Newbie looking for advice for first small saw

Hi everyone, I've been cruising the forum here for a while and finally decided to join in and get some advice from you pros!

While we're still 18 months away from getting into our first real home, which will have a wood stove to lessen our dependence on the furnace and prevent the freezing cold nights without power or heat that we experience a couple times every winter, I wanted to start getting into the swing of things now. At the moment we only burn wood in our patio fire pit, although we go through a lot of wood just doing that a few times a week in nice weather. It seemed silly to keep buying scrap wood from the mill down the road, when there's tons of trees down everywhere around here (southern Adirondacks, NY) from Irene and Sandy and every lesser storm that comes along. So I started by getting an axe, maul, and wedges and bumming odd pieces from my father-in-law who does logging and firewood for a living. I'd whack em into workable pieces and that was going well, I actually really enjoyed splitting. Unfortunately, times are getting tough for him and though he won't admit it, I know he's barely breaking even and even that little bit of wood he was gladly giving us can help him stay in the black. So, I went and decide to start gathering my own wood.

I bought a 32" crosscut saw (go ahead and laugh, everyone does) and a sturdy tow strap and started making trips to the woods a couple times a week to fill my truck, cutting logs up to 14" and 5-6 feet long and dragging them out to the road. Thing is, I'm realizing that hand-sawing logs is not as easy as I thought it'd be, and I now have a stack of about 50 logs waiting to be bucked and split. I'm healthy enough to handle the hand splitting, but the thought of putting the crosscut to all that wood makes my shoulders cringe. So here's where you come in - I need suggestions for a smallish saw for cutting up logs no more than 14", mostly pines and spruce.

I'm thinking that when we get the house and the space for a serious woodpile I'll end up using this one for limbing, and get a big one for real cutting, so I'd like something that lasts. Probably won't use it more than a couple hours on any given day, but I've read bad reviews about the Homelites and such overheating in less time. The budget is tight, and with what I'll spend on chaps and face shield (the wife won't let me do this without the safety gear) and such the saw needs to be around $200 or so. After seeing the shape I was in from a four hour session with the crosscut and sawbuck, she gave me the go ahead to buy a saw, but insists I get a new one and not take a chance on used, so that limits options. Any starting points for me?

This is probably a dumb question, but I'm totally new to this and have always believed the only dumb question is the one you don't ask, so here goes. Are the bigger saws a good choice for bucking a lot of 8" - 12" logs, with a few as big as 14" but no bigger? I ask because it seems from the pics and videos I've seen online, here and elsewhere, that most people use the smaller saws for smaller cuts. They seem to be 14" or 16" bars mostly, is that just because of how many small cuts are involved, or is it safer (for beginners especially) to use a lighter and shorter saw? I get the impression that's the reason, but I could be wrong. I've learned the hard way, far too many times, that the rule to follow is use the right tool for the job. I won't be felling any trees, only bucking small wood for now, and maybe some bigger logs later on but they'll be down already.

Also, I went to the Stihl site and can't find any info about the 026, but the Husky 350 has an awful lot of bad reviews online (a lot of broken parts and repair costs) and as said before, the misses is very much against a used saw. I might be able to use this to get a bit more of a budget for a new one though, since I do have a birthday coming soon!

She already nixed the idea of me trying out one of her dad's saws, since they're all working-class beasts and way too powerful for what I need, on top of being as loud as a jet engine which would get us kicked out of the trailer park! We're stuck living here for just one more year till we get the money for the house together, and the manager won't tolerate much more than "normal" power tool noise, so I'm hoping a smaller saw would be comparable to a circular saw in volume. Otherwise I'd have to haul the logs somewhere else to cut them, and that's nuts. Is it normal for pro saws to be so much louder than the smaller homeowner versions the neighbors use to clean up fallen limbs and such? It seems like the engines are only a little bigger, but the noise difference is crazy.

