Life in the temperate zone...

Thanks, Tim... it's sitting in my living room. I can't bring myself to make it sit in the garage all night.

I might possibly need to call that CAD hotline, and get some help.
 
Wife spent yesterday making turkey-chicken soup... we canned it today... winter supplies.

homemade-soup2.webp

She made some more soap, too. Some of next year's Farmer's Market inventory...

Lavendar:
lavendar-soap.webp

Beer soap:
beer-soap.webp

...and soap for washing your dog, even... Puppermint scented! (peppermint with a hint of pine):
puppy-soap.webp
 
JeffGu said:
I'm not terribly brand loyal about too many things. I usually find the goofy rants about chainsaw brands to be a little out of sync with reality, sometimes. All of these major companies making professional grade saws seem to be quite capable of manufacturing a great product... and the occasional lemon or bad idea thrown in there. A few brands manage to float to the top, a few to the bottom, of the working man's favorites list. When I get my hands on these saws, they seem to be damn close to each other on build quality, price, performance and reliability... as long as we're comparing apples to apples. Here's four brands/models of 50cc, 60cc and 80cc class professional level saws... they come up pretty close on paper, too. Echo doesn't list HP ratings on their site, and prices were just MSRP listed price or what I could find quickly online. Obviously, that can vary quite a bit, but at least the prices shown should be in the ballpark of what you can expect to pay.

My point of this little comparison is only to show that on paper, they're fairly evenly matched. You can argue personal preferences all day, I certainly have mine, but when you consider that any brand of saw is subject to a bad one slipping past the quality control folks, these saws are all on a par with each other in many regards. Some will hold up better in the hands of people who beat the crap out of their stuff, others will perform better on a windy day or the second Tuesday of each week... but of these saws that I have personally used or owned, I found them all to be great saws. I liked some better than others, but it was almost nitpicking... if you dropped any of these saws off on my front porch, I'd kiss you full on the lips and add you to my friends list on Facebook.

View attachment 35201
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You left out a word for longevity.. And as far as giving some things a good run down I've found nothing runs like a Deere and nothing beats a Stihl in that department. I'm sure others have thier experience. To me the "luck" I've had with Stihl compared to other saws..no comparison!
 
Treetopflyer said:
You left out a word for longevity.
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If you believe everything you see posted in chainsaw-related forums, then every single make of saw... including a $99 Poulan... is the best saw ever made and lasts forever, and every single saw ever made... including a $2500 Stihl... is the biggest pile of crap ever made and will only last a week. And they have pictures and two-page rants to prove it.

If there was some definitive study done that proves any brand is likely to last longer than any other, I am unaware of it. Until then, it is entirely anecdotal evidence, which is largely worthless. There are old saws out there, still running and beat to death looking, from all the makers. I'm reluctant to believe anybody's opinion on brand name information alone. However, I think it is safe to say that the professional grade saws with good reputations from people who use them a lot are more likely to last a long time than the cheaper crap on the market. I personally like the Stihl saws, too... have had great luck with them. But the fact is, there are people with Husky, Dolmar and Echo saws (all of which I also like) that have had the same good luck with them as I have had with the Stihl saws. In the end, we're going to buy based on our own experiences with the saws.
 
JeffGu said:
If you believe everything you see posted in chainsaw-related forums, then every single make of saw... including a $99 Poulan... is the best saw ever made and lasts forever, and every single saw ever made... including a $2500 Stihl... is the biggest pile of crap ever made and will only last a week. And they have pictures and two-page rants to prove it.

If
JeffGu said:
If there was some definitive study done that proves any brand is likely to last longer than any other, I am unaware of it. Until then, it is entirely anecdotal evidence, which is largely worthless.
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No way man.. And I don't believe shit about what I read on chainsaws my conclusion is made from my experiences with different makes..Stihl is best...I will never change my mind..lol..except that 201t I got the first batch when they first came out..I burned that coil out quick and its just been a total turd all around..I need a snellorized 150t and new 201snellorized.. Your lucky as hell to have one. That's Anecdotal though: )
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So, today I looked around the disastrous mess that is one of two "Ham Shack" areas of the house... also a repair bench... that really needs an overhaul. My plan is to start remodeling our house in Stromsburg as soon as it gets above freezing and we can clean it up and turn the heat back on. I want to convert one of the rooms in that house to a new shack/repair room. I renovate certain kinds of ham radio equipment during the winter, but I've let the shop get way out of hand.

