Antifa Gas Costs me Another Day of Work

This week I finally got some use out of my big Echo chainsaw, which had been out of commission for months. What a relief.

I screwed the saw up in a number of ways. First, I used Democrat gas. I used 10% ethanol fuel, which ruins small engines. There is no way to defend this stuff. It doesn’t save us money on fuel. It’s not really good for the environment. It makes food and animal feed more expensive by removing corn from the market. It’s bad, bad, bad. It’s stupid. And the motivation for making it is greed, not a desire to improve the environment.

I left socialist gas in my saw for something like two months. My understanding was that you had to leave it a lot longer before it would clog a carburetor. I was mistaken. My saw would not start. I tried all sorts of things. I took it to an authorized repair place, and they kept it 4 weeks, did nothing except put an ancient carb on it to replace my new one, and then returned it to me in a non-functioning state.

I replaced the carb at my own expense, and I sort of got the saw running. Unfortunately, I wrecked it while trying to get the new carb adjusted. The problem–and this is only a guess, based on faulty memories–is that I revved it a lot with the brake on. This caused a bunch of failures. It warped the clutch drum. I am told it melted a line which supplied oil to the chain. I am also told it ruined the clutch springs.

I was told about the oil line and clutch springs by the people who finally fixed the saw.

When you rev a saw with the brake on, you engage the centrifugal clutch with a drum (which is also a sprocket) which is locked in place. The drum can’t turn, so the clutch rubs on it and heats it up. Then the drum warps. After that, disengaging the brake doesn’t work, because the new bulges in the drum rub against the brake whether or not the brake is on.

A chainsaw’s chain carries heat away from the hot parts. When you rev the saw with the chain locked, heat builds up where it should not. I think this screwed up my oil line, assuming the repair people were being truthful when they said it was melted.

Anyway, the place that finally got the saw running was another authorized repair center. They took 4 weeks, but they managed to repair the saw. Unfortunately, they did things I didn’t want done. They claimed they sharpened the chain, and they also said they put Loctite on the saw’s screws. I can sharpen a chain in 5 minutes, and I don’t want screws I can’t remove. Sometimes Loctite is too much.

I took the saw out this week and did some work. It ran well, although I’m not sure it’s running wide open.

When I looked at the wood being ejected from the saw, I was not happy. It looked fine, which is to say, it did not look coarse. When a chain is sharp, it will produce big chunks of cut wood. When a saw sprays dust, it’s dull.

I sharpened the saw today, and I got really big chunks and curls of wood. Happiness. But what about the money I paid to have it sharpened?

I was also disturbed to see that the bar looked dry. It oiled fine before I wrecked the saw. I had to adjust the oiler, which makes you wonder how much the repair guy knows.

I was still reasonably happy with the repairs, until I put the saw down today, turned it off, and then returned and tried to start it. Three of the screws around the starter cover had vibrated out, in a pasture. They are gone forever.

What about that Loctite? If it was there, it didn’t work.

You don’t actually need Loctite to hold screws in a plastic saw case. You just need to tighten them correctly. Someone didn’t do that. Now I’m wondering: did the repair guy loosen those screws? They said they Loctited screws, but did they mean every screw on the saw? Maybe they didn’t work on the starter cover, so maybe they never intended to Loctite those screws. It could be my fault. Perhaps I put the wrong screws in (some are shorter than others), or maybe I left them loose.

Seems to me that when you work on a saw for money, you tighten every screw that holds the covers on. It takes 30 seconds, and it’s common sense.

Now I can’t use my saw.

I found new screws on Ebay. I was going to talk to the repair people, but they close at noon on Saturdays, so they’re at home drinking beer when I need them. I’ll have the screws on Thursday. I ordered two sizes. The ones I’m sure I need arrive Thursday (or sooner), and the ones I MAY need arrive Friday. I ordered enough so I’ll have spares.

I’m feeling some guilt about the screws. I learned what they were on a parts website, but I got them from Ebay. I don’t feel right about getting information about a product from one company and then buying from another, unless there are special circumstances. I’ve bought things from the parts site in the past. The main reason I went with Ebay was time. They’re faster. I’ve waited a long time for this saw to work, and I really need to get some trees moved. Maybe I should put in a token order from the parts place to soothe my conscience.

In case you’re wondering, Echo Timberwolf saws have a number of M5 20mm and 16mm T27 Torx bolts with a tapping thread. That’s what you need. You don’t need Echo-brand screws, which are obscenely overpriced. Stihl saws also use these screws.

The big saw will be offline for several days, so I’m not cutting tree trunks any more. I have a 16″ saw for bucking, but it’s just not the same.

Today I cut a big oak that fell during hurricane Irma. It’s in my pasture. I left it alone originally because I liked the way it blocked the view from the road. The leaves fell off, so I had to do something.

I’ve been thinking of getting an anvil, because…anvil. Anvils are cool and useful, and I may want to forge something some day for fun. You can get a very good Chinese 66-pound anvil from Amazon for about $170. Less on Ebay. To use an anvil, you need a stump to rest it on. Today I thought about that while I was cutting the oak, and I decided to make a stump.

