DOLMAR/MAKITA The Official Sachs Dolmar Dolmar Makita Dolmar Chainsaws Thread

[Wilhelm]

Any info on who is manufacturing the Dolmar PS-311TH?

It says made in Japan on the sticker.

 

[old_sir_henry]

It's a rebranded Maruyama MCV3100, only chain tensioner is different. Probably produced by Maruyama.

 

[Wilhelm]

Cool, thanks!
I assumed something like that.

My dad saw my PS-311TH a few days ago for the first time, she was sitting next to my PS-7310 & PS-6100 - all he said walking by was "What a sweet little saw, looks like a toy!".
My dad is not a man showing affection all too often, as such his statement means something.

 

[FergusonTO35]

All dressed up!

 

[SOS Ridgerider]

Looks like the 5105 is staying with me, I turned the other member onto a good deal for a new one on Fleabay. New bar and chain should get here today, looking forward to trying them out.

In other news, the Dolmar USA website has finally bitten the dust. Not surprising by any means, but still sad to see it go. I don't think I'll ever develop any interest in Makita branded saws. Since the Dolmar brand went extinct, I can see Makita quietly making a slide over to China (or another cheap country) production, which they already do for some of the line. This also means that some of the line will probably be completely unrelated to Dolmar other than the Makita branding. We already see this with the Efco 5100 and 5600, China made Zenoah clones which are only related to Emak/Oleo-Mac/Efco by brand name.

Dolmar isn’t extinct... The brand is alive and well, the factory is still in Hamburg Germany, and still sold as Dolmar in other markets. It’s only here in the US they’ve decided to call them Makita. Brand recognition is a powerful thing, and the Makita name is much more known here than the Dolmar name. All the Makita saws in the US are sold as Dolmars elsewhere.
The only thing that’s happened in Asia, is that a few of the models are assembled there, with the same parts they were assembled with in Germany. Stihl does the same thing. It’s just the result of cheap labor, and staying competitive on price.
The final product is only as good as the quality control the respective companies enforce, and I don’t see Stihl or Makita cutting any corners there.

 

[FergusonTO35]

We've discussed and cussed this topic to death. Makita is doing an even worse job of getting saws into dealerships now than when they were using the Dolmar brand. I enter my zip code into their website's find a dealer section. All that comes up are two Home Depot locations, including one that has been closed for ten years. Just a couple of years ago, there were several bona fide OPE dealers near me who handled the Dolmar line. Even though their marquee brand was always Stihl, Husky, or Echo, Dolmar at least was represented.

 

[Wilhelm]

In Croatia Makita suspended the Dolmar brand 2014.
Dolmar was not widely represented nor advertised.
The brand suspension did no good for the Makita brand simply because Makita is not known as a "chainsaw manufacturer" - the teal colored saws don't do Makita any good either.

The Croatian market is dominated by Stihl followed by a trailing Husqvarna - mostly due to brand recognition, quality and support are varying.
Having no true competition Stihl is charging dry gold for their products!

Echo is trying to get a footing with a 5 year warranty for both commercial and non commercial usage, and by handing out "try and buy" demo units to interested customers.
People don't even know how to pronounce the brands name, but in my town Echo is gaining attention after having been basically completely unknown.

 

[FergusonTO35]

Exactly! Makita is well known and respected for electric tools, but that doesn't automatically carry over to gas powered OPE. I really like the idea of the name Makita-Dolmar. That way, both names are represented and recognized.

 

[SOS Ridgerider]

We've discussed and cussed this topic to death. Makita is doing an even worse job of getting saws into dealerships now than when they were using the Dolmar brand. I enter my zip code into their website's find a dealer section. All that comes up are two Home Depot locations, including one that has been closed for ten years. Just a couple of years ago, there were several bona fide OPE dealers near me who handled the Dolmar line. Even though their marquee brand was always Stihl, Husky, or Echo, Dolmar at least was represented.

In Croatia Makita suspended the Dolmar brand 2014.
Dolmar was not widely represented nor advertised.
The brand suspension did no good for the Makita brand simply because Makita is not known as a "chainsaw manufacturer" - the teal colored saws don't do Makita any good either.

The Croatian market is dominated by Stihl followed by a trailing Husqvarna - mostly due to brand recognition, quality and support are varying.
Having no true competition Stihl is charging dry gold for their products!

Echo is trying to get a footing with a 5 year warranty for both commercial and non commercial usage, and by handing out "try and buy" demo units to interested customers.
People don't even know how to pronounce the brands name, but in my town Echo is gaining attention after having been basically completely unknown.

Exactly! Makita is well known and respected for electric tools, but that doesn't automatically carry over to gas powered OPE. I really like the idea of the name Makita-Dolmar. That way, both names are represented and recognized.

I wholeheartedly agree with what you're saying about the change of the name to Makita, and the handling of the dealer network. I think the OPE should have been called Makita-Dolmar, or the other way around, as well.

That's a far cry from insinuating Dolmar being dead, and Makita going with Chinese clones, though. Opinions are opinions, but facts should be facts as well. People other than us saw nerds read what we write here, hence my comment that Dolmar isn't dead, and Makita hasn't shown any signs of leaning towards using Chinese clones.