Shop1.webp

Shop2.webp

Now, it's a SuperFund cleanup site. This got me to thinking about something, though...

(continued on next post)
 
Here is a Kenwood TS-830S radio in the middle of restoration. It's a hybrid HF radio, solid state except for a tube final amplifier stage. Vintage 1980-something, and a very fine radio worth the expense of restoring. This is the bottom of the radio with the covers, faceplate, etc. removed. The radio was not working at all, and had numerous issues. At this point, I've replaced every single electrolytic capacitor in the radio, about 277 of them, and various other components that from experience I know would be at the end of their life cycle. I've got the receiver and all of the power supply working. Time to align the receiver before I move on to getting the transmitter working.

Kenwood-TS-830S.webp

The labels are my doing... they make disassembling and reassembling the radio a lot easier. Every circuit board in the thing has to be disconnected and removed in order to replace components, and there is a nightmare of interconnect cables and wires involved. The green felt tip marker on all of the electrolytic capacitors is the result of my system of marking them to tell which ones I've replaced, and which one is next in line... believe me, attention to detail is everything, and without a coherent system to keep it all methodical and productive, I would never get the thing working.

(continued on next post)
 
To align the receiver, I could try and use this thing. It's an old, low cost, analog RF signal generator. Really not stable enough or accurate enough for this kind of work, but I could probably get close with it.

Viz-WR-50C.webp

I'll actually use this one, pictured below. It's a digital synthesized RF generator, a bit dated itself, but in perfect working order and calibrated. I don't use the TXCO reference oscillator built into it, anymore. I have an external 10MHz reference source... a rubidium oscillator that self calibrates to satellites... that vastly improves its accuracy and stability. It's a far better tool for the job.

Fluke6060B.webp

It also has a calibrated, accurate output level control that can set the output as low as a tenth of a microvolt. A bit overkill, but having something that works better than it really needs to is always a good thing. It beats the hell out of trying to use something that is way below the quality needed to do the job right.

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Now, none of this seems to have jack diddly squat to do with tree work... but, maybe it does...

We all have to work with the tools that we can afford or that have been provided for us. We can sometimes get by with something that really isn't up to snuff for the task at hand. But, the work will likely suffer as a result. We're always much better off with high quality equipment that will get the job done right. It doesn't have to be the very latest, greatest, most expensive stuff on the market, but it needs to be the right tool for the job and the highest quality that we can afford. Otherwise, we end up struggling to get the job done in a safe, sane and productive manner. Sometimes the good stuff just makes it easier to work, with less hassle and less stress. That can mean all the difference between a good day at work, enjoying what you do, and a miserable, slow day at work hating every minute of the job.

I see no real difference between the strange things that I do to make a few extra bucks... they all require the same exact things. Attention to detail, good tools, and a healthy respect for the risks. That Kenwood TS-830S radio has 900VDC at about 1 amp applied to the final tubes. That's enough to kill you instantly. It can arc right through your hand and burn a hole right out the other side. I can assure you that if you don't die, you will at the very least have a much better understanding of just how bad pain can get, and how long it can take for it to stop, and how well it can burn a memory into your brain that you will never forget.

Never feel guilty about buying new or better tools to do your job, no matter what the task at hand. That "I'm old school, this manilla rope and tautline hitch is all I need!" attitude is the epitome of what happens when you're really just afraid that a new technology might pull you out of your comfort zone and force you to learn something new. Really, it's not that scary. If it's a better tool, the rewards will greatly outweigh your concerns. Just ease into it slowly and enjoy the ride.

Just some random thoughts, on a horribly cold day that inspires me to do nothing productive.
 
Well put Jeff! Also impressive. Though I never took it that far, that was me in another life. I do still have and use my circa 1972 Sherwood S7100A stereo tuner and amp. My Ham career ended with a Heath HW-101 transceiver kit.
 
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