043785080345652017-03-20T15:38:00.000+10:002018-04-13T09:29:28.708+10:00Making a Cant Hook<div class="MsoNormal">
If you’re going to work with logs, you need a cant hook
(unless they’re all too huge to move without machinery or all so small you can
pick them up with one hand). Crowbars are very useful, tractors are marvellous,
but for a person to be able to move logs around while cutting, milling,
building, etc., a cant hook is indispensable. I first met my wife and in-laws
when I visited a blacksmith to ask him to make me a cant hook, so they have a
special place in my life as well.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Cant hooks allow a person to roll a log with modest effort
and ample control. Along with a couple of strong crowbars, a log buggy and a
few other bits and pieces, you can move logs around surprisingly effectively.
Without these tools, logs are heavy, unyielding lumps that risk doing harm to
your body if you try to move them at all. Don't think that you can substitute a crow bar for a cant hook: using a crow bar to roll logs is like eating spaghetti with a spoon. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m very happy with the design of cant hooks I use. The hook
is permanently attached to the handle and is easily swung onto the log. Some cant hooks simply have a hook with
a ring (at the handle end), and a crowbar or wooden spar must be put through the ring as the
lever. This is a terrible idea if you need to roll a log more than once: you
need to do a lot of bending over to pick up the hook and ring, your fingers are
at risk of crushing and it's slow and awkward (I tried it early on). A hook with a ring can be useful to roll really large logs when pulled with a tractor and chain, but I have rarely needed to do this. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I use leaf spring steel for the hook, point and hinge.
Spring steel makes for a much stronger hook than mild steel, thus enabling a
lighter tool. It’s also usually free and being recycled. Trailer springs are
often the right size of flat bar: about 44mm x 6 or 7mm. If you couldn’t get leaf spring (from the
tip, or from a spring works or suspension shop bin), you might be able to
flatten large coil spring or find some other high tensile steel. If not, mild steel will do - I'm sure many good cant hooks have been made from mild steel or wrought iron, preferably with steel points welded on. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
10mm threaded rod is used to attach the point to the handle,
and a 10mm bolt (with 2 nuts to lock together) to attach the hook to the hinge.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I harden and temper the points of the hook and point, so they stay
sharp longer and are less likely to be accidentally bent. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The holes in the hook and hinge are drilled (not punched) so
that there is a smoother bearing surface for the bolt. Of course you need to carefully normalise the steel before drilling, by heating to red heat and cooling slowly in the ash bucket. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The threaded rods which hold the point to the handle are
welded into punched holes in the point. I use general purpose electrodes to weld them in, and re-heat the steel in the forge immediately afterwards to normalise and avoid brittleness at the weld. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s very worthwhile shaping the back end of the hook and
carefully positioning the hook in the hinge, so that the hook can’t swing back
and hit the handle. Your fingers will sometimes be there….<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The hinge is also set so it stops the hook from hitting the
point, and blunting it. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
I make handles from spotted gum, which is very tough. I
start with a straight-grained piece of 75 x 50 (can I say 3” x 2”?), 1400mm long, which is
then sawn into a taper both ways, then planed with an electric plane into a
nice round shape: first square, then octagonal, then rounded; then use a hand
plane to finish. I put some red paint on the top of the handle to make it less easy to lose in the bush, and rub the handle with linseed oil (raw) to reduce checking and
splintering: it mostly reduces the drying and wetting of the surface, and