 

[FergusonTO35]

Not trying to be argumentative or disrespectful, but Dolmar is dead where I live. None of the former Dolmar dealers around me have switched to Makita, zilch. Emak has decades of experience designing and making saws in house, yet now they sell some Chinese clone saws with their own name on them, why would Makita be immune to this trend?

I need to restate that, I hope Makita is successful in attracting dealers and selling saws. I also hope that Dolmar Germany remains alive and well, even if their name is no longer on the saws. Stihl and Husky have enjoyed an oligopoly for far too long, and competition is badly needed. The problem is, all of this is highly unlikely to happen with Makita's current handling of the situation.

 

[qurotro]

I just don't understand why Makita is killing the Dolmar brand.

 

[Dub11]

I just don't understand why Makita is killing the Dolmar brand.

Simple. Now you only need to Advertise 1 brand and fatcats get fatter

 

[FergusonTO35]

There was a joke going around back when Mercedes and Mopar were married:

Q: How do you pronounce "Daimler-Chrysler" in German?

A: The "Chrysler" is silent!

 

[wrooster]

what a felling adventure today... you know that saying, "it could have been worse"...

 

[FergusonTO35]

Wow, that thing was a disaster waiting to happen. Good thing nobody sneezed on it!

 

[dahmer]

what a felling adventure today... you know that saying, "it could have been worse"...

Awful big straw.

 

[wrooster]

Wow, that thing was a disaster waiting to happen. Good thing nobody sneezed on it!

i had known for some time that cherry was in trouble. the woodpeckers were at it pretty good last fall, and they don't hammer on hardwood because they are bored. there were quite a few branches though that had fair amount of green leaves, and that led to some overconfidence on my part.

i started in on a conventional notch, pretty high i might add because there was a good size "check" right where i was going to make the back cut -- i didn't want that to split off and possibly barber chair a nasty chunk at me. so i tapped the chain on the back side above where the check was (you can see the mark in one of my pics above) and first cut the notch angle above that. the saw went into the cherry WAY too easy and that was my first clue. i cut the horizontal part of the notch next and by then big black carpenter ants were streaming out of the kerf. my cuts met and i pushed the wedge out of the tree. AHAHHHHHAHAHAHAH was my first thought -- there was at best 1.5" to 2" of solid wood around the perimeter, the rest was mushy dust.

i knew at this point it was a hazardous situation, since the tree could go any direction it wanted at any time and i had just cut a third of the wood away on one side. fortunately there was already a lean and most of the weight was headed the direction i wanted it to go. but all the warning signs were there and i told my on-location staff photographer aka my wife that this whole situation was dicey as heck so keep a wide berth from what i'm doing.

i carefully started the backside cut and only went in about the depth of the bar plus a bit. all that was really coming from the chain out was mushy garbage along with a smattering of actual wood chips. there was some noise from the tree and i yanked the saw out, shoving a 8" wedge into the backside kerf. at this point this was far from an ideal, controlled fell, and i didn't like it one bit. i took the hammer and whacked the wedge a few times, soliciting more noise from the cherry. there were ants everywhere now, just streaming out from all my entry points. in my mind i could visualize that there was in fact no holding wood at the hinge (what hinge?) -- all that was keeping this tree vertical was a bit of perimeter wood, as if i had plunge cut the backside. so i decided to treat it like that, gently and carefully cutting into a little bit more of the perimeter. more unwanted noise.

i set the saw aside, took another wedge, placed it about 30 degrees from the other, hit it 4 or 5 times, and the tree creaked, groaned, and then fell over pretty much where i had wanted it to in the first place. not a really fun fell though -- more that a few times i stepped back and re-warned myself that this was not a good situation.

 

[FergusonTO35]

We used to have a bunch of cherry and peach trees and they all died the same way. Funny thing is, the peach trees kept making peaches right up to the point that the trunk was splitting on its own due to rot.

 

[hump101]

We've just harvested a load of cherries from a tree that had already fallen over last year. To my surprise it produced leaves this year, then probably the best cherry harvest we've had from it. It will have to go now, though, as it is halfway across the lane so we have to drive around it. Amazing how resilient they are, though.

On a different note, I mentioned up thread that I bought a Makita UC3520A that the PO said the oiling had failed on. It looks like it hasn't done much work, but when I stripped it yesterday the bar was bent and the oil feeds from the pump fine, but the bar oiling hole was completely blocked. Straightened and cleaned the bar, sharpened the chain, and all is good. However, the small filter is missing from the exit of the pump, along with its clamping ring (P/N's 226 221 050 and 226 221 040). How critical are these, given the pump is providing positive pressure to prevent bits getting in? Despite the bar being blocked, the slot and exit were clean, though I think the PO has probably only just removed them, and then presumably lost them. I've done a fair bit of cutting with it before fiddling, and bucked one log after, but I don't want to risk screwing the pump.

 

[dahmer]

Ok, need you experts again. Was playing with the 9010 tonight and since I have OCD about cleaning a Saw after use I noticed a fair amount, to me, of fines getting past the air filter. My solution until I here from the experts was to work some grease into the groove on the bottom of the filter where it seats on the air filter housing above the carb. Any other solutions? Thanks.