Now I have a chainsaw. They'll sell them to anybody…
See, back in the day (specifically in 1992), there was this:
(in Chromebook 2 for the Cyberpunk 2020 RPG).
And 28 years later there is this:
It is, indeed, a small electric chainsaw. Now, I admit I've had bad
experiences with electric chainsaws before; I rented a mains-driven
one some years ago, and it spent more time jammed on twigs than
actually cutting. So that wasn't great.
But I don't expect this one to behave like a full-size chainsaw. In
fact it feels like one step up from secateurs; an anvil pruner, with a
bit of force behind it, will go through branches up to about 20mm, and
where that stops this takes over. It also works like a small machete
for slashing through several thinner things at once: grab loose end,
sweep blade down through anything that's still holding on to the
parent plant.
I discovered this while looking for something else on YouTube, and
immediately told my wife "I have no possible use for this". She
replied "I think you should get one". She knows me very well.
(Standard pint glass for scale.)
It fits comfortably into my gloved hand. I suspect the grip might be a
bit big for some people.
The chain is contained on its own cassette, which can be removed and
exchanged by opening a catch. (That internal space tends to fill up
with sawdust almost at once, though it doesn't seem to clog the
mechanism.) New cassettes are about £20, which is unfortunate, but
so far this one is lasting very well.
The odd thing for me is that there's very little sense of vibration
while cutting; one has to push a bit, but the blade descends through
wood very smoothly, and coming to the far side of a branch can be
quite unexpected.
I've been wearing my fireworking helmet (with mesh face-screen and
earmuffs built in), just as I tend to for pressure-washing, and heavy
gloves. Probably not all of these things are necessary, but I do not
yet incorporate enough starfish DNA to grow a new finger or Organ of
Corti. I do note that when I release the trigger the chain stops
almost at once.
The same blades can be used in the EasyCut 12 (which runs off a 12V
battery and has a more pistol-shaped casing), but by many accounts
that's rather less powerful. The 18V battery can of course be used in
various other Bosch tools.
I've been using this in the garden; I already have a (mains-powered)
jigsaw and mitre saw for cutting on a workbench. But the cuts are
quite clean, and one could easily run the guard along a straight edge
to get a consistent long cut. (There's a jigsaw that uses the same
battery and blade, too.)
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