consequent surface splitting. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here are some photos to give you dimensions (in millimetres) and shape:</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-U0_GvucdXxo/WM9i0KRa4hI/AAAAAAAABH0/RgFHRgPST8QBSI-uaN_CSh_z8MsH21IOgCLcB/s1600/DSC03144.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-U0_GvucdXxo/WM9i0KRa4hI/AAAAAAAABH0/RgFHRgPST8QBSI-uaN_CSh_z8MsH21IOgCLcB/s320/DSC03144.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The main dimensions and shape - it's not an exact thing. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-alA-BWlgDFg/WM9i1ZXA_7I/AAAAAAAABH4/PGtAD_NbZIg9ka74x-3dKJz0x_zy1k3iACLcB/s1600/DSC03145.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-alA-BWlgDFg/WM9i1ZXA_7I/AAAAAAAABH4/PGtAD_NbZIg9ka74x-3dKJz0x_zy1k3iACLcB/s320/DSC03145.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A bird's-eye view of a cant hook doing a shoot on a living room floor. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WOc7MEuQQdA/WM9i2BwI2qI/AAAAAAAABH8/Nqw8NMCufDUvWQJ06hmqCUHJjrxsFdgwgCLcB/s1600/DSC03146.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WOc7MEuQQdA/WM9i2BwI2qI/AAAAAAAABH8/Nqw8NMCufDUvWQJ06hmqCUHJjrxsFdgwgCLcB/s320/DSC03146.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This shows the hook hinged back as far as it will go. It stops before it hits your fingers.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nLlLApTyaq0/WM9jV2eZnLI/AAAAAAAABIE/8Sj2QybXuIAl_LBo3Nk70EL_ElrRwzijQCLcB/s1600/DSC03147.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nLlLApTyaq0/WM9jV2eZnLI/AAAAAAAABIE/8Sj2QybXuIAl_LBo3Nk70EL_ElrRwzijQCLcB/s320/DSC03147.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is the hook as far forward as it will go - missing the point. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zCvX_Ve8T8E/WM9jYjP4zII/AAAAAAAABII/6uNSTQF3WbUpL-8l0fHg8JEyF5ND_pSnACLcB/s1600/DSC03148.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zCvX_Ve8T8E/WM9jYjP4zII/AAAAAAAABII/6uNSTQF3WbUpL-8l0fHg8JEyF5ND_pSnACLcB/s320/DSC03148.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The bump on the point plate is where a 10mm threaded rod is welded on. The other 2 threaded rods are under the hinge. Note the double nuts on the hinge bolt, tightened together to allow free movement of the hook. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GWQIedBhqKM/WM9jY06s4iI/AAAAAAAABIM/oq2EF7s58uwczS6kVEXK8vjNh2fJN8k_QCLcB/s1600/DSC03149.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GWQIedBhqKM/WM9jY06s4iI/AAAAAAAABIM/oq2EF7s58uwczS6kVEXK8vjNh2fJN8k_QCLcB/s320/DSC03149.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The 10mm threaded rods come thru to the back and have nuts and washers. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IRh_u3bKFEc/Ws_lN409nbI/AAAAAAAABh0/s75ExxXNElsn3wKa8qxo_d4XoQaTCmmSACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_1272.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IRh_u3bKFEc/Ws_lN409nbI/AAAAAAAABh0/s75ExxXNElsn3wKa8qxo_d4XoQaTCmmSACLcBGAs/s320/IMG_1272.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's a brand new cant hook, painted and ready for a handle</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
Bruce Teaklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00911602199839526224noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796610487071943623.post-33258331528783300312017-03-03T16:29:00.002+10:002017-03-04T18:59:38.513+10:00Replacing bicycle wheel bearing hub cups<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZCKbzWrPjQ4/WLp-4c4Oc1I/AAAAAAAABHc/ZSN1vrh2K4EikovBhYVZ3U2_OH9OSP_ZgCLcB/s1600/SAM_1035.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZCKbzWrPjQ4/WLp-4c4Oc1I/AAAAAAAABHc/ZSN1vrh2K4EikovBhYVZ3U2_OH9OSP_ZgCLcB/s320/SAM_1035.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
Bicycle wheel bearings can be damaged, especially by over-tightening the cones and pitting the surfaces where the balls roll: balls roll between a cone on the inside, and a cup on the outside. Most frequently the cones (which screw onto the axle) are damaged, as their convex shape makes them more vulnerable (see <a href="http://bruceteakle.blogspot.com.au/2016/10/repairing-bicycle-wheel-bearing-cones.html" target="_blank">my post on repairing cones here</a>). But the cups, fixed into the wheel hub, can also be damaged if treated badly enough. When they're damaged, these cups can be replaced (but nearly no-one does it).<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-v5fpW9q8m50/WLkEEduTWsI/AAAAAAAABGc/_Qfhs99sLcsQFgoxdkGSjiCPKUKYOb-aQCLcB/s1600/IMG_0894.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-v5fpW9q8m50/WLkEEduTWsI/AAAAAAAABGc/_Qfhs99sLcsQFgoxdkGSjiCPKUKYOb-aQCLcB/s320/IMG_0894.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">Here's a hub with a flanged cup in place at the top, and another cup on the table<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><br />
