Jay Honeck wrote:

I hate to burst your bubble, but I was a professional logger for several
years and there is no such thing as a nice Homelite. :-)

If it isn't a Stihl, it isn't a chainsaw. :-)


Actually, I was talking with an experienced chain saw owner/user, as
he and I were selecting the Homelite, and we both came to the
following conclusion, after years of buying home-use yard tools:

1. The names no long mean anything. Most lawn tools are now made by
two or three companies, who sell their stuff to other brands. I've
bought top-of-the-line good-name stuff that has lasted two hours, and
I've bought no-name stuff that has lasted years of hard use.

2. Don't buy cheap.

3. Don't buy under-powered.

The Homelite had the biggest engine, and was actually the most
expensive chain saw Menard's sells. It was easy to start, easy to
run, and made quick work of what I needed to cut -- which was branches
up to 9 inches in diameter.

If I'm lucky, I'll use it MAYBE once per year, probably less. At that
rate, it will last me a lifetime.

This isn't true with chain saws. The biggest problem is that after a
couple of years, especially if not used frequently, the cheap saws tend
to get very hard to start. My Stihl often sits a year between uses as I
tend to cut and split 7-10 cord each year all in one month or so, yet it
still fires up in 3-5 pulls.

We tried every brand known to man when I was logging as the owner always
wanted to save a buck. McCulloch was the worst with Homelite close
behind along with Poulan, John Deere and several others (I think many of
the cheap saws are just rebranded as with most appliances).

Only three brands really held up at all in the woods: Stihl, Jonsereds
and Husqvarna. These are all solid saws, but the Sthihl's held up the
best. The only way we ever lost a Stihl was to drop a tree on it or run
over it with a log skidder. We NEVER wore out a Stihl engine and we had
some saws that probably had 8,000 hours on them (4-6 years of 8-5
operation 5 days a week). That is just amazing for a two-stroke engine.

I've always wondered by the aviation two-strokes were so unreliable as
Stihl certainly proved to me that two-strokes could be very reliable and
very durable.


Matt