Could chainsaws be safer?

[peter_08]

I'm currently carrying out a bit of research into the safety of chainsaws for my MEng Electrical and Electronic Engineering Degree.

Chainsaws cause a lot of injuries every year and can seem a bit dangerous to the beginner.
I am aware that there are safety mechanisms in place such as the chain brake, operated by hand or via inertia, however people still get injured.
It would appear that naturally applying the chain brake by your left wrist in a dangerous situation comes with training and/or experience.
My understanding of the inertial brake is that it requires an reactive force by the user, which again comes more naturally with training and/or experience.

Would an electronic device that can sense abnormal movements (sudden changes in angle or position) and apply the brake quicker than the novice user make the chainsaw a more welcoming tool for the beginner?

I understand that the chainsaw may still hit the user, however injury would be reduced by a multitude as the chain will have stopped.

I am open to any comments or further advice.

 

[Nutball]

Inertial brakes activate when the saw moves suddenly due to kickback. Your wrist doesn't have to touch the guard and your grip will not affect the brake unless you hold onto the saw well enough to prevent it from rotating in a kickback scenario. I've had a beginner saw (poulan 3816) activate the brake when it kicked back, and the brake handle never touched me.

An electronic devise that can trigger the brake based on a certain rate of rotation and certain number of degrees traveled may be a good idea. Even better could be to program a curve of rotating speed vs degrees traveled required to trigger the brake based on what conditions are determined to be most likely dangerous. I can only imagine that an electronic brake will often activate when not needed making that feature annoying.

The design of a chainsaw is just plain dangerous. Weed whackers are pretty safe in comparison right? The chainsaw equivalent is a pole saw/power pruner. What other tool has a large aggressive unsheilded cutting attachment just inches from the handles, and commonly used in ways where it could contact the legs or feet even without kickback.

I think education and training should be top priority when making anything safe. Chances are, most power tools are about as safe as practical as of a few years ago. Some things are just dangerous, and some people just don't have the vigilance to safely use them, at least not on a self taught circumstance. I think chainsaws are all too commonly underestimated in the danger involved, skill to operate them well, and maintenance required.

 

[Bob Hedgecutter]

Chainsaws are not unsafe!
Until you add the human content of the equation.
Then, they can still be safe as houses- or a ticking timebomb.

Chainsaws are like firearms, completely harmless until you add the human factor- how does your list of Chainsaw caused injuries compared to that of firearms related, or motor vehicle related? Do some people consider firearms and motor vehicles to be that unsafe that you require a licence before you can operate one, or at the least be vetted prior to buying? Is there any such standard needed to be reached before buying a chainsaw?
Kitchen knives are sharp- how do they rate on the injuries per year?

 

[Nutball]

And consider how many people are actually injured by what they are cutting: tree falling on them, or limb whipping them or pushing the saw into them when it springs back if under tension. All avoidable with education and carefully assessing the situation. It isn't the saw's fault in such cases.

 

[R&R]

Does everyone wear proper PPE?

 

[jasent]

R&R hit the nail on the head! PPE

 

[Bob Hedgecutter]

PPE is good - but it does not compensate for stupidity- it will also not do what it is not designed to do, no way in heck a plastic frame metal mesh visor is going to stop a rapidly moving bar and chain in severe kickback mode, nor will a plastic hardhat- those two items of PPE will hardly slow the bar and chain down before it hits tender bits.
A LOT of saw users choose steel capped work boots as chainsaw PPE boots- sure better than composite toe or no toe cap- but a lot of foot injuries involving chainsaws occur with chain strikes between ankle and toes, the leather will slow things down marginally and be better than tennis shoes- but it won't stop a full throttle saw chain.
Most PPE wearers use chainsaw trousers or chaps- weekend users buy the cheapest they can find often never considering the class of protection tag sewn on the inside- I am VERY guilty of this and often use climbing protection trousers for ground work, purely for comfort preference over protection.
Even wearing class 3-4 leg and foot protection, current in date hardhat, muffs and visor- it leaves a hell of a lot of ones body still unprotected- most of those parts carry major arteries well within reach of a fast spinning chain.