<br />
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yYO_MiO0QLM/WLkD917T0QI/AAAAAAAABGQ/aj3kYaYOoXAKdCkX_x-z6uHM_VAtEsCnQCLcB/s1600/IMG_0891.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yYO_MiO0QLM/WLkD917T0QI/AAAAAAAABGQ/aj3kYaYOoXAKdCkX_x-z6uHM_VAtEsCnQCLcB/s320/IMG_0891.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's the same hub with the bearing cup knocked out</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
In most hubs the bearing cups are simple parts, pressed into a concave space in each end of the hub. In many hubs the cups can be knocked out with a steel rod put through the axle space in the middle of the hub and hit with a hammer. Sometimes this is difficult if the cup can't be reached due to the shape of the hub's insides.<br />
Cups come in different sizes, based on outside diameter, and also come with or without a flange.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KlbJtvH1RpE/WLkJiz0egJI/AAAAAAAABG4/AFeYVI0sggQRTzGfCp_s62qgk2lFv_OHACLcB/s1600/SAM_1017.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KlbJtvH1RpE/WLkJiz0egJI/AAAAAAAABG4/AFeYVI0sggQRTzGfCp_s62qgk2lFv_OHACLcB/s320/SAM_1017.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">Here's a few new hub cups, small at the front, big at the back, flanged on the right, plain on the left</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Cassette hubs often have a special threaded cup on the cassette side which can be spun out (left hand thread), but good luck finding replacements.<br />
It's not easy to get replacement hub cups, but it can be done (I remember buying bike hub cups from a small town bicycle shop in Thailand in 1993). In Australia, bike shop owners can buy hub cups from a major wholesaler, Bicycle Parts Wholesale (they don't retail). Aliexpress also has several vendors selling hub cups, if you want 10,000 pairs.<br />
We recently repaired an old front hub with new cups (bought through a wholesale account). The hub itself was quite interesting, apparently spun from aluminium tube.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ah_mjwQovhs/WLkED4uBMHI/AAAAAAAABGY/9_5ZOBDld2Y4AZLacRSXk2l8FP1y5EUzQCLcB/s1600/IMG_0893.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ah_mjwQovhs/WLkED4uBMHI/AAAAAAAABGY/9_5ZOBDld2Y4AZLacRSXk2l8FP1y5EUzQCLcB/s320/IMG_0893.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">looking into the spoke holes you can see the flange is made of 2 layers of folded pipe</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
This hub took flanged cups, which are seated on their external rim. Replacing the cups was a piece of cake: knocking out the old cups with a rod, and pressing the new ones with a metal vice. The only complication was that one side of the hub was slightly loose around the cup: light hammering fixed it easily so the cup pressed in tightly.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2xLfYgnQGZk/WLp-3ZDpNDI/AAAAAAAABHY/5lEvLIq9qhM-lZo1lL7d-c4vPBX64dYQgCLcB/s1600/SAM_1036.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2xLfYgnQGZk/WLp-3ZDpNDI/AAAAAAAABHY/5lEvLIq9qhM-lZo1lL7d-c4vPBX64dYQgCLcB/s320/SAM_1036.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's the reconditioned hub (new cups, re-ground cones) ready to lace into a rim</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Bicycles are really very repairable. The wearing surfaces: tyres, bearings, brake pads, rims, discs, cables...) can all be replaced after they have done a huge amount of work for us. We don't treat them like that: the culture of consumerism and novelty is well entrenched in the bicycle industry, with every encouragement provided to get people to throw away old bikes and buy new. But we don't need to do it that way. If your hub bearings are damaged, which is usually caused just by losing a few milligrams of steel from a bearing surface, it isn't necessary to throw away the whole wheel. It can be fixed and do another 100,000km (if you don't tighten the bearings too much!).<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Bruce Teaklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00911602199839526224noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796610487071943623.post-87499876845427531262017-01-14T18:47:00.002+10:002017-03-26T09:42:01.634+10:00Quick and easy biochar in a 200 litre (44 gallon or 55 US gallon) drum<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/--BfN_p8CpZ8/WHnii9-FapI/AAAAAAAABCs/TPKPEP5kRAM33Opz05GWa3U6Y2TzDhK4gCEw/s1600/IMG_3668.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/--BfN_p8CpZ8/WHnii9-FapI/AAAAAAAABCs/TPKPEP5kRAM33Opz05GWa3U6Y2TzDhK4gCEw/s400/IMG_3668.PNG" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The bush here provides an abundance of sticks!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
