A saw tale, it is (almost) all in the premix!

When the doctors decided I could run a chainsaw again the search was on. Looking at new ones I quickly found that they cost more than my first car for a nice one. I'm keeping an eye out for a used quality saw, meantime I have a MacCat 3516 laying around that I got in a deal with a bunch of other stuff. It's actually a MTD of junk riding lawn mowers fame but it says mac on the side of it. Much to my embarrassment in head to head cutting the electrical plastic fantastical from Harbor Fright outcut it.

Off to the chainsaw forums! No information on a muffler mod for it but how hard can that be? Twenty-three holes and six drill bits later I declared it modded, even put the spark arrester screen back in. Pulled the limiter caps and it could outcut the HF thingie now but not much more. First the big box safety chain had to be dealt with. I considered buying a decent chain and bar but that would have cost almost as much as that little saw and it probably couldn't pull it anyway.

Nothing to do but go buy an oversized chainsaw file to replace the several dozen I have lost over the years. Then I applied my specialty grind to the teeth. Calling it a grind is a misnomer, the multi-conic, hyper-parabolic, triple arch profile can only be created by an unknowing hand using a file.

Now it's time for mixing some fuel. Couldn't find ethanol free so I started with premium fuel with up to 10% ethanol. Poured in some ethanol fix, two cycle oil, a little Seafoam, just a dash of nitro for flavor and aroma, and two little blue pills crushed up in half a can of Red Bull! I knew I was in business the moment I fired off the saw. It sat that snapping and snarling, sounded like a pair of top fuel dragsters idling just before they stage and make a pass. The fumes definitely had a sixties smell to them but that was just a fringe benefit.

The saw cut fantastic! Tree trunks just seemed to melt in front of the chain which I couldn't even see once I put the hammer down on the little saw. The vines that are the curse of south Louisiana chainsaw operaters and the small greenery just disappeared in a green haze. Pure fun and I was going down the fence right of way at a steady walk swinging the little saw before me. Things were grand until . . .

The saw was screaming through the green thorn vines and second growth when I found a green steel t-post. Wonderful as that tooth profile was, what it was cut on was just big box safety chain. The saw shed every tooth in an instant and even 40,000RPM doesn't make a toothless wonder cut. After sadly putting the saw in the truck I broke out a Hu powered bow saw and loppers to finish the project.

I noticed a curious sight as I trudged up the hill to the other end of the fencerow 200 yards away. I could see daylight through a huge oak tree. As I got closer I could see that the exiting teeth had cut a perfect dime sized group through the tree at 200 yards. I had Fearless Fosdicked the oak! I couldn't help but notice that at the angle the teeth exited the 36" plus tree there was nothing else to stop the teeth from achieving earth orbit. Any small metal debris perforating a satellite I'm going to deny everything!

Hu
 
Last edited:
Great story, Hu! :D

This story's not really related (save for the two-cycle aspect), but years ago I was an inspector on a jobsite where one of the laborers mistakenly put 40 weight motor oil into the fuel tank on a jumping jack tamper instead of mixed gas. It ran for a few seconds, but then died in a big cloud of smoke. To clean it out, the foreman had the laborer drain the tank, then fill it with straight gas. It took a few tries to get it started, but once it finally fired, Katie bar the door! That tamper took off like a bat out of a very hot place ;) and the poor laborer could barely hold on as it tried to jump its way into the next county. Instead of the steady bop-bop-bop-bop-bop pace of a normal jumping jack, this one was going bababababababababababa...
 
Ken,

Thank goodness there are a few of us in this world that see things a bit uniquely! This was inspired by a poem and book by that literary giant, Dr Seuss, with a touch of James Thurber. There are a couple bits of truth in the story but a tiny bit of fleshing out and just the faintest trace of embroidery was added. I did find a green post standing up in the underbrush, from there . . .

Vaughn,

Being familiar with the whacker packers I can easily picture a runaway! That would have been funny. Runaway engines reminds me of the lawn mower with a humble Briggs and Stratton 3.5 horse four stroke on it. The blade was only eighteen inches and I cut down 4-6 inch juniper bushes with it after I could get on top of the trunk and basically shred it. Dad brought it to the station with instructions to put it together and cut the grass, then he went to tend whatever other errands he had to run. Perfectly reasonable to leave a fourteen year old and twelve year old to run a very active business in 1968. My brother being an enterprising lad decided the governer was optional so he removed it or disabled it. The moment came to fire it up, naturally full throttle sitting in the back of a bay of one of the old steel panel with enamel over them service stations. We had to do the testing before dad returned. He wouldn't be quite as excited as we were at the idea of hotrodding his new lawn mower.

