Stihl FS130 brush cutting (review)

[paulpieter]

Thanks to the discussions on this thread, I have purchased the husky harness for my new-to-me  FS130 and at the same time, my chisel tooth blade arrived. The harness is great, easy to put on, even over jackets etc, and nice quick-release mechanisms are very ergonomic and user friendly. There is a quick release clasp on the chest to remove the whole harness and on the hook that holds up the brush cutter. I used the blade on 1 cm to 3 cm buckthorn - a very hard wood and up to 4 cm boxelder and it is NICE!!!!  , like a hot knife through butter. It cut so fast I couldn't feel any change in resistance as the blade approached and then severed the stem. Just love it. The problem is I continually needed to stop the cutter to clear the brush which accumulated so quickly. It there a particularly effective technique for that, or does everyone always have to stop to clear the brush. Still learning .

[SwampDonkey]

Power is the answer, but not the end all. Still have to clear a wedged stem 1/2" diameter once in awhile from a FS550 guard as well. Don't modify the blade guard, although some shave off the outer radii of the guard. I didn't say anything. :X


As to your harness, keep an eye on the hook where it attaches to the brush saw. If the attachment point on the 130 is hard steel like on the 550 it will eat the harness hook up within a week of every day use. What I do is use a sacrificial hinged clasp between the harness and the saw. The hook on the Husky harness is softer steel than on the Sthil saw.

[John Mc]

The problem is I continually needed to stop the cutter to clear the brush which accumulated so quickly. It there a particularly effective technique for that, or does everyone always have to stop to clear the brush. Still learning .

I'm no expert, but I've found that sometimes different techniques in how you approach the brush can help. My first inclination was to push the blade into the brush ahead of me. This didn't work too well, since the brush always wanted to fall right into me and blocked me from the next few feet of brush I wanted to reach. Now I look to cut from the left side of the stem and use the cutting head to push the bases of the brush to the right, causing the brush tops to want to fall left. I also sometimes start the cut more or less from the opposite side of the brush trunk (the side facing away from me), and pull the cut ends towards me a bit. Even if the tops don't drop all the way they tend not top drop towards me, and I can more easily reach the next row of brush. I still may eventually have to push through some of it, or stop and pull it out of my way, but these two techniques do seem to lessen the frequency of needing to do that.

That's some of my rookie method. Hopefully, some of the more experienced guys here will give us both some better tips.

John Mc

[SwampDonkey]

Yes, the brush does not fall like felling a large sawlog tree. You go through the stem so fast that the force causes the top to tip toward the direction you came from. If your going to cover any amount of ground you have to have the brush fall out into the area already cut. When you cut, a little hillside is beneficial. Cut from bottom to top. If brush is falling in front of you, your going to be a lot less productive. Usually you cut across a face and snip from the left of the blade going to the right across the face, and from the right of the blade going left across the face. You sometimes have to direct the taller stuff or around maple clumps. When there are clumps you thin the stems of surrounding trees first, then go into the clump and space it out. The clump stems fall away usually with no hang-ups or tugging. But you'll want to snip off them little finer twigs that grow up and out like apple limbs first because they slap your face. That stings. You might think pawing brush or directing it by hand is non productive, but you will cover a lot more ground if you get the cut stems down to the ground. The job looks a lot nicer with no crop trees being leaned over by hang ups and no tee pees. On my advancing edge it's like a moving foot path, all I have to step over is stumps, no brush to wade. A little bit of a hook when severing the tree helps it tip in the direction you want.

[customsawyer]

I have not used my brush saws for several years (2 husky 265 I think that is the right number on them) I just hook the brown tree cutter up behind my tractor and I can clear out a lot more than 1 acre per day. It works very well in the ways I use it but there is still certain areas that a brush saw would be needed. I am on the other side of the sharpening thing from SD I liked to put a little bit of the cat claw hook on my blade as it seemed to cut better, don't know if this has to do with cutting mostly soft wood or not but it worked for me.

[SwampDonkey]

Two different applications. I'm talking spacing trees and cutting up to 6 or 7" but trees. I could cover more ground if it was just mowing down all the trees. And a tractor would never be able to leave the road in places I'm using the saw. Even in field with 20 foot spruce or birch is no place for a tractor. Now an excavator with a hydro axe or something or a mini blade on the front I can see chewing up the stems, but they don't use those thinning. They have tried though, and the quality was too poor. Too much residual damage, too wide a spacing and looks like the trail of death with spears left behind sticking out of the ground. As to the blade sharpening, the cat's claw is sharp for small stems, still not as sharp as I described, because stems the size of raspberry canes just whorl around the blade. But, when you get into the larger stems the profile your using takes too much bite and you loose saw momentum. I can push my blade into a 6" pin cherry like it's a chain saw, but not with a cat's claw profile. Maybe an inch, and that whoomph feeling. Too much bite.