The bit of oak trunk I chose was about 22″ in diameter, judging by the extent to which it was too big for my 20″ saw. You would think cutting a stump for an anvil would be simple, but it isn’t. It’s not easy to make a chainsaw cut perpendicularly to the axis of a tree trunk. It will usually be off by a considerable extent. Today I found that it’s possible to do surprisingly fine work, adjusting and massaging a cut with a chainsaw. I ended up with a stump that should work fine.

I read that certain stumps sold for anvil purposes (they exist) are 22-1/2″ tall, so I shot for 23-24″. I got a fairly decent piece cut, and I sprayed the ends with metal primer to slow drying and prevent the wood from checking and splitting.

Why did I use metal primer? It was handy. Nearly any kind of paint will prevent checking.

The stump I cut has spalting (mild rot) around the circumference, but I don’t think that matters. Spalted wood is fairly solid, and the anvil will be sitting on sound wood in the center of the stump. We’ll see what happens. I stood the stump up on the porch of my workshop to keep the rain off of it, and if I go through with my plan, I’ll find a permanent location for it indoors.

I’m sure the stump will work. It’s possible that bits may come off the circumference with time. I’m not worried. It should be fixable, and if not, stumps are not hard to find here.

I was wondering how to make the stump sit on concrete without rocking. I think I have the answer. I can use a chainsaw to shape the bottom of the stump so there are three big parts that contact the floor. Anything with three feet will sit flat on a flat surface.

Marxist gas didn’t just do my chainsaw in; it also choked my Echo pole pruner. I have been working on it for a while. I believe there is varnish in the fast jet. Carb cleaning stuff doesn’t help much. I think the only real answer is to remove the metal plug the greenies have put over the fast jet screw (to prevent it from working correctly), remove the screw, and use carb cleaner on everything. That would be hard, so instead, I bought a Chinese carb.

Echo pruners, like Echo chainsaws, use carbs made by a company named Walbro. A tiny, simple Walbro carb for my pruner costs $100. Amazon and Ebay sell Chinese clones for…wait for it…$11. Hmm. Do I pay the repair people a huge sum to fix my Walbro carb every time Bolshevik gas clogs it? Do I pay $100 for a new Walbro carb every time? Uh…no. I will simply buy a new Chinese carb whenever the saw doesn’t run. It takes 5 minutes to install, and it looks like the quality is no different from Walbro. My guess is that Walbro has Chinese people make its carbs. I doubt there is any difference at all.

I finally have the gas problem under control. I go to Sunoco and buy ethanol-free 91-octane gas for nearly the same price as 89-octane Bernie Sanders engine poison. Then I treat it with Biobor Ethanol buster (Sta-bil doesn’t really work). I put it in a new gas can that has had the dangerous, useless socialist spout and cap replaced with old-fashioned ones from Amazon.

There are so many obstacles to making small engines work, it’s a wonder anyone succeeds. The gas is poison. The cans don’t work. Most fuel stabilizers don’t work. Running the engines dry between uses doesn’t work. Home Depot charges something like $40 per gallon for real gas.

I’m hoping the lessons I’ve learned will work. It’s amazing to me that people aren’t marching in the streets over this stuff. Everyone has the ethanol problem, and most of the solutions we are given do not work at all. It shouldn’t have taken me, an intelligent person, a year to get past the lies and fables. Why not just tell us the truth up front? “This gas is garbage. Only a couple of fuel stabilizers work, and you will find out the others don’t work when you try to start your engine next spring. Running your engine dry in the fall won’t help. Your EPA gas can cannot be made to function correctly, and we don’t care, but you can buy parts for it on Amazon and turn it into a functioning 1980 gas can.”

It’s bad to have people jamming us up, but it’s worse when they try to hide it from us. Just tell us the truth. We’ll pay for your bad gas and accept the fact that its real purpose is to make corn growers rich so they can contribute to political campaigns. We’ll pay for the gas can parts. We’ll pay for additives that work; just tell us which ones they are.

I’ll work with the system. I will not pay $40 for Home Depot gas, but other than that, I am willing to tolerate the farce, as long as I can keep my engines clear.

Arrggh.

My pruner carb should be here Monday, so I can use the pruner on Wednesday. That will be nice. I may go ahead and hack up the old Walbro carb, since Echo’s multi-year warranty doesn’t apply to carbs (the parts which usually malfunction). If I can get the Walbro clean, I can hold it in reserve and save myself $11 when the China carb (the other China carb, not the Walbro) poops out.

Considering the BS I had to deal with, I got a hell of a lot done this week. The oak is ready to burn, and I have the beginnings of a good anvil stump. I only worked maybe three hours. Imagine what I could get done in a world without ethanol.

Bring on the electric era. We’re already starting to see a few electric products that are actually practical. The greenies are making the use of fossil fuel such a torture, I’m starting to look forward to an electric car. As soon as we reach the point where you can get a charge in 5 minutes instead of half an hour or more, I will be ready to join the dance. Make me an electric chainsaw that will run for 5 hours on two batteries and then get out of the way and take my money.