This is a cheap, quick, easy way to make bulk biochar for
soil improvement.<br />
For a clear description of the burning method, see my page: <a href="http://bruceteakle.blogspot.com.au/p/blog-page.html">http://bruceteakle.blogspot.com.au/p/blog-page.html</a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Recently we made our first few drums-full of charcoal purely
for the garden. For years we have been making charcoal for cooking and
blacksmithing, and using the siftings for the garden and orchard. Unfortunately
I haven’t tried to make any sort of controlled experiment with our charcoal use
in soil, but Erika and I both feel confident in it as a soil improver, lightening
the heavy yellow clay we have in a small part of our garden, and hopefully
holding water and nutrients as the evidence indicates. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We had a pile of waste sticks and branches, piled and dried
after some tree cutting a few months ago. The material was too thin and light
for fuel charcoal, but I was keen to try making biochar with it. A couple of
Danish backpacker friends who were keen to play with fire did a some very
successful burns in 200litre drums. <o:p></o:p></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jz0n-rHGJvE/WHniWIsBhFI/AAAAAAAABCc/dv_KBmpVQBY5GNGpf6XJssLVQ_evtVPFwCLcB/s1600/IMG_3666.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jz0n-rHGJvE/WHniWIsBhFI/AAAAAAAABCc/dv_KBmpVQBY5GNGpf6XJssLVQ_evtVPFwCLcB/s320/IMG_3666.PNG" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The bin is lit lying down, building a strong fire before standing it up with a shovel</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nljkO9pYDaQ/WHniZHARtwI/AAAAAAAABCg/ZSrkKUcK_cE_GfeX2beMVLHC2FOBReNTwCEw/s1600/IMG_3667.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nljkO9pYDaQ/WHniZHARtwI/AAAAAAAABCg/ZSrkKUcK_cE_GfeX2beMVLHC2FOBReNTwCEw/s320/IMG_3667.PNG" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Most of the time is spent feeding the fire with sticks</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The method is exactly the same as our normal method of
<a href="http://bruceteakle.blogspot.com.au/p/blog-page.html" target="_blank">making fuel charcoal</a>. The thin sticks mean that the wood chars more
quickly and the whole burn takes less time. The work is also more intense as
the pieces each have less wood in them and the branches need to be broken and
fed in. Burning a full drum of charcoal took our 2 friends about 2 ½ hours,
from lighting the fire to tipping the drum over to snuff the fire. They could
probably have done 2 drums in a similar time, with enough sticks. <o:p></o:p><br />
<h2>
Using the biochar in the garden</h2>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Once cold (it was ready the next day), we trolleyed the drums
up the hill to the garden, and opened full drums of charcoal. </div>
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</div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TOyIT36DlDU/WHnjwFRqDjI/AAAAAAAABC8/_99nJnjpTKoLA5-nZVmpmA4o15eMLupawCLcB/s1600/DSCN5463.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TOyIT36DlDU/WHnjwFRqDjI/AAAAAAAABC8/_99nJnjpTKoLA5-nZVmpmA4o15eMLupawCLcB/s320/DSCN5463.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The pieces were
smaller than usual, and less dense: most bigger pieces were easily crushed in
hand. We didn’t sift it (which is usually the dirtiest part of making fuel
charcoal) and dumped the bin contents straight into trenches in a new section
of garden. <o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7Jt2BH0o-AQ/WHniePcv7nI/AAAAAAAABC0/rqmAFo-qnQAC5goork_2XqmV3wkaqF7xwCPcB/s1600/IMG_3669.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7Jt2BH0o-AQ/WHniePcv7nI/AAAAAAAABC0/rqmAFo-qnQAC5goork_2XqmV3wkaqF7xwCPcB/s320/IMG_3669.PNG" width="213" /></a></div>
<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To charge the biochar with water and nutrients, we flooded
the charcoal-filled trenches with septic tank effluent (it’s our own microbes…).