[customsawyer]

Well as I was saying it has a lot to do with the type of work you are doing with the equipment you have.

[VT_Forestry]

Since Hurricane Isabel came through a few years ago, we have areas that were salvage harvested and replanted in pine.  These stands are surrounded by mature pine stands, so natural regeneration has created patches with 10-20k TPA, sometimes more.  I've been pre-commercial thinning loblolly pines for the past few weeks with an FS450, and we've been adding an additional step to dealing with the brush. Once we get the tree on the ground (a task in itself with 20ft tall trees as thick as dog hair) we go ahead and trim most of the branches off and then top the tree so it lays as flat as possible.  This helps the stand look very clean when we are done (public perception is a big part of my job) and helps get those nutrients back into the ground faster.  It takes some extra time, but the end result is something that looks good and doesn't cause my phone to ring with people complaining about how i've "destroyed the forest"   

[customsawyer]

The tractor is used in clearing lots and stuff like that and it will take down your 7" trees with out slowing down any more than you do. When using the brush saw I get by better with the little bit of hook in the small soft woods as the brush saw will cut these just like a weed eater goes through grass. The point of my reply is to give the other members of the forum a chance to see what works in different areas of the world.

[SwampDonkey]

Nothing wrong with sharing your experience for sure. However, I can't really picture dragging a bush hog in 7" hardwood or even fir for that matter without being hung up or fetched up and spinning your wheels. I never seen your equipment. I have seen hogs here and 3" was pushing things. We used them some on fields to clear alder and willow for tree planting. Anything heavier than 3" had to be dozed (alders) when the ground was frozen so they would snap off and not move a mountain a good earth with them, or an excavator with an attachment to cut and mulch it up. But I hated working in those spears planting trees or sending anyone into it. Sometimes I had guys just cut it up with a brush saw if small acreage along the field edge. They used an excavator in pre-commercial thinning to make safety trails. It was a bad mess. Them spears about knee high, so you could bust a knee cap any moment. I'd rather cut my own trail or wade brush. They stopped using them when everyone complained. They are great on power lines and right of way and lot clearing I suppose, but not where I gotta walk through it.

[stonebroke]

SD

I have a browns tree cuter and you can cut a 8 inch hardwood with it. You just have to back into it and hope it is not going to fall down and kill you. You can actually cut bigger trees if you take several different cuts into them. You are right three inch hardwood is about the biggest I would drive over. After that turn around and back. It also helps to have a versatile bidirectional tractor.

Stonebroke

[joe_indi]

A five year old Stihl FS100 that I have just had its fourth Ignition module failure.

(For any FS100 or FS130 users here: The symptoms when the ignition is failing is that the engine may back fire, or if it starts it will not accelerate, or if it does accelerate it will be intermittent.)

I had a digital coil from an OleoMac GS720 lying idle. I tried it on the FS100.
The result is to be seen to be believed. So have a look at it here.


Joe

[SwampDonkey]

Never know when your picture is going to be snapped.



Me using my FS550 on the beginning of a new work strip. From about 12:00 pm until 4:00 pm I had over 1/2 of an acre cut in here. In the morning I had cut 1/2 an acre down the road. The trees are spaced of course, not all mowed down. The stuff got bigger, deeper in this strip. This was road side. I'm at a red maple clump in the picture. Two more days and I was finished this and 1/2 an acre off the back of the next strip behind me.

I wear plugs.

[beenthere]

SD
How about some "after" pics of the area to show your "work". ?

[SwampDonkey]

I didn't take the picture(s) and I haven't any on hand of that site. Still pictures don't show thinning really well unless viewed from over head. I have some post thinning picts of my own land. But, as I said you can't see much. I can post one of those I suppose.





This was in 2007, when I ran across a couple bull moose muscling about 3 rows of trees away. Yeah, where are the rows?

[Tom]

Hardwood thinning is not as understood in the Southeast where pine is the major crop.  I sure would like to read some short information from you northern Foresters about what is thinned, what causes it to need to be thinned (stump sprouts?), frequency of thinning, season of thinning and what the thinning accomplishes.   It seems to me that thinning in a mixed-tree environment, like you have, would require some strong and ready identification skills, as well as a good knowledge of the growing characteristics of each species.

