My Mountain Trail

Laser Cutter

Saturday, October 3rd, 2009

Today was a yard-work day. Well, actually, I started the day by listing a camera lens that I don’t use very often on ebay. I wanted to offer some pictures from the lens to prospective bidders, so I walked out the front door and shot the above pic. Nice to have some pretty flowers in the garden…

From there, I grabbed some tools and headed for the back 40′. Hey, some folks have a back 40 acres, we have a back 40 feet. Anyway, Dave Carr, the Senior Captain at the Throckmorton Fire Station has arranged for our neighborhood to have free branch chipping of up to 4 cubic yards of branches in mid-October. This is very good because that’s worth about $100 at the dump for us, and it saves a whole bunch of time. Our local firefighters are the best.

So, today’s task was to add to the pile of branches I started last weekend. I was going to just use my cheapy home-grade McCulloch chainsaw, but at the last moment I decided to pull out the Stihl 460. Oh, that Stihl feels like lead if you have to go over you head, but it cuts like a star-wars laser beam. My saw only has a 20″ bar, so there is just no way to bog that baby down. Put it on the log, pull the trigger, and a few seconds later you are feathering the throttle to finish the cut. Makes you want to smile!

Of course the 17# weight is a challenge if you are trying to cut over your head or in a poor leverage position; but when that happens you just grit your teeth, put the saw up there and squeeze hard for about 3 seconds until the branch is gone (6″ branch that is). Best tool I’ve used in a while.

I managed to create a nice pile of branches for chipping. I might go for just a few more; but if I don’t have the time, this opportunity has not been wasted!