So how old were you guys when you started cutting on your own?

[Lightning Performance]

10 but only the electric at home. Slow saw. We, friends, cut other places. He knew.

 

[ajschainsaws]

Yeah 16 here , my father was a Hardwood faller and he wouldn’t let me use his Saw that was a solo Rex

 

[merc_man]

this is a great question and not one anyone but yourself can answer. If your immediate response was no way in hell you obviously have not been thinking this day would be coming. Not saying you haven’t taught him enough to go out with a friend but the question to yourself should be have I done my job of getting him ready to cut by himself? Maybe this helps maybe it doesn’t but even at 40 I still have a good friend or my dad stop over and give me a second opinion on a tree if it’s something I’m not comfortable with for any given reason.

So i do feel he is 100 percent capable of cutting with out me ther. Long as he was to just buck fallen trees. He has been on a saw since he was 11 under close supervision back then.
Now when i am ther he may be 100 yard from me cutting up a tree or i will be running with atv with wagon load to trailer. My biggest fear of him cutting by himself is if he ever wanted to try felling a tree and i have tild him non of that yet too soon. Falling trees is pretty risky if you dont know what you are doing. That being said i did basically teach myself to fall trees and i had 2 pretty scetchy ones when i first started cutting firewood for myself. But i did learn a lot from those 2 experiences.

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[ZERO]

13, MAC 605, could barely start it ... great memories

 

[MG porting]

Definitely did but he was good about it

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He probably was watching you at times and you never even new he was lol but that's a good thing.

 

[Basher]

Kids on a family farm got an early start on manual labor, I was steering the farm tractor on the fields by age 7, driving the manual shift farm trucks by age 10, driving a 5&4 shift road tractor by age 13, working around the rotary sawmill by age 12, by 15 I had the run of that mill and was in the woods every chance I could muster to fall lumber grade trees and haul them out to roadside with the MF35, load and haul them to the mill with the road tractor hauling a 40' deck trailer.

 

[ammoaddict]

So i do feel he is 100 percent capable of cutting with out me ther. Long as he was to just buck fallen trees. He has been on a saw since he was 11 under close supervision back then.
Now when i am ther he may be 100 yard from me cutting up a tree or i will be running with atv with wagon load to trailer. My biggest fear of him cutting by himself is if he ever wanted to try felling a tree and i have tild him non of that yet too soon. Falling trees is pretty risky if you dont know what you are doing. That being said i did basically teach myself to fall trees and i had 2 pretty scetchy ones when i first started cutting firewood for myself. But i did learn a lot from those 2 experiences.

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Make sure he has all the proper PPE, chaps, helmet with face shield, boots, gloves etc. Show him some pictures of people that have gotten cut with saws as a reminder to wear it. There are some on this site. It's a good reminder of why we wear PPE.

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[sawmikaze]

17

 

[Locust Cutter]

17 Unsupervised. Started playing with a McCulloch 35 around 13 which was a learning experience in patience and judgement. By high school, I was cutting on my own occasionally, but to this day (I'm 38 now), I usually cut with Dad, as that's time for us to go out, get a workout and not be surrounded by idiots...

 

[merc_man]

Make sure he has all the proper PPE, chaps, helmet with face shield, boots, gloves etc. Show him some pictures of people that have gotten cut with saws as a reminder to wear it. There are some on this site. It's a good reminder of why we wear PPE.

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Oh yes. He dont go near a saw without propper PPE. I showed him some pics on here a while back of someone who had gotten cut pretty good by the saw. Heck it even made me think twice.

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[ktmtigger]

He probably was watching you at times and you never even new he was lol but that's a good thing.

The farm I worked at was a couple miles away and I used the four-wheeler or mini bike to get to and from work but yeah he works for the town and definitely was watching at times

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[dmb2613]

Kids now days are not as woodsy as they were in the 50s and 60s totally different times. But the only saw we had back when I was a kid was an old Poulan 47 it took a right good man to run it lol

 

[jacob j.]

I think 16/17 is the age where most kids can do a lot of stuff on their own if they've been raised with good mores, values, and ethics. We give kids the keys to a car
at 16 here and cars kill and maim a lot more people than chainsaws ever did. I worked in a training program for wildland fire and we had plenty of 17 year-old
trainees who were fine beginning sawyers.

Farm and ranch kids (or those that grew up in the woods) are definitely a different breed though.

 

[82f100swb]

Dad first put a saw in my hands at 8 or 9, running it by myself but supervised bucking was not far after. Falling by myself I was about 10. By 13 in the summers off school if I went to the bush with him I was usually running the spare saw(42 Special by that time) on the other side of his strip cutting 8' pulpwood. Never actually cut firewood until I was in my 20's... LOL

 

[Dub11]

Still haven't ran a saw.

 

[WKEND LUMBERJAK]

Still haven't ran a saw.

It tells.

 

[merc_man]

I think 16/17 is the age where most kids can do a lot of stuff on their own if they've been raised with good mores, values, and ethics. We give kids the keys to a car
at 16 here and cars kill and maim a lot more people than chainsaws ever did. I worked in a training program for wildland fire and we had plenty of 17 year-old
trainees who were fine beginning sawyers.

Farm and ranch kids (or those that grew up in the woods) are definitely a different breed though.

I was kinda thinking the same thing. He can hunt with a gun at 15. In my opinion a gun is pretty dangerous just as a chainsaw is. And as you said can drive a vehicle at 16.
Oh man that comin up soon that he will be driving. Where did the time go. Although he has been driving stuff since ahout 12 so not too worried.

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[CR888]

This is probably a bit irresponsible, but I bought a MS150c rear handle for some stupid reason, I just wanted it. Anyway I hated the saw in rear handle config, my 201 r/h is a great saw but the 150 had a stiff trigger and I just didn't like it. (BTW there great as a top handle). Anyway my 6y/o nephew who comes to stay at my place loves it when I have the saws out, blowers, trimmers & axes out cutting up wood. So I made him an ax with a hatchet head with a longer handle of a 2lb H/B which is about 20" so he can safely chop wood supervised. He loves chopping wood up by 8y/o he was using my small saws to cut logs with my arms wrapped around him supporting the handles. As we fixed up an old MAC blower together so he had 'his' he kinda wanted a saw so I said when he's 10 I've got a saw for him (MS150 1 or 2 tanks through it). Time fly's & he became 10 real fast so now he's got a saw. He can start it warm and use it fairly competantly but I don't like him to go at it to far from my side. I still often stand behind him ready to take over should something go wrong. I don't think he knows how lucky he is to have the smallest pro saw of its day, I tell him not to tell his mum too much about using his saw... but that's the first thing he wants to do when he comes down to stay or play 'fireman-fuh-real' when we get out the 8hp fire pump light a few small fires and spray water all over the place, but that's another story...

 

[WKEND LUMBERJAK]

I started when I was 12 or 13 with my dad supervising he had a Homelite Zip 22 inch bar cutting firewood. I started my boy about the same with a Jonsered 2152. If I caught him moving / walking with chain break not on I would get in his a$$ good.

 

[KYsawman]

I was about ten, I grew up on a homestead in Alaska, my dad is a disabled Vietnam veteran said I could run his saw if I could start it, he was laid up after a surgery and we where low on wood, my mom started the old white top husqvarna 61 and let me go, She was afraid of the saw and told me I was going to do it, I was tickled to death to run it! I bucked fire wood in the yard, a couple years later dad let me start felling.