Worth every penny

[English BoB]

First trip into the woods this season. Cutting down a bunch of small trees 4-6 inch to clear a feeling area and I felt a tug on my left leg . Cut in the pants is only 3 inch long...........but in the pants and not my leg.
Pants are / were SwedePro had them 20 years. Time to invest in a new pair.

Recommendations accepted freely / please.

bob

 

[Sean McGillicuddy]

I agree worth every penny!

 

[heavy hammer]

Just glad to see its not your leg. You take stuff like that for granted until something like that happens. Hope you get another pair or equivalent.

 

[D8Chumley]

I have Husky chaps I wear sometimes and also have 2 pair of Carhartt double knee pants I wear while cutting. Can't say how well they work as I haven't tested them yet. Those definitely saved you from some pain

 

[English BoB]

Iam leaning towards Elvex prochaps, not cheap @ $110.00. These sound like the best so far.
My copay is $125.00 for an ER visit - which I would prefer not to do..............then there is the other half I would have to listen too.

bob

 

[peakbagger]

Good to see they saved you some damage. Cuts on Kevlar chaps look so insignificant, its easy for someone to assume that the damage to an unprotected leg would be so minor rather than blood everywhere ,numerous stitches and possible long term damage. My former employer ran the last paper company logging camp in the East and they made chaps mandatory long before they were required, they had a wall of damaged chaps at the logging camp for all to see.

I am a fan of Labonville chaps as they are made right down the road in Gorham NH and they usually have 20% off sales every 4 or five months. One thing that you will run into with all new chaps is they weigh a lot more than the older ones. As saws get more powerful the federal standard gets beefed up and that means more weight. My old Labonvilles weigh a lot less than my new ANSI standard ones that the national park service supplied (from Labonvilles). The new ones end up sliding down when working a lot more noticeably than my old ones. I added suspenders on mine, right now they are clamp on type but one of these days I will pick up some bachelor buttons and put some real suspenders on them. I wear hiking shorts under mine in the summer as they are hot.

The standard caveat applies on Labonville's, they were designed for short loggers and you have to be careful to order the right length. They can help you through it if you call them. I am 5'10 and fit just between extra long and extra extra long.

The fallacy of double knee pants is still pretty prevalent and has been proved wrong many times. Labonville's did make wool pants with internal pockets. A Kevlar insert could be slid into them but they lacked the wrap around ankle and shin protection that a proper chap now has.

 

[Bad LP]

I have 2 pairs, an Elvex and one of the saw company brands.

The Elvex IMO are more comfortable but have a lot more hours on them. I will not run a saw for any reason without putting them on. NO EXCEPTIONS. Glad yours worked as designed.

 

[7acres]

I've got a pair with a 2" minor low speed incident on them. I figured that wasn't enough damage to retire them yet. Is there some threshold where you can still get use out of a damaged pair?

 

[peakbagger]

If the outer cover is torn its not a problem, if the Kevlar strings got pulled out, its time to start using them with string trimmer.

 

[7acres]

If the outer cover is torn its not a problem, if the Kevlar strings got pulled out, its time to start using them with string trimmer.

My idle was a bit too high. The chaing

If the outer cover is torn its not a problem, if the Kevlar strings got pulled out, its time to start using them with string trimmer.

I recall a single kevlar strand got snagged out. Didn't even lock the chain up. Just caught and pulled out. There is still plenty left in that spot.