OPERATING SAW WITHOUT THE KICK GUARD® DEVICE
WARNING! Hold the saw firmly with both hands. Make sure your left thumb is always on the underside of the front handle. Never over the top! Keep your left arm straight with the elbow locked to prepare for any sudden or unexpected reaction of the chain saw, and to maintain better control.
WARNING! Do not let the tip or nose of the saw come near any solid object | DON’T CROWD THE SAW |
while the chain is rotating. Never let the saw dip into the ground. |
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WARNING! Keep your body out of the path of a potential kickback as follows:
1.When making any vertical (bucking) cut, keep your body to the left of the guide bar, out of the plane of chain rotation.
2.When making felling cuts, alongside the tree so that the direction and path of a kickback would be away from and not toward your body. If necessary, angle the cut to keep your body out of the kickback path, and be extra careful to keep the bar nose in the clear.
PLANE OF CHAIN ROTATION
BODY ENTIRELY TO ONE SIDE OF PLANE OF CHAIN ROTATION
3.During all cutting, do not bend towards or otherwise “crowd” the guide bar. Cut only one piece of wood at a time.
WARNING! Do not thrust the nose of the saw into a pile of branches or dense brush where you cannot see whether the nose is in the clear. A high risk of kickback exists under such conditions. INSTALL THE KICK GUARD® DEVICE before attempting such applications.
| STRONG | |
| LEFT ARM | |
| AND ELBOW | |
THUMB ON | POSITION | |
FOR GOOD | ||
UNDER SIDE OF | ||
CONTROL | ||
HANDLE BAR | ||
|
GOOD
CONTROL
When starting a cut, be ready to control any tendency of the saw to skate as it attempts to penetrate the wood. Kickback will be a secondary reaction if the nose bar skates into something.
When completing an bucking cut, be ready to hold up the saw as it breaks into the clear, so it will not follow through and cut your legs, feet or body, or contact an obstruction and kick back.
WARNING! Limit your cutting to the range within which you can fully control the saw. Don’t reach out when cutting. Forces of gravity, falling branches or wood can cause you to lose your balance and increase the risk of injury. Don’t make any cut above chest height, because a saw is difficult to control under such conditions. It can kick back or fall on you.
WARNING! There is always an element of danger in boring, even when done by experts. Until you have become an experienced operator do not attempt to plunge cut or bore with the nose of the saw.
Make limbing and pruning cuts one at a time. Whenever possible, stand on the opposite side of the tree from limbs being cut, so the tree is a barrier between you, the saw, and the falling material.
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