[SwampDonkey]

Tom,

The primary goal is to "release" the stand at a stage in development where dominance is not already expressed by certain trees of same species in the stand, or the height growth and girth is pretty uniform of that species and trees even aged. It increases growth rate, girth-wise, and improves health and quality of the stand. Usually treatment stands are of clear cut, fire or plantation origin. The idea is to select trees of quality with species preference dictated by the mills management goals (under their public forest license agreement). On sites with the majority of species not favoring their mill demands, species of quality are favored for other markets. There may still be species the mill favors that are found (ie scattered softwood). Selection favors quality trees of highest value and ranked in order of preference. In our area the top softwood tree is a spruce, then balsam fir, white pine, cedar, tamarack, hemlock. I will favor a cedar over a fir on wetter ground because fir needs lots of nutrients and doesn't like wet. On hardwood sites, which in our area is maple and birch mostly, we rank as follows: yellow birch, sugar maple, white birch, white ash, red maple, beech, aspen, black ash, gray birch, cherry (pin, black), elm and any odd balls like basswood and butternut I put at the top if they are decent trees. We thinned one site this spring with a lot of butternut, so I left them. The top three species of each group (softwood vs hardwood) are favored with the top 3 softwood being given highest rank. We delay treatment until sufficient height is reached and then space so crowns close in quickly to induce self pruning as the crown lifts and helps reduce stump suckers or slows them down so they eventually die out under canopy or become less competitive if they persist. Time of year up here depends on snow and being able to get to the sites. Only exception is extreme fire danger when you have to leave the woods by noon. The majority of our hardwood sites are not stump suckered. Only red maple and sometimes beech are bad for suckering and many times they are single stem trees as well. Sugar maple doesn't sucker from mature trees, and almost 100 % of yellow birch as well is seed origin trees, not suckered. A hardwood site can have 5 mature yellow birch an acre before harvest and end up 90 % yellow birch and thicker than words I'm allowed to use to describe it.   Most aspen is either root suckered or wind blown. On most sites in the out back it's wind blown and only road side for 150 feet or so deep. Pin cherry, gray and white birch is all seed origin after cuts and fires. All softwood is seed origin except planted trees, where there are often double or triple trees in a plug from the nursery. Some nursery stock gets thinned for doubles and such, but DNR doesn't seem to do it. I think Irving is about the only outfit that thins out the doubles before the trees go to the planting site. No scarcity of regeneration in this country. Why some sites are planted is a head scratcher at times when I have to go in and start mowing some down.

Sometimes I even have to leave a willow or an alder and maybe even a serviceberry to fill the "spot". Usually the red spruce sites mixed with balsam fir are a solid wall of stems, except harvest trails. Branches all the way to the ground and intertwined like wire, so you cut 10 and they all fall or you pitch them like hay. Look out the sawdust doesn't hit ya on the way bye.

Now mix into all that the rocks, "chickos", blow dows, root wadsw, hard cedar stumps, and wet muck holes to work through.

[SawTroll]

Bmill,
You might find the Stihl "Comfort" harness more comfortable, especially for the wife.
Part No. 4134 710 9001.

The FS130 is torque y being a four stroke.In the Stihl brushcutter range, irrespective of two strokes and four strokes, I would place it between the FS 120 and FS 200.
But, the engine looks very much  like that of a Subaru Robin four stroke brushcutter.
Whether this is a coincidence or not I dont know.

Joe

 

I don't know of the 120 and 130, as I have never used them (and don't really want to) - the specs of the 130 tell me that I am better off with my FS200 anyway!

I haven't tried the "Comfort" harness though, but my (trimmer expert) brother highly recommends it!

[Tom]

Swamp,
When you are thinning, are the thinning plans laid out before hand, to a certain extent (flagging, painting, etc) or do you and your crew have a general approach for what species are important and then just dive in, making decisions on the fly as you wade through the thickets?

[SwampDonkey]

Swamp,
When you are thinning, are the thinning plans laid out before hand, to a certain extent (flagging, painting, etc) or do you and your crew have a general approach for what species are important and then just dive in, making decisions on the fly as you wade through the thickets?

Tom, the only thing marked out is perimeter of the work site and the strip lines. The areas between the strip lines are measured for area, that is what the guy gets paid for cutting. Individual trees are not marked most of the time. Where we cut in that butternut stand a few weeks back the contractor and probably the forest company didn't even take notice of the butternut trees.  When I ran crews I used to mark a specific tree to save if it was one of those odd balls species for the north such as an oak, butternut or basswood. Otherwise, the bark is so similar on young trees you could be cutting an aspen and it was really a red oak. You couldn't go out with the idea in mind of finding all those special trees, it would be impossible and no compensation in your pay cheque. Up here softwood has a lot less defect in the stem than a hardwood. Spruce is king in the north where in the south it is pine. Most hardwood is pulp, the best chance of a hardwood log is going to be from a yellow birch or sugar maple. Those stump sprouted red maple are just fibre trees. We pretty much do the selecting and cutting on the fly for the most part, leaving the better looking trees as we go and try not to cut a lone spruce in a hardwood thicket. If so, better bury it. Ooops! Sometimes it can't be helped when the saw kicks or you direct a tree to fall and the saw takes a dive into a leave tree.