Episode: 3211
Title: HPR3211: Chainsaws
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr3211/hpr3211.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-24 18:55:47

---

This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 3211 for Monday the 23rd of November 2020. Today's show is entitled
Chainsaws. It is hosted by operator
and is about 18 minutes long
and carries an explicit flag. The summary is
info about chainsaws and what I know so far.
This episode of HPR is brought to you by
Ananasthost.com. Get 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code
HPR15. That's HPR15.
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Music
Hello everyone, welcome to the another episode of Hacker Public Radio.
This one is going to be about chainsaws.
As I'm learning and failing,
I'm going to explain some of my experiences with chainsaws.
I've had a boiler, I've had less from the last everywhere.
I've had a boiler for a while. I've had several boilers, three now,
that I've repaired and fixed. Chainsaws are complicated because
there's the safety aspects of them. There's the bar and the chain and the motor
and all that stuff. And there's kind of more things you need to take care of
warming it. What I just found out last week
by watching this random videos is one of them.
I'll go through kind of everything that I've found in random videos.
It's that you can take the bar and flip it.
When I say flip it, I mean, I was still
I have a bar,
a steel bar, and I'm going to flip it over.
This little dude out here is on one side.
That's plastic. I hope it's some plastic somewhere.
So this bar can be flipped over.
So I'm going to put the bar, this little bar really thin.
The older ones, you have to have like tools to take apart.
This new one, this residential radiator, this entry-level one,
it needs to be,
it doesn't need screws or anything like that.
So we're going to flip the bar over,
which makes basically means taking this little wheel thing.
I don't know what to do to adjust the tension on the spring with rules.
It's a little wheel that kind of rolls back and forth on a slider.
And that's what keeps the,
that's what keeps the,
the bar,
this is super greasy.
So I'm not going to,
I'm not going to spray it out, it's going to be really loud.
But you know, you kind of want to get the heavy pieces off of there
with like a brush.
An old plastic disbrush was what I used to break free any hard.
Stuck on grease stains, stuff chunks of,
you know, hopefully it's chunks of wood and not chunks of anything else.
But it's,
it grows every time you use it.
Every time you use your chainsaw,
you want to break it down clean up.
It's kind of pain the butt.
So if you're doing all the end jobs,
you know, make sure that if you're going to go in,
go in, go all in,
but don't use your chainsaw for 10 minutes and then not,
not somebody need it.
But the last time I used it,
there was three chainsaws there,
and I was the one who was kind of using mine the most.
But you really,
you bring a chainsaw out,
you really want to use it because it's kind of pain the butt to clean it.
So if you're going to spend more than, you know,
you're going to spend less than 20 minutes using a chainsaw,
you got to start deciding whether or not you could just use a handsaw,
you know, what you're doing,
or somebody else's chainsaw,
because this is not fun having to do this at every single time.
Now I've heard you can spray with,
um, spray with silicone,
and that kind of helps keep stuff from sticking.
All right.
Which I might do,
but the silicone spray I have is more of it.
So forget,
it's not,
it's not for,
it's not for cleaning or whatever.
Another thing I noticed,
which is,
thank you,
is, I don't know where the hairpin comes from.
So that's no idea,
how to get to the air filter.
I don't know how to get the broken glass,
that's the broken glass over the place here,
which is not here.
Um, but anyways,
I'm going to go through what I do to clean your duct,
and what I've kind of read online,
to be able to watch videos and stuff.
Um,
I'll use the plastic kitchen brush to get the hard stuff off.
Um, then I'll hit it with the compressor,
or you can do a can here,
you can have two,
um, compressor is obviously more,
um,
and the efficient.
But, um,
you want to spray that out,
get it all nice and clean.
Um,
if there's a little,
sparking,
you can pop out here,
and most of them have,
the silicone,
I don't know what it is,
the kind of chain fire,
or whatever you can pull out.
Basically, take everything you can out,
without the unscrewing screws,
um,
and clean it out.
You want to try not to
use the air compressor,
and jam,
you know,
blow,
hard,
stuck back into the,
the chainsaw.
Um, you want to pull out.
So if you can't try to dig out,
with like two diggers,
something,
if you have a few diggers,
something you can dig,
something out of the round,
where the edges are,
where you can go down inside of there.
Um, I just,
it shouldn't be too bad,
but I just have to do that to make sure,
um,
so my bar,
is a bit of rex.
When I first started using it,
I didn't know you had to build oil,
when you build gas.
So when you fill up the gas,
you fill up the, uh,
you fill up the gas,
you fill up the oil, too.
And if you don't,
your fire will be really hot.
