Could use some advice on pole chainsaw use. (limbs pinching the chainsaw bar.)

Hello,  

I'm not sure if this is the right forum to post this in, but here goes:

Could someone tell me what I'm doing wrong that would make my Atlas brand  pole chainsaw from Harbor freight stop cutting midway through a cut?  What happens is sort of strange to me.  I cut limbs from the top down, but the limb seems to pinch the bar while the chain is totally free. It spins without resistance.  I use the saw mostly for pruning apple and the cuts are very close to the trunk and the branches are usually not larger than possibly 3 inches in diameter and usually less.   Sometimes I can rock the saw back and forth and it will start cutting again,  but mostly it seems like I have to wrestle the bar out and make a fresh cut.

Pinching makes no sense to me.  It seems like the cut in the limb should be dropping and the gap should be getting wider as the bar cuts deeper into the wood.  The only thing that I can think of is that the limb is twisting sideways somehow and pinching the bar without pinching the chain.  I don't know how this would happen and I never notice it with my regular chainsaw.

I did see one video that mentions making an undercut, but this is usually hard to do because the limbs are so jammed together from many years of not pruning that its hard to even make a top cut most of the time. I also don't see what the undercut would accomplish.

I haven't pruned since I watched the video, and I'm going to try the undercut,  but i don't have much faith in this being the solution.  

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance for any help.

For live tree pruning, I do a small cut at the bottom first - maybe quarter to half an inch deep.  Then cut from the top down.

I don't know chainsaw safety well, so this might be wrong.  but I saw someone do it once and it seems okay when the chain saw is on the pole.  I do the first cut with the tip of the blade if I can't get in there properly.  

I don't know why it pinches without that first cut.  I blame physics for being stupid.

Thinking on it some more, the tradition in the family is to do the small branch pruning first, then once all that's done with hand pruners or pole pruner, get the saw.  I just sort of kept the tradition.  But now I'm wondering if it's to make using the saw easier?  

I don't know. I feel like I'm really bad at pruning as they always complain I take off too much.  I just do my best and each year, cut it back a bit more.  

This method has worked great for me.

1-Undercut by about half. With a pole saw, it'll be at an angle but that is fine.

2-Move away from the tree and start the cut on top, it should break off when you get close to the end of the cut.

3-Cut the remaining stub off.

Like you, anytime I just try to cut from top down, I seem to get in a bind often and I agree it does not make much sense but that's what happens. This method won't help on the limbs you can undercut like some that you mention.

That's interesting. Are you sure it isn't pinching something else like the bumper spikes or the casing? I don't ever use pole saws but I use standard chainsaws often and I haven't run into that issue, unless the end of the limb props up against another while cutting.  

Another tip is to place a 6' ladder where you want the branch to fall. Cut the branch from the ground with the pole saw and it'll come right off and hit the ladder.

That happened when I used to prune with a chainsaw off of a ladder. Hits the ladder every time so it should work.

I agree with the "several cuts" approach mentioned above. If you can take off chunks of the branch before working close to the trunk, you also take off the weight and the "torque" of a long branch that's twisted or leaning or growing toward the sun. These factors can be hard to see from the ground.

I asked an expert.

Cutting with the blade parallel to the ground, makes gravity work with us,  but we are standing on the ground, so we tend to cut at an angle.  This makes the branch twist around the cut and grab the saw.

This is why a lot of professional saw on a stick have a bend so the saw is level with the ground when it cuts the branches.

r ransom wrote:

This is why a lot of professional saw on a stick have a bend so the saw is level with the ground when it cuts the branches.

Agreed.   I don't know how many of these types of saws are built with the blade projecting straight out from the pole, but the Dewalt that I just used yesterday to cut a 4" round balsam poplar limb has a pretty good angle between the cutting head and the pole.  Even fully extending my arms for this high branch, the blade was mostly parallel with the ground.  In case it wasn't mentioned, the only other issue in such situations I've encountered is when the leafy end of the limb is already being supported by neighboring branches.  In this case, there is no 'drop motion' to force the cutting gap open and the blade will bind.

What's happening is that when your top cut gets to a certain point, the limb splits. The cut portion then straightens out, actually lifts back up, pinching your bar. The uncut portion bends down with the weight of the limb, leaving the chain spinning in air with the bar pinched.

You really need to start with that undercut, no matter how difficult, or angled. Then it will break away clean when the top cut gets deep enough.

Pole chain saws are quite a bit safer in my mind since that spinning chain is well away from your body parts. Something I would never do is get up on a ladder with a regular chainsaw. But it is quite safe with a pole chainsaw. As long as your legs are strong enough to be safe on a stepladder, of course. Getting up higher ~ careful not to be in line with where the limb will fall! ~ will allow you to make your two cuts closer to horizontal which will make the limb fall straight down and not twist on you.