Chainsaw Repair

I have been organizing, sponsoring and running a chainsaw competition for our February Winter Festival for over 15 years now. I built my own portable stage which also converts to a parade float for the start of the festival. I have over $2000 in prize money plus 3 Husqvarna 450 saws up for grabs. Men's and women's speed cutting race plus a carving competition alongside.

My sponsor who supplied me with 16 ft 10"X10" timbers over the years is no longer in business so I'll have to mill up some oversize white spruce logs with my 090AV-36" Alaskan mill. I'll post pics of that in a week or so. I may go 14"X14" .
This is my advertising budget for the year for my tree service company. Heres some vids of our Manitoba winter fun. It was a cold day and these 2 brand new out of the box 550XPs were having some issues at the start of each of the men's and women's races. I'll be installing the winter pre heater kits this year.
Here's a sample of my 4 hour competition. I'm the man on the microphone. -30 below C.
At the start of the video you'll notice my camera man can't spell "competition"

http://youtu.be/vx_fF0Ofa9U


Check out my website at www.trappersfestival.com
Hit welcome/enter and then click on "chainsaw events" on the left panel of the home page.

Us directors last year had to wear pink jerseys, was to promote awareness for breast cancer.
I'm sure glad we don't have to wear that god for awful color again for this year.....even the women said it was a little "too pink".

I see on the webpage you supply the saws for contest? Do you have an event where competitors bring their own saw?

Yes up to about 10 years ago , we had 70cc - under , 70cc -over and open modified classes with bikesaws allowed. But by that time mechanical harvesting had already made the last hand faller extinct for 10 yrs earlier.
For years we only had a 1 hour time limit for the carving contest. A logger would come in with 1 big saw 1 small one and in 1 hour carve a skidder or logging truck out of a 36" dia. x 4 ft block of frozen spruce and make a very impressive piece of art. But today I have to extend the time limit to 4 hrs and supply all my bigger 72cc -94cc saws for most of the carvers to use. Only the top carvers I have own big displacement saws.
It took me 15 yrs on my own to get this competition to where it is, and yes I have time now with the good reliable help I have to run this where I can fit in a class allowing competitors to bring their own saws, if not their own chains which I've done before.
But at the moment with a strong sponsor from my Husqvarna dealer the system we have works very well. We bring a lot of interest from the public to enter the contest , its safer, goes like clockwork and everyone has a good time.
I had one question thrown to me several times where they thought it wasn't fair that the last competitors were using a duller saw. But it was proved the opposite that most of the winners were the last ones up. Kind of hard to dull a saw on a knot and bark free piece of 10"X10" spruce.
 

This will year 2 for my trio of 550XPs, 3years before that I had 3-576XP ATs.Then about 10 years before that I was sponsored with 046 and MS460s.
For my next set of saws  I'd like to have 562s with heated carbs and heated handles.

Last weekends competition saw about half the entries and audience from last year due to a brisk -39C windchill from out of the north west but still an excellent time regardless.
Our Husqvarna distributer rep Alvin was on hand with his support for the first time and he was pleasantly impressed with my teams competition.

Big  improvement this year with the 550XPs was the use of their winter kits and running them on Husqvarna's 95 octane canned fuel mix. I'm very very impressed with this fuel's performance along with it's convenience.
We awarded three Husqvarna 435's along with $2000 cash for the 4 hr competition with a carving event alongside.
Here's a few pics from my smartphone and will post more later when my festival photographer gets my disc to me.