Then the trenches were given a quick dig over, backfilled with topsoil, mulched with lawn clippings and
planted. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qV4uuAUYfVU/WHniisfTZxI/AAAAAAAABC0/eq_07MV1v4YMNP9XoxWQX-DHSxiI08ETwCPcB/s1600/IMG_3670.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qV4uuAUYfVU/WHniisfTZxI/AAAAAAAABC0/eq_07MV1v4YMNP9XoxWQX-DHSxiI08ETwCPcB/s320/IMG_3670.PNG" width="213" /></a></div>
<h2>
A good method<o:p></o:p></h2>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I think the 200litre drum, open top method is a really good
way to make biochar from light material:<o:p></o:p></div>
<h4 style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;">
<ul>
<li>It’s quick: in 2 to 3 hours you can make nearly
200 litres (and probably nearly 400 litres with 2 drums in similar time) of
biochar, probably about 30kg per drum (the material was very low density, so
the charcoal is also low density).</li>
<li>It’s cheap: the kiln for making this charcoal is
very cheap, simple and easily obtained: a standard 200 litre drum with the lid
chiselled off, holes punched under the rim, and 2 steel skewers. If you oil the
drum after the burn, it will last for years.</li>
<li>It’s dry: the method doesn’t need water, so doesn’t
waste precious Australian rural water and can be done away from a water supply.
The resulting biochar/charcoal is dry, so it is easily transported (this
drum-full had to be trolleyed up a steep, rough hill after it had cooled).</li>
<li>I am confident in the quality of the charcoal,
relative to other methods (more on this below).</li>
</ul>
<!--[if !supportLists]--><o:p></o:p></h4>
<h4 style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;">
<o:p></o:p></h4>
<h4 style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;">
<o:p></o:p></h4>
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<o:p></o:p></h4>
<h2>
Less effective methods?<o:p></o:p></h2>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I see a lot of biochar making methods on the net which
strike me as difficult and unproductive. Most involve a double drum system, in
which a small drum, preloaded with wood, is cooked inside a larger vessel. This
clearly works, but is sadly unproductive: sticks are wild, crooked things that
don’t easily pack, and which shrink a lot on charring. This leaves many of
these double drum methods producing 2 or 3 buckets of biochar after hours of
work, using equipment which is relatively complex and time-consuming to
construct. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I don’t see the benefts of using double drums, compared to
using a single container with fire and charcoal within. There is probably a
higher proportion of the wood in the inner drum becoming charcoal, but this is
(at least) balanced by the loss of wood burnt in the outer drum. Most
importantly, this method is highly inefficient in time: kilograms of charcoal
per hour of work; when most of us have abundant sticks to burn.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Other approaches are more similar to our drum method:
sometimes called “Kontiki”, “flame curtain”, “open top”. Wood is burnt in an
open-top vessel, or pit in the ground, very similar to burning in a drum.
However most of these methods extinguish the fire using water. This is
demanding: you need to be able to get 100s of litres of water to the fire; and
the resulting charcoal is wet, heavy and much harder to transport. Also, I
suspect you will often leach out valuable ash minerals from the charcoal, when
draining the vessel after the fire is cold. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To me these methods are looking for a lid to extinguish the
fire, to avoid needing water and to produce a dry, easily transported charcoal.
<o:p></o:p></div>
<h2>
Biochar quality<o:p></o:p></h2>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m confident that charcoal made this way is as good as any
other DIY method available for use as a soil additive - as biochar. I don’t
have empirical evidence from experiments: the fertile soils of our gardens and
orchards might have been just as good without charcoal, but we get the idea
that the charcoal has been helpful. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Claims about what characteristics are important in biochar
are diverse and deserve sceptical consideration. Some sources consider that it
is important for biochar to include wood-derived tars and oils (from the
smoking wood), to feed micro-organisms which will take up residence in the
pores. Others are concerned about the toxicity of these same chemicals, and
advocate charcoal of a high purity with minimal condensates. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Charcoal making is always a balance between over-cooking and
burning some of your charcoal to ash; and under-cooking and making smokey
charcoal. Slower methods in better-insulated kilns are likely to produce more
consistent batches, as they give larger pieces of wood time to heat through and
boil out the smokey content. These methods can take days per burn. Fast, open
methods (like I use, or Kontiki) are less consistent, and always over-burn some
charcoal to ash, as well as leaving some pieces of undercooked wood. <o:p></o:p></div>
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My conclusion so far is that claims that particular methods
of making biochar are correct, or that particular types of charcoal are
“biochar” and other types aren’t, are not supported by evidence. Biochar is
simply charcoal being used as a soil additive. There is a huge diversity of
types of biochar, made from a wide range of biological matter, using a range of
cooking methods, and having various effects on plants. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I recommend reading some of the science-based literature on biochar, such