And, uh,
I'm going to try and egg on it.
If you can spit on the bar,
then it's too high.
I've got some,
it'll look like,
uh,
it'll look like,
almost like the white oil looks
when it gets wet,
um,
on, on water,
on a water surface.
It'll kind of have this blue tint,
and it'll eat the paint off to the bar first,
and it'll get this blue tint
that goes all the way across the bar,
and that's evidence of it being super duper duper duper hot.
So this bar, basically,
ruined right out of the gate.
Um, I've also,
ruined the chain right out of the gate,
because I put it on there.
The, uh,
dirt,
put it in the dirt first for a second,
which,
it's only,
it tilts all it takes.
You put,
the chainsaw in anything,
but it would,
obviously.
But you would think,
hey, you know,
one,
just a few seconds here.
Half a second.
The chainsaw in here.
Yeah.
But you can't,
it just makes a big mess.
Um,
other than that,
um,
I'll use a toothbrush,
I'll try to use a toothbrush
to get out the grout,
and stuff off the,
the bar,
the crowd out of the bar.
Um,
let's try to blow it out.
Um,
if I grease everything,
uh,
some of the,
some of the videos I want to see,
you put it,
they put, uh,
the chain,
and the thing you guys will need,
and then kind of scrub it up.
Um, I'm done that yet,
but I'll probably try it.
Um,
what you want to do,
is being a well-ventilated area, obviously.
But I have a wire drive,
so you use,
grill,
the grill brush,
um,
and I'll use that on the chain
to kind of clean it all up,
because,
sap, I guess,
we'll get stuck on there real good.
Um,
and make a mess in the bar.
Um,
it doesn't really do anything to,
really help anything,
you don't have the opportunity to clean.
The most important part,
is the,
the part where the,
chain goes into the bar.
That needs to be cleaned, right?
Um,
everything else is just kind of static, actually.
Um,
I would imagine this,
not going to do a whole lot to, like,
make your,
chain completely showing,
you know,
chain, um,
you just need to make sure the guide,
the guide parts cleaned up,
and there's not any big chunks of,
the stuff on there,
so that it won't be done,
so that it won't get stuck inside the bar,
or throw somewhere else inside the chain saw.
Um,
so I'll say,
you know,
before I clean the chain,
it doesn't really have to be cleaned,
it just has to be sharp.
The,
the,
using the chain saw
will get rid of everything else,
pretty much.
Um,
let's see, what else do I have to say?
Um, there's,
there's bar oil,
there's chain oil,
for the chain,
and there's bar oil for the bar,
and it usually comes with, like,
this little weird,
push buttons,
oil thing,
and you push down,
and the oil comes out of it,
it's thin little,
nozzle on the front.
Um,
and I don't even see,
that this has one.
Um,
and I'll have to look online
to see,
this little,
16 inch here,
whatever it is,
the smallest,
the chain you can get,
if this even supports,
what I'm looking for,
but this bar is already,
pretty trashed.
I'd say there's,
probably,
5%,
5% damage,
10% damage,
on this bar,
this bar is, like,
it's being ruined.
So, you know,
I got to take care of the bar,
you got to take care of the chain,
you got to take care of the can,
you guys get home.
You got to take care of the bar,
you got to take care of the chain,
you guys get to take care of't you guys.
You got to take care of the bar,
you got to take care of the chain,
you get to take care of the chain,
you gotta take care of the bar.
You got to take care of the chain,
you gotta take care of the chain,
you guys take care of the bar,
you got to take care of the chain,
you gotta take care of the chain,
you gotta take care ,
you gotta take care of it,
you place the chain sawah,
a real tidal,
you gotta take care of it,
you got to take care of the bar.