Thanks everyone, I did find a local Stihl shop only 15 minutes away, one of those places with 3 or 4 "old timers" that seem to be hanging out, and one of them got talkative when I said I was looking for advice. I like that kind of place! I mentioned how several of you had mentioned the 170 and they all agreed that until I get the house and land and woodlot and start cutting my own trees I'd be well served by the smaller saw. I got the feeling that he thought of the kind of cutting I'm doing as being the same as limbing on a "real" tree. He did have a point, what I'm cutting for the time being isn't much bigger than a lot of the limbs on a good-sized tree now that I think about it. Mostly that's because I've been getting my logs from a spot that's a ways in from the road and I have to drag it all out over pretty rough ground to get to the truck, so the thicker and heavier stuff is staying put. I was a little overwhelmed with info by the time it got mentioned but he did saw something about wanting to get a couple chains and a certain kind of oil, in addition to the chaps and safety helmet with face screen. I'm not sure if he meant new chains to replace the one it comes with, or spares to have in case I'd need to change out if I messed one up or it got dull. Either way, the recommendations here and online reviews have me feeling pretty good about the 170 as my starter saw. Having a Stihl shop nearby is good too. I know this isn't gonna be ripping through my logs like a hot knife through butter, but with the crosscut it has been taking around 5-10 minutes per cut in the big stuff, once that initial burst of energy fades, so I'm sure it'll be faster than I'm managing. Thanks for the help everyone, now come on payday!

clemsonfor said:

And if your just getting scraps from the FIL how is he selling that ? It must be stuff that would be turned into firewood I guess , but how much are you burning in a fire pit ?

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He splits his time between clearing lots and selling the firewood. He got one of those big processing machines a couple years back that bucks and splits the logs he loads with the forklift, but he has to trim off the ends first and it was those end trimmings that he was giving me to use in the fire pit. I noticed that he had started saving a bunch of them in big wire baskets, like 5 X 5 foot, and I asked his partner what they were for and the partner said those were mostly being sold to people using outdoor boilers when they were short on cash and couldn't buy regular wood. I guess with the outdoor units you can burn just about any size or shape pieces. I don't know how much he makes off that stuff, but if me taking it is costing him anything I'd feel lousy, so I told him I was gonna start gathering my own and tried not to make a big deal out of it. I know he's been hurting with the weird weather, the cost of fuel, and the fact that he's getting older, so any little bit has to help. Some kids messed with his skidder on a job site a while back and he had to put in money to repair that, and then he had to replace his boom truck, so his money is going into paying that off. To be honest, I don't think he has much of a profit margin anymore anyway, since everything is split and sold green and that has to sell for much less. He used to have row after row of wood split and seasoning up in his wood yard and would sell it that way, but he can't put in the hours he used to and barely keeps up now. It's a tough way to make a living that's for sure, and I respect anyone who does it, especially when they're in their 60s!

As far as how much we burn in the fire pit, you'd be surprised! The misses is something of a pyro and likes to throw 7 or 8 pieces in there at a time and have the thing so hot you need to sit back a few feet to not burn (her family has always had bonfires just about every weekend except the hottest part of summer) . . . and from spring until fall we entertain out on the patio most of the time since our place is really cramped and we have huge families that can't fit inside. We probably burn through a couple wheelbarrows of wood whenever we have folks over, and more during the week. Nothing beats a stressful day sitting at a computer for 11 or 12 hours like a cold drink by a nice fire, and I have a couple of those every week it seems although mine are much smaller. Can't wait till it's a fire in a stove in a new house, then I can enjoy it in the winter or rain too.

clemsonfor said:

I will second anything joful says. Dexterday is a stand up guy. Anything he sells is as it. He even goes as far as telling you which screws are not factory on a saw. Will usually totally tear them down and disassemble them and tell you about the cylinder. Dex just sold an almost new 545 for $320 at another place on the net. This saw was barely used and in great shape. Had I not had 7 saws and wanted a 50cc saw I would of jumped all over it.

I understand the hesitation to buy uses esp if you can't wrench on them but you will get 2-3x the saw for your money buying used. And I would almost put money on anything you get from Dexter or almost any guy on AS will still be runing in 10 yrs if you care for it well (assuming you dont cut 7 cords of wood a year or anything). Shoot dex a pm at AS or I can give you another location and tell them we/I sent you. He will even keep an eye out for you and will get you something. They guy sells several saws a month at least.

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I'm gonna have a shot at convincing my wife this is a better idea than buying a smaller one new, and see how that goes. If I hadn't been such a PITA with everything she's wanted to spend money on the past year it'd be no problem, but I've been pinching pennies a whole lot to get us into the new house and land and she has been really good about making sacrifices and having me tell her no when she wants this or that. Plus, when this started I'd said I was only gonna spend around $200 . . back before I realized those cheap saws in the big store were so bad . . . so it's gonna be tough to convince her to basically double that. Maybe some flowers and a chick flick will help