as <a href="https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=0ahUKEwjL4vjAytHRAhVLipQKHXqsCYwQFggoMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dpi.nsw.gov.au%2F__data%2Fassets%2Fpdf_file%2F0008%2F447857%2FDPI-BioChar-in-Horticulture.pdf&usg=AFQjCNFbn_my6DWfa6kE_OjK3NECoEZnIA&sig2=A_Hde4iHLO8F7u0SA2tthw" target="_blank">Biochar in Horticulture </a>by NSW Department of Primary Industries. <o:p></o:p></div>
<h2>
Room for improvement<o:p></o:p></h2>
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I’m sure this method could be improved:<o:p></o:p></div>
<h4 style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "wingdings"; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">§<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->A bigger vessel makes more charcoal in less time
with less work. There is less cutting and handling, as bigger pieces can be put
in whole. The fire is hotter and heats the wood quicker and cooks it more
consistently. A bigger vessel would either need to be still able to be tipped
over, or would need a method to seal the lid reliably (probably with soil, like
my big bin). <o:p></o:p></h4>
<h4 style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "wingdings"; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">§<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Some closable air vents would make starting
easier. I used to weld in threaded pipe pieces to charcoal drums, but I stopped
because it makes more work, makes the method less accessible to people without
metalworking skills and equipment, and it works pretty well without them. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></h4>
<h2>
Making charcoal in a pit<o:p></o:p></h2>
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Charcoal can be made in a pit in the ground. This is perhaps
the oldest and easiest way to make some charcoal. <o:p></o:p></div>
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When I first learnt how to make charcoal for blacksmithing,
from my (some time later to be…) Father in Law Adrian Hobba, it was in a pit in
the ground. The pit was around 0.5m deep, something under a metre wide, and
around 2m long. We made charcoal in the pit very much like we do now in drums. <o:p></o:p></div>
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We brought wood to the pit, lit a fire in the bottom, and
fed and spread the fire until it filled the bottom of the pit. We would keep
adding wood on top and letting it burn, until the pit was full of coals. When
finished, the pit was covered with overlapping pieces of old corrugated iron
placed across the pit, and then sealed with sandy soil, placed wherever smoke
squeezed out. <o:p></o:p></div>
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At first Adrian’s pit was just a hole in the earth. Later we
lined the walls with brick to stop the sides falling in and to help keep soil
out of the charcoal. I’ve also made pits and lined them with old corrugated
iron to keep the charcoal clean. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The pit made all of our charcoal until I became dissatisfied
with the need to handle and transport several times more weight of wood than we
produced in charcoal. Surely it would be more easy and efficient to take a
steel container to the wood supply than to carry the wood to our pit! That’s when
I started to try various steel bins and drums. <o:p></o:p></div>
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If you want to make charcoal from a large supply of wood in
one area, a pit could be a good way to go. It’s cheap, not that hard to dig,
and won’t rust or burn out. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Bruce Teaklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00911602199839526224noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796610487071943623.post-34335969614319740702016-10-30T16:07:00.003+10:002017-12-22T06:23:45.638+10:00Repairing bicycle wheel bearing cones<h3>
How to repair pitted cones with simple equipment</h3>
<h2>
<o:p></o:p></h2>
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Many, maybe most, old bikes we repair have at least one
wheel bearing cone with pits in the track where the balls roll. Here’s an
example with pretty bad damage:</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0htXy0HQ1rw/WBV3dcpfoYI/AAAAAAAABBE/ynT3tV_Ywb0I9zkCWjezA4bbw8SNsNfWACLcB/s1600/SAM_0505.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0htXy0HQ1rw/WBV3dcpfoYI/AAAAAAAABBE/ynT3tV_Ywb0I9zkCWjezA4bbw8SNsNfWACLcB/s320/SAM_0505.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">click on the picture to see closer in</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Cones aren’t always that bad, often it’s only a single small
pit. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you keep riding on damaged cones, you can wreck the whole hub. Over time the damage to the cone
is likely to get worse, then balls will be damaged, and then the bearing cup in
the wheel hub will be damaged in turn. In practice, pitted cups are almost never replaced, so this is usually the end of a wheel –
or at least the hub. However wheel bearing cups are often replaceable, and we have frequently done this: see <a href="http://bruceteakle.blogspot.com.au/2017/03/replacing-bicycle-wheel-bearing-hub-cups.html" target="_blank">my post about replacing bicycle wheel bearing cups here. </a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It appears to us that the usual cause of damaged wheel
bearings is over-tightening of the wheel bearings. This is widespread bad
practice: most brand new bikes we check have seriously over-tightened wheel
bearings, and often have damaged cones after only a little riding.
