When you've got a camp in the woods you need to gather firewood. Conventional chainsaws are noisy and heavy and need gasoline. What about an electric? It wasn't so long ago I scoffed at the idea but advances in battery technology and brushless DC motors have made battery powered tools way more useful than ever before. It was more than a year ago now that dad bought a Bauer battery powered chainsaw from Harbor Freight.
This thing has surprised the heck out of me, it's a cheap saw, I think he paid $70 plus that much again for a battery and charger but it cuts wood pretty well. It's not a replacement for a big saw but it is super handy for cutting limbs or trimming trees. That said it'll cut some bigger wood. I've been using it to knock down some white birch we need out of the way and make some firewood as a side effect.
Pictured is the result of 2 batteries worth of work. The first battery took the trees down and bucked them to a length that would fit in the tractor bucket. The second battery cut to length. Most of this is small enough that it really doesn't need splitting but, as it's easy to do, I split most of it anyway. White birch holds water and will rot from the inside out if you let it.
The wood stove at camp is pretty small so I use this old axe handle as a measuring stick to ensure the wood is small enough to fit the firebox. The electric saw excels at shortening pieces that are too small, it's easy to handle and doesn't jump around a whole lot.
I've been charging the saw off of the solar power system in the camp so this is truly solar powered logging, well other than a little diesel for the tractor.
Makita makes a 36v (2x 18v batteries) saw that is said to rival gas powered units, I'm seriously thinking about getting one. It'd be handy to have in the groomer...
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