I am new to chainsaw carving. I have used saws over the years but have alot of questions on carving. I have the chaps, ear, face, head protection, steel toe boots, heavy gloves, etc. I have a husqvarna 36 but after using it yesterday I noticed how "heavy" it is. I began using my stihl 018 and it was much lighter. But the biggest thing seemed to be alot less vibration in the stihl, WHY? I intend on using the stihl with a carving bar. Any suggestion on barving bar size (.10 or .25)?? GB, cannon carver etc type bars ?? Good books or videos on how to?? How about using spruce?? I used this yesterday and it cut well and EASY vs. the hardwood I have been using which I do like also. Any suggestions would be helpful and apprciated. thanks Jerry
Hello jerry and welcome to the world of carving. I am not familiar with the size of husky or stihl that you are refering to but I am guessing that the stihl is a bit smaller and that the bar is smaller. This may be the reason for the less vibration. The smaller the bar the less vibration. Someone may correct me but I think that most vibration from a saw comes from the length and size of bar. I would suggest starting out with a quarter tip 12" bar. As for the brand, I have several different brands and really dont think anyone is any better than the other. The big difference is the length and size of tip.
Good luck with your carving. The biggest help is just practice and more practice.
some of the smaller huskies didn't have antivibe built in (or that worked). The 18/180 is a nice little saw. Most of the vibration comes from the motor. Quarter tip bars are likely to last longer, but dime tips do allow smaller detail. You should set that stihl up to use 1/4" pitch chain if you're going to use it as your detail saw, whichever bar you choose.
As far as wood goes, spruce sounds fine. Pine and cedar are easy to carve, too. Hardwoods are nice in my opinion because you can do usually do better detail in them. They are a pain to carve, though.