So you don't want to be you don't want to be asking neighbors and that's what I tried to do for a while and then they were
Rolling to it
I went outside and he was standing on a foot ladder
Kind of treat
Chainsaw on the top of his head
So I said you don't need to get my own
Chainsaw because somebody's gonna get hurt
Trying to help me
Well, so I say I use silicone to kind of clean stuff up
They do have
They change the oil and then when I when I clean it all up I run it dry and
Let to let to get the chainsaw warmed up and let it spit
Oil all over you know a good piece of
White paper
The white paper or
Dare I say the side of your house
Yeah
Spray it all over your house
So you want to make sure you know your spraying oil out and then let me turn it on the second time
There's already oil in there, so if you just go straight in a tree
It's not gonna be super dry
Um
What else don't touch the ground don't touch concrete don't touch anything that's not wood you'll be
You'll be tempted to do the easy thing
wrist touching the ground or touching the dirt
Finished
So again, doing aren't cut anything but wood with your chainsaw
Um, say what else
That's pretty much it
Trying to think of any other football
That I run into so far
I
Sharpening the tension of the tension of the chains. I've seen everywhere from like basically what seems like loose to me
What seems like like too tight
Um, what I like is I like it just tight enough to where it doesn't spin on its own so I'd tighten it to where it looks like it's fine
I'm not in for a minute
And when you heat it up, it actually uh, feel like it actually loses it
Um at first at least
So when you start running it or if you run it for a while
I try to make sure that it's it can spin on its own and I don't
So the chain's spinning when it's idling that means it's pretty loose
And then I'll tighten it to stop spinning and that's it um
Don't want it too tight because then it has to work harder to go around
To to to pull it around the thing. So everybody wants it loose
But you don't want it so loose that it's like falling off the chain and making a mess
Um, I don't think it's super duper bad thing to have those shhhh
That's why I don't think it's a super duper bad thing that chains fall off
For what I've seen and it's heard
It's like oh
Chain falling out sounds like a little bad thing
Um
Um, so it's like a really bad chain thing but the chain falling off so I
Make sure super sure that I you know, it's look over everyone wants to want to make sure
The bar the chain is still on the bar good and it's nice and tight
Um, other than that I have one of the fancy sharpeners that does the whatever crap for you
um
So they're sharpening there's like three different three different things you need to maintain on a
On a chain
But for most people you're gonna ruin the chain before you
Have the necessity to change the
The depth of the cuts
Um, you're probably not gonna need to mess with that. So by the time you sharpen it two or three or four or whenever how many times
The chain's gonna be so jacked up and shitty um that you're not even gonna want to work on it um
So chances are if you're you know adjusting the height of the
The knockoff the cut the depth of the cut
Then your chain's probably about done anyways if you if you're having to do that because you know
They're 16 bucks or something, but you know if you're gentle and you cut a lot of stuff um
It's not super hard to cut
Maybe you don't you don't need another chain, but um
From what I can tell you know you sharpen the chain as you can
With just a little file that goes with it each one has its own kind of
Each different chain has its own kind of files. You can't just file whatever you want to file with
You have to have a matching uh like number three and whatever kind of the word is
but um sharpening can be
Easy um don't don't over complicate it
You know if it feels sharp, it's gonna cut
You do that whole check where you can check to see if chunks are coming off in big pieces
Or if it's coming off like sawdust then you don't want that right
But if it's cutting into it and there's big chunks thrown being thrown behind you um
You know depending on what kind of what it is if the chunks are big enough and look healthy enough to be like they're actually cutting
Then you're good you'll notice it when it doesn't cut um you know if you hit the ground or something
It'll just take forever to cut anything and we'll start kind of season up
um
Because it's uh either over a stress and you're trying to cut too big of a piece of wood or that's not sharp
And you're not actually cutting anything you're just getting shit hot
um
Anyways just be careful. I've got some chats
Um and they've I've poked a hole in them and they started making a mess
So I just use like gorilla glue to kind of glue
keep it from
being messed up so kind of patched it with some
some gaffer's tape
Which is basically a cloth base cloth based safe duct tape if you've never used gaffer's tape
Go buy some nice cloth gaffer's tape
It will change your life um
Again, I've talked about tie wraps is off topic. I've talked about zip ties and tie wraps fixing stuff
um
Those are great to fix things if you have a joint plastic joint or
Some kind of hitch fell apart or some kind of piece of plastic broke off
used to
zip ties or one zip tie as a hinge to fix that plastic item
Another great tip which is going to be in my quick tips that I haven't released yet is
um
Giant rolls out of 50 foot cord. That's very heavy. It's like a six gauge or something ridiculous
Um, it's very heavy and it's a 50 foot cord
Well, what I found out is that when I want to use it
Intermittently you have to unroll 50 foot cord. Well all you have to do is take half of it and roll it up from the middle
So when you roll it up from the middle if you need say five foot
extension cord
Or 10 foot extension cord all you have to do is unroll it five feet and then you've got both ends with the thing in the middle
So you never have to
unroll the whole roll
just to get to you know one end or the other of the
extension cord. So I thought it was a pretty genius thing. So it's going to be in my quick tips
But I'm bringing it up again here because I'm just talking about
General, you know fix it stuff
um
I'm going off topping. But anyways
Keep your change songs
Sharp be safe
Um, you know, make sure people learn around you when you're doing stuff make sure you know you're not around the tree
You're not going to get crushed all that good stuff. Safety first
Um
Get swept in if you need to because I'm getting old
Um, but I'm going to start bramely y'all take it easy and I'll just hop somebody up
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