Jimbo:
<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">I wonder if you have considered adding the pocket chainsaw to your tests. </font>
I read that review a few years back and became interested in the performance of such saws. Since no one stocks them locally - I hacked one together using a chainsaw chain, and did some work with it. I felled some small to medium pine and such (2-4" at base), limbed them out, as well as did some work on limbing heavier trees (1-3" branch) and some scrap (roughly 2x4" sized).
The results were not impressive to say the least. It was readily outperformed with a cheap folding pruning saw to a huge extent. The main problem was not the cutting ability but usually the difficulty in positioning. If you have to work around other branches you cannot use a long pull, or if you do, you are in a very awkward position. Compare this to a pruning saw which very easily handles such work.
But even the simple task of felling a tree is very awkward. With a pruning saw you just kneel down, and use the saw very close to the ground and you can leave a very low stump which is prefered for *many* reasons. With the loose chain you have to work higher and in fact are most comfortable with your arms almost straight out, which is much too much wasted wood even kneeling down. The teeth are also very difficult to start on small wood and scrap (due to the corners).
And worse yet, how do you handle the felled wood (and you better have limbed it out before knocking it down)? With a fixed saw you can use one hand to position the wood while the other runs the saw neatly cutting it up into whatever lengths you want. With a loose saw you need to hands to run it so you have to prop the wood up on something and walk on it to keep it stable.
Some of these things could have been fixed with a better tooth pattern as a chainsaw pattern requires a decent amount of force to be pulled through wood. But the difficultly of use, time and effort required as compared to a decent small folding saw left me with no significant interest in them.
<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">I've been using very light knives with a baton to cut wood. I'd be very interested in your opinions of a light knife used with a baton - compared to the light saws.</font>
The biggest problem with this is that in general it is a hacked job using the blade far outside the intended scope of work for the type of small blades that I prefer using. What I want in such a knife is something that cuts very well. This geometry would readily break apart if I tried pounding it through wood, unless the wood was soft and more importantly clear. A hard knot would destroy a high performance (thin grinds) small fixed blade.
Now there are some small blades that can easily handle this type of work, the #3 Basic from Busse Combat for example. I have not actually looked at the time / effort of this method as compared to a decent saw (or larger blade) and it is an interesting suggestion. I'll look into it.
By the way, I have no heard of handles for jigsaw blades etc. .
One more thing concerning Leatherman vs SAK saws, the edge retention on the SAK saws is much better. I just examined mine and the teeth on my Leatherman saw are all rounded/deflected whereas the SAK teeth are all still sharp. And I have used the SAK much more then the Leatherman saw as it cuts much better.
Greenjacket, yes, a lower clearance is one of the main benefits of saws over large chopping blades. In the same line as a needing a lower skill level, safer to use etc. .
-Cliff
