Do you need a particular type of mini chainsaw for pruning plants in your garden?
What specifications should you be looking at to decide how suitable a mini chain saw would be for the job?
Of course a big factor in making your decision will be what you are intending to prune!
However, lets look at a few over arching principles and then we can get into a few specifics regarding the best mini chainsaw pruner.
Your first two considerations should be:
- Bar length. This is,for all practical purposes, the length of the chain along the bottom of the bar that is available for cutting. For pruning you probably wouldn’t go over a 12-inch bar and even that is probably a bit on the long side for most people.
- Chain speed. This is the speed at which the chain moves. NB this is not to be confused with revolutions of the chain around the bar. Chain speed measures how far a point on the chain would move in a given time period.
Best Bar Length for Pruning
Take a look at these two (mini) chainsaws.
The Saker mini chainsaw (above) has a 4-inch bar and can be used with one hand. In fact it would be difficult to find anywhere to put a second hand! 🙂 It weighs 1.1kg (4 pounds) with battery attached.
The blue Makita (left) has a 10 inch bar and has a handle on the left side for your left hand. At 3.3 kg (7.2 pounds) you are going to need that second hand unless you are an amateur weight lifter who is used to picking up heavy objects with your arms extended!
Only the Makita is equipped with a brushless motor which is a factor we will come to later.
So here we have two “mini” chainsaws with bar lengths less than 12 inches but you can see that they are very different beasts and would not really be interchangeable as your pruning mini chainsaw of choice.
Then there is the outlier. The Worx WG324 5-inch mini chainsaw does not have a brushless motor. However, Worx have recognised a gap in the small pruning saw market and have come up with this model aimed specifically at the pruning marker segment.
Matching Pruning Requirements to Bar Length
In general you are going to want the bar length to exceed the diameter of what you want to cut off by a comfortable margin. But not by a huge amount! 🙂
There are good reasons for this.
- If you use a small 4-inch bar mini saw to consistently cut branches with a diameter of 4 inches or more, then you are going to push that mini saw to its limits and its going to break. That’s not a poor reflection on the tool. Its just not designed to do that!
- On the other hand, trying to cut off a bunch of one inch diameter with a 10-inch bar is going to be difficult, especially if you need two hands to operate the saw. Without much inherent strength and without anything holding them in place, the branches will just bounce around on the chain. If you do manage to cut them off, you are likely to have a ragged mish-mash of a cut surface. Not what you need when you want precision clean cuts!
And if you use one hand to hold the branches while operating the (large and heavy) chainsaw with the other? Not a good idea from your safety point of view!
Bar Length and Accessibility
So apart from the “what” you are going to prune, you also need to consider the “where”!
If you are going to be working in a small space where you don’t have much space to maneuver then obviously, all else being equal, a small, light, mini chainsaw would be preferable.
The same reasoning applies if you have to be balancing on the top a ladder and reaching far away from your body to get the job done.
The Ideal Bar Length for Pruning
Given the points above, there is obviously no one single bar length that is better than another.
However, if we acknowledge that normal pruning in a garden doesn’t require huge fire power, but might require working in some restricted spaces caused by plants, then we have the following common sizes to choose from:
How Important is Chain Speed?
In a nut shell, chain speed is one of the main factors that determines the performance of the saw!
It is kind of intuitive. The faster the chain speed, the faster it will cut!
How is Chain Speed Measured?
Yes, well….unfortunately chain speed is quoted in all sorts of combinations of time and distance so it becomes a bit of a mission to compare them.
Common combinations are:
- feet per minute (ft/min)
- feet per second (ft/sec)
- meters per minute (m/min)
- meters per second (m/sec)
The more common ones used for mini chainsaws seem to be ft/sec and m/sec.
The easiest way to convert between them is to consult your preferred search engine! 🙂
What is a Decent Chain Speed?
Let us return to our first 2 examples of mini chainsaws. The 4-inch bar Saker and the 10-inch Makita.
Gas driven chainsaws usually have vastly superior chain speeds but they don’t really fit in here
Makita tops out at 24m/sec which is not far off some gas powered chainsaws!
Most battery driven mini chainsaws are going to come in well short of those figures!
The Saker 4 inch does not seem to have any published data on its chain speed but as it is not equipped with a brushless motor, one can assume it is not anywhere near that of the Makita.
However, in general, if you can find a true mini chainsaw with a chain speed around 6m/sec, then it should go towards the top of your list.
Having said that, some mini saws that have been around a long time have chain speeds noticeably slower than that, but as technology improves (brushless motors!), they will disappear.
The importance of chain speed for pruning?
Well the faster the chain speed, the faster – and probably cleaner – the cut. And for pruning, one definitely wants a clean cut!
Some Other Factors to Consider
Here are a few other considerations that might (should?) influence your choice of mini chainsaw for pruning
- Brushless Motor. You can read all about the advantages of a brushless electric motor Here. The bottom line really is that you would need a very good reason NOT to buy a mini chainsaw with a brushless motor! They just offer too many advantages to be ignored.
- Self Oiler. Many mini chainsaws don’t have an inbuilt oiling system that keeps the bar and chain oiled and running smoothly. Some mini chainsaw manufacturers even claim you don’t need to oil the bar and chain. If you want your saw and chain to last, you will ignore that advice! So an automatic oiler is a good idea. Otherwise you need to carry a small bottle of oil around with you. 🙁
- Carry Case. Certainly not a deal maker or deal breaker but a nice to have. Just convenient to keep everything together in one place.
In Conclusion
If you are wanting to use a mini chainsaw to speed up your garden pruning, then a bit of thought before you buy could save you a lot of frustration…not to mention money!
Happy shopping!
Check out other options on ChainsawChoices.com