As soon as we started the mower a customer came in. We pumped gas, checked under the hood, washed windshield and back glass, checked tires on request. A couple more customers came in and it was ten minutes or so before we got back to the lawn mower. The noise coming off of those steel walls could probably have been heard for miles and the motor sounded more like a 100CC two stroke motocross bike. We approached it gingerly after some discussion of who was going to attempt to stop that thing, it exploding and sending shrapnel everywhere seemed eminent. After that break-in the mower was a cutting machine for the next five or six years. Never found another one with that big of a motor and small of a blade. Missed it when it died.

To everyone, glad you enjoyed the tale. Too brutally hot to work the middle of the day so I'm working a few hours early and late. In the middle with time on my hands who knows where my mind will wander. I just hope it keeps finding it's way back, sorta!

Hu
 
Great story and great story telling, rest assured you aint alone in this world. Welcome to my planet. :)

Hey you reminded me of when I was in the army and we used to fill a plane in the bush. Rules were we could not pump the drum empty so we had loads of aviation fuel....alla highhhhh octane.

Well we went through lawnmowers like no ones business. They would run like crazy and we would get the job done but HQ kept asking what we did to the things that we needed new ones so often. :)

Afgas as we called it was great cleaning agent too. When used to put it in the compressor gun and spray our rifles with it. Then we knew we would pass inspection. :)
 
Great story and great story telling, rest assured you aint alone in this world. Welcome to my planet. :)

Hey you reminded me of when I was in the army and we used to fill a plane in the bush. Rules were we could not pump the drum empty so we had loads of aviation fuel....alla highhhhh octane.

Well we went through lawnmowers like no ones business. They would run like crazy and we would get the job done but HQ kept asking what we did to the things that we needed new ones so often. :)

Afgas as we called it was great cleaning agent too. When used to put it in the compressor gun and spray our rifles with it. Then we knew we would pass inspection. :)

Speaking of going through engines best that some local delivery truckers that are working for other people and getting paid by the run don't know about a handful of mothballs in a diesel tank. The engine will run like a scalded dog for a little while . . .

A good friend of mine got divorced and had a small son to raise. She figured she would enlist for long enough to grow off her son to college age. Testing showed she was mechanically inclined, NOT! She was also maybe the most foul mouthed and sweet lady I ever met, totally irreverent. Somehow she became a chaplain's assistant. Aside from constantly trying to seduce the catholic priest just for the challenge she basically turned the place upside down in every way possible. Stationed along the DMV in Korea she was issued a M-16. It had to be cleaned and inspected every six months. First inspection due, she hit it a lick and a prayer and presented it to the old sergeant for inspection. He chewed her out and told her to go clean the rifle. "He wants it clean?" Half a day with brillo, boiling water, bleach, I forget what all. The sergeant looked at the weapon she proudly presented with most of the finish gone and just kinda whimpered. "Never ever touch this weapon again unless the north is coming through the fence. Bring it to me every six months and I will clean it."

My cleaner of choice was caustic soda. I bought a forty pound bag to add to a hot tank for cleaning radiators. Took too long at recommended levels so I doubled it, then doubled that. Got to where it was a waste of time to bother firing the burner and a quick dip removed everything but solder. An overnight soak disintegrated radiators and things like aluminum water pumps only had the steel impeller left. Hired a new guy and on a cold winters day he came in the office with a part dripping water. I hadn't heard the faucet run. "Where did you wash that?" "In that old tank full of water." Grabbed ahold of him, hauled him outside in subfreezing weather and thoroughly rinsed his arms from above the elbow down where he had got the caustic on them with a water hose. We both were pretty wet time I was done. The caustic soda was also the world's best paint remover. An old aluminum boat with bad paint, I just wiped high concentration caustic soda on and hosed it off and the raw aluminum glowed!

These just for fun threads always seem to stir up a lot of old memories. Life was simpler back then if nothing else.

Was fixing to hit submit when I remembered this funny fuel story. I was at a little dirt track near Lafayette Louisiana, a wild and crazy place! Somebody objected to the fuel in somebody else's car so the track official was called in to investigate. He gets some of the fuel in the palm of his hand, it is dry before he can get it to his nose to smell, sophisticated testing back then. He tries again, same result. "This fuel is legal." The aviation gas is very high octane but also very dry.

Hu
 
Top