Like most things classed as dangerous, it comes down to the nut behind the butt, the butt on the operators seat, or the one holding the handle end away from the sharp end.

 

[Bob Hedgecutter]

All:

What would be interesting…is to hear about anyones experience with “near misses” while out there chainsawing in the wild?

Thankfully, my tree dropping experiences hasn’t been very eventful over the past +30 however here is one interesting one that comes to mind:

A couple years back (just another summer day in Alaska) I decided to go back out and drop some more trees for firewood. It was a mild windy day (basically there were intermittent light breezes) so I scouted out a good standing beetle kill spruce tree…

Closer inspection indicated that it had a slight lean in the direction I intended the tree to fall (all was good).

Next, I fired up the chainsaw and (after sawing the perfect notch), I went to the opposite side and started cutting the backcut.

Now keep in mind, the direction of the fall for this tree wasn’t hazardous (it was safe in all directions). With that said…if it was to fall in the direction I intended it to, then it would be way easier to buck and haul out versus the other direction…which would have been a real pain in the arse to buck and haul (to say nothing of the fact that it would have blocked off a driveway for a period of time…and let’s not forget of all the branches that would have to be hauled off the driveway etc.)

Hindsight: Ok, before starting up the chainsaw, I had actually considered tying off the tree (snatchblock) and force it to fall in the direction I intended it to, BUT (since it was already leaning in the right direction anyway) I got impatient and figured “why bother”…

I also should have brought one of my spare chainsaws with me from home (after all, I own 12 chainsaws), BUT forgot to bring an extra one that day for some reason.

I also should have grabbed my wedges out of the pickup truck…BUT…since the notch was cut correctly and everything looked ok…I decided “to go with the back cut”!

(Yup, I hope you could see that there were several opportunities in which I could have paused and altered the course of events…BUT…

As I started to making my way through that back cut…you got it…for some unknown reason at the time, the tree overcame gravity and leaned back the wrong way and pinched my chainsaw (which is of course now is stuck and useless…unless I unbolt it).

Needless to say, now I have a tree that is teetering on the edge and all set in falling the wrong direction, which would create a few extra hours of work that I didn’t need!

Now what do I do? The Wedges, Rope, Snatchblock etc are back in the truck…the spare Chainsaws are not on location (back at home nicely stored in the garage) and the tree is precariously balanced and will fall at any time…wonderful!

This story has a happy ending though…just as I was scampering around like a “Panickin’ Mannequin” and trying to think of a way to turn the odds back in my favor, a short gust of wind offset the tree just enough for it lean back over in the right direction ar which time the notch and gravity took over and down she went! (And in the right direction!)

Now, you might be thinking “so what’s the big deal…this has happened to all of us in the past (trees teeter or fall in wrong direction etc).

What made this one stand out to me the most is this: Keep in mind that I first got observed to be leaning in the direction of fall…HOWEVER…as mentioned, as I started through the backcut, it “jarred back the wrong direction” thus teetering at edge of falling.

It wasn’t until after I had the tree bucked and started to split it up…is when I discovered that this particular spruce tree was “extremely corkscrewed” for about 3/4 of the way up the tree.

It is my belief that it basically acted like a coiled spring and once I started the backcut ...SPROING” it released its stored energy and nature took over and caused it to overcome its slight lean and notch etc.

My errors? Now granted, there was no real way to know the tree growth had caused such a spring-trap (I didn’t discover that until I started splitting it)…HOWEVER…obviously…my errors were complacency, impatience and laziness.

After all, I had many opportunities to alter the the chain of events instead of leaving the outcome up to fate.

Thankfully, Mother Nature (IE: Higher-Power) was forgiving that day and gave that tree a breath of air in a favorable direction!

Lessons learned: Bring all your tools (Extra Chainsaw, Wedges, Rope, Snatchblocks etc) and if you forget them…go get them!

Alaskan Stihl

But that is not a story about dangerous chainsaws- that is a misjudgement of the human using the saw and I am willing to bet we have all had those at one time or another.

 

[monkeymaster]

Well, yes
But then they would probably very impractical.