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Peter Huebner

In article .com,
says...

The guys at Northwestern told me that Husky was making a serious play
for the US market, and that is why they have improved their saw
quality and doubled their saw warranty to 2 years. Sounds good... but
I dunno. I am hoping the next saw I buy will be the last for the
forseeable future since I have ****ed away enough money buying the
"home pro" saws in the last 10 years to buy the Stihl.

I would love any input on this, even some input on Husky saws in
general.

Thanks -

Robert

Tricky question to answer. I have a Husky myself, a 60cc 'semipro' model that
hasn't let me down for the last 23 years. I used to swear by the brand.

However, lately I have heard from people whose judgement I trust (one of them a
chainsaw shop employee whose wife is friends with mine) that Husky have become
"price-driven" - in other words, that they are now selling cheap junk that
isn't even worth repairing when (not if) it craps out. Sooooooo ...

Pretty shocking what you have to say about Stihl though. I don't think they are
like that here in NZ. But I haven't tried getting one sent out. That'd
seriously put me off.

Alternative: you could look for a Dolmar. They are a smaller company, but they
are the guys who _invented_ chainsaws. They have been bought up by Makita a
number of years back, but the saws are still made in Germany a.f.a.i.c.t.
I have a 90cc Dolmar, this is a serious saw that cost me near $1600 NZ and it
is very, very, very good indeed. I crosscut and rip gumtrees with it with a
28" bar; that is *very* hard work, and it never misses a beat so long as I
remember to blow out the airfilter before the working day starts.

B.t.w. I haven't seen Echo saws here in NZ for some years. But before they
disappeared, Echo stood about half way between the cheap saws on one hand, and
the expensive (Husky and Stihl) on the other; their bigger saws were used by
professional lumberjacks and I didn't hear any complaints about them. Small
saws always have been problematic, though, never mind the brand :-). I used a
small Echo (not mine) for a while and it was fine.

Frankly, I'd hesitate to buy a light Husky these days that is not explicitly
one of the pro line of their production. I think if you can get a pro Husky at
2/3 the price of a Stihl and with a 2 year warranty it's probably worth the
gamble ;-)
The 359 and the 570 are pro models around the same size as the 460 you looked
at. I'd get a quote on those saws and see how the prices stack up then! The 570
must be seriously powerful if it can drag a chain around a 32" bar like they
specc., for a 68cc saw. Not that any normal person needs anything bigger than
24", like you said, it's just that I have all these huge gumtrees on my farm.
My 60cc Husky is struggling to drag its (larger) 20" bar through gum, it does
fine with the 16" bar or cutting softwoods with the larger one.

h.t.h. -Peter

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