Stihl Surgery

This week, the clearing saw - the love of our lives, one of the big reasons we've been able to get as much done as we have, and our mascot Stihl's namesake - started acting a little congested. So, we immediately put her to bed and called the doctor (Harry at Lucy's Hardware in Intervale, NH). Harry told us about the remedies/surgeries that we could try to help her get back to feeling her best. Some of it we did in the field and some of it we had to do back at Shaw's Boarding House, where we're staying.

In the field, we put some white lithium grease on the shaft to keep things running smoothly inside of the saw.

The two surgeons putting the shaft back into the saw:

Yuck! Greasy hands!

Reattaching the gear head with the instruction manual and notes from Harry close by:

Everybody feels better when they're a little dressed up, so we put a new blade on, too:

We checked everything out inside the engine and discovered that the saw's muffler screen was a bit clogged up.

So, we removed the muffler screen, covered the hole, and took it out to clean it.

Ray then de-congested the muffler by burning off the crud clogging it up with a propane torch.

Stihl was a bit worried about his buddy. So he came out to see what we were doing to make her feel better. Safety applies to everyone, so Sally made him his own personal safety glasses.

Then we put everything back together:

Here's Stihl and the clearing saw - all better and ready to get back to work!