The wood is ready for the competition. It was my turn to supply it. We are going to have a pretty small group this time because it is late in the season so I had a local mill guy cut me four pieces of pine that are as knot-free as can be expected. I got one 8"X8"X8', two 10"X10"X8', and one 12"X12"X10' (for the really big saws). The deal is that you make a series of three cuts (down, up, down). Each cookie has to be whole (you can't cut at an angle and cut out of the face of the wood). Each cookie also has to be less than 1.5" thick at its thickest point. The three timers start when your saw makes contact with the wood and stop when the last cookie is seperated from the block. The average of the three watches is recorded as your time if you did not cut out or go thick. Otherwise you just get a DQ (disqualified) recorded.
For a typical 50 cc saw like my Stihl, I should see about a 6 second time for the three passes through the 8"X8" wood (over to the right).
For an 80 cc saw like my Dolmar, I should see a time of about 4-5 seconds through the 10"X10" wood, stacked in the center.
The really big saws of 100 cc and above will get down into the 3 second range in the 12"X12" wood. Points are added, averaged, tabulated, and wrangled over until there is a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd for each class and overall. I will probably not even place in the 50 cc class, but I have a shot in the 80 cc class.
5 comments:
Damn (I mean Darn! for you Baptists!) that's fast! So one cut can take about 1 second? that is amsazing. If you see someone making a see-saw with a saw, and he saw you seeing you see him sawing, would you say that he saw you see him sawing the see-saw? I was just curious.....
Yeah. That's fast. But if you think about it, a 100 cc saw has an engine the same size as a 100 cc dirt bike. That is a lot of power focused on tearing out a strip of wood about 1/8" wide as the bar presses through the log. One of the things that makes a race chain different from a regular work chain is that the chain is very narrow. It cuts a kerf (gap in the wood) just wide enough for the bar to follow it through. A work chain has a lot more metal on it and cuts a wider kerf. This takes more power. In a race saw, you have a souped up engine, a very narrow chain that has been meticulously sharpened, and a very rigid bar. On top of that, the cut is made in a clean log that has no bark (bark dulls a chain very quickly and a race chain cannot stand up to it), and is held very securely on a horizontal stand. It is a very controlled situation where there is very little danger of getting hurt, so you can take a machine that you are normally extremely careful with (due to its potential to mame or kill you) and just push it to its limits. Nothing but good clean American fun!
What would be the benefit of having a wider kerf on a traditional chainsaw?
The bar has more wiggle room. You are not cutting in nearly as controlled a situation as a race. In face, when you are initially felling a tree, you are cutting sideways. Also, you sometimes have to get the saw out of the cut in a real hurry. For instance, you have cut the V on one side of the tree and now you are on the other side making the felling cut so that the tree will fall away. It should fall such that the cut you are making will open up (and the V will close up). In effect, you have made a hinge for the tree to rotate down on. On occasion, however, due to the wind, or a misjudgement on where the weight redides in the tree, the felling cut starts to close. If you don't get your saw out of the cut before the tree pinches the bar in place, you are screwed. Unless you have a second saw to cut the first one out, it's staying there. So: one reason a wider kerf is preferable (even though it takes more energy to cut it) is that there is more clearance between the bar and the wood, which results in easier movement of the bar in the cut.
HHmmmm.....good explanation, I think!
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