Day 50: Yorkshire Chainsaw Kafuffle

I can't remember if I mentioned that I bought a chainsaw a few weeks ago, but if I didn't mention it - I bought a chainsaw a few weeks ago. I got home and ripped the outer cardboard wrapping open and extracted it along with instructions and free headphoneas and goggles. The first thing I noticed was a big sticker stuck the the side of the chainsaw which said "Do not use this until you have filled it up with chainsaw oil". So I looked in the remnants of the box for the cahinsaw oil, but there was none. So I had just travelled all the way home from the DIY store with a chainsaw that needed chainsaw oil before it could be used and did it mention this fact on the outer packaging? No it didn't. So I wasn't about to go all the way back to the shop to get the oil so I thought I would have to just leave it unused until the next weekend.

I think I also may not have mentioned what the chainsaw was for. It was to remove a tree stump from the garden of my new house, that we moved into last december. I started off attacking it with a normal saw and an axe, but all that did was get me very tired and my arms very sore. So when I was in the diy store a few weeks ago I saw the chainsaw and thought it would be the way to go.

So once I had got the thing open and knew that I had no oil I carried on by reading the instructions. It mentioned a procedure for adjusting the chain tension and said you need to follow this procedure before using the chainsaw as well as at regular times while you are using it. It then went on to show that if you press the end of the chainsaw against the wood you are cutting it will fly up and split your head in two. At this point I decided that rather than get some oil I should take it back to the shop and get my money back as: a) I couldn't be bothered witn the hassle of having to keep adjusting the tension all the time (I would rather just 'wash and go') and b) I didn't fancy getting my head sliced in two and the chainsaw didn't even come with a free helmet! But, of course, I couldn't take it back to the shop because I had ripped the box to shreds while taking it out.

So, for the next couple of weeks the chainsaw was left unused in my garage until this weekend, when I went out and bought some oil and then thought I'd make a start at chopping up that tree stump. First of all I dug a hole around the stup then I filled up the chainsaw with oil and fired that bad boy up. The first thing I learned about chainsawing is that it is not like slicing a hot knife through butter, it is actually very hard work. You have to push really hard and you get very sore hands and arms and you have to keep adjusting the chain tension all the time. But, eventually I got enough wood removed so that I could fill the hole in with soil and there was no sign of the stump. I also had a decent supply of logs that I could leave to mature for a year.