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s really important to learn to grease and adjust wheel
bearings, or find a bike mechanic who does it well. Don’t presume a bike shop
does it well, especially if they are selling new bikes with badly adjusted
bearings. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sheldon Brown describes how to adjust bearings in this page:
<a href="http://sheldonbrown.com/cone-adjustment.html">http://sheldonbrown.com/cone-adjustment.html</a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Park Tools have a detailed tutorial on bearing service and
adjustment here: <a href="http://www.parktool.com/blog/repair-help/hub-overhaul-and-adjustment#article-section-4">http://www.parktool.com/blog/repair-help/hub-overhaul-and-adjustment#article-section-4</a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The usual repair for a damaged cone is to replace the cone
and balls, or the whole axle assembly. This is fine if you live next door to a
bike shop with a comprehensive stock of cones, but there are heaps of different
sizes and shapes of cones so it is not straightforward to replace them. It is
also a waste to discard a whole axle assembly because it’s missing a few milligrams
of steel in a special place. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We’ve had very good results with grinding and polishing the
bearing surface of damaged cones and using them again – for 1000s of km. Once
or twice I’ve had re-ground cones develop a groove along the ball track,
presumably because I ground off a very thin layer of case hardening, leaving only soft metal. However
most cones appear to have deep enough hardness to be re-ground and work well. The
job only takes a few minutes, in addition to the time it already takes to
dis-assemble and inspect the bearings. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Jasper and I have developed slightly different methods. I
use an angle grinder, he uses a dremel with a small grinding cylinder. Both
methods have yielded good results. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We start by locking the cone and a locknut together on their
axle, with about 40mm of axle behind the locknut to go into the chuck of a
drill press. Like this:<o:p></o:p></div>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Pz1-PAnMWIM/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Pz1-PAnMWIM?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you use an angle grinder, the drill press table needs to
be adjusted so the disc guard can be rested on the table, while the grinding
disc contacts the cone. Then you need a steady hand. Here is how we do it:<o:p></o:p></div>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/4VIqtILDuck/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4VIqtILDuck?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Using a dremel (Jasper uses a cheaper “Demel” from China) is
easier, perhaps a little slower, and smoother. Here’s how Jasper does it:<o:p></o:p></div>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/oHrJkEcRPOE/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oHrJkEcRPOE?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here's a cone ground with the dremel, unpolished:</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Z6DlQq64z2Y/WBV616_PkdI/AAAAAAAABBY/b6h4JLw5qCMI2sMs2yeIQ_FznopqXc4pwCLcB/s1600/SAM_0521.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Z6DlQq64z2Y/WBV616_PkdI/AAAAAAAABBY/b6h4JLw5qCMI2sMs2yeIQ_FznopqXc4pwCLcB/s320/SAM_0521.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After grinding, the cone needs to be polished. We wrap some
sandpaper around a small cylinder (such as a round pencil or a piece of brake
cable outer) and sand the spinning cone until smooth.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i9.ytimg.com/vi/zX_8RkQU4J4/default.jpg?sqp=CIyb1sAF&rs=AOn4CLBwENvkdeO8Vhj7aFio_IVWlsMh3Q" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zX_8RkQU4J4?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Then the cone looks like new:<o:p></o:p></div>
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qT7WRonEFEg/WBV6rYSw5II/AAAAAAAABBU/X5rw7pQiIxEvf1ZNVa_h3NiRY5fC6SHugCLcB/s1600/SAM_0516.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qT7WRonEFEg/WBV6rYSw5II/AAAAAAAABBU/X5rw7pQiIxEvf1ZNVa_h3NiRY5fC6SHugCLcB/s320/SAM_0516.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is bush engineering, and it may appear rough. However they
usually feel very good after greasing and assembling, and nearly all have
lasted very well in heavy use. As far as I can see, most cheaper new wheel
bearing cones aren’t ground after heat treatment, so they aren’t super
accurate. The action of the balls rolling around tends to deal with small
inaccuracies, and if greased and adjusted carefully, the bearing will make itself more true with time. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Bruce Teaklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00911602199839526224noreply@blogger.com1