Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Wow. So far, so good. First, the oil leakage people have talked about: a) It seems you can prevent almost all oil leakage whenever you're not using it, by storing the saw with the fill cap facing up. I made a bracket on the wall of my shop that holds the saw exactly this way. Still, it makes no sense to lose oil through the filler cap while using the saw. The oil is there to lube the blade, not leak out the filler cap. b) I noticed that the filler cap has an indentation indicating it was designed and molded to have an O-ring installed, but there was no O-ring there, just the half round groove for one. So I went to my LHS (Local Hardware Store) which happens to be a really awesome shop for genuine builders/repairers/tinkerers, and not just a generic hardware shop. They have a huge selection of O-rings. I bought three, tried two, and settled on one. As far as I can tell, it totally stops any undue oil leakage from the cap. c) As far as leaking during storage, there seems to also be no issue. I had the saw stored, oil reservoir totally full, cap facing up, for over a month on the wall of my shop, and no mess/no loss. The cap and cap area also seems to now stay dry from oil during use as well, with the saw being rotated every which way to make cuts. Next, oil consumption: The blade uses oil. That's how chainsaws work. I don't have any real way to judge whether the oil use is more than it "should" be, but it's substantial. It seems that a full battery could easily outlast a full oil reservoir, maybe it would even outlast two fillings? That said, a full battery will do a lot of work, and the blade seemed to stay in great condition, so I have no real complaints. If you're going to do a lot of work with the saw, order some chain oil for backup. Oh, also, I was worried that maybe DeWalt had abandoned their O-ring on the oil filler cap in order to provide airflow for the reservoir, and that adding the O-ring might restrict consumption, but I needn't have worried. Still lubricates the chain and bar aggressively. Using the saw: I LOVED using this saw. I used gloves, safety glasses, and ear protection. It's not loud for a chainsaw AT ALL, which is a huge advantage in my urban Seattle neighborhood, but it's still louder when cutting than I wanted to be experiencing with ears unprotected. I strongly recommend ear protection for nearly all power tools. Did you know that you can't actually FEEL permanent hearing damage happening? So if you only wear hearing protection when loud sounds become physically uncomfortable or when they feel like they hurt, you are only using hearing protection when you're already WAY beyond the threshold for permanent hearing loss. The safety kickback cutoff works well, and can be used as an additional layer of safety if you turn it off purposefully when setting the saw down. The fact that an electric saw makes virtually no smell (I smelled a little oil occasionally from the chain bar) and becomes silent the moment you're done cutting is a total delight. I used the saw on a ladder to methodically take down a dying cherry tree between my house and my neighbor's house, and then cut up the main trunk and branches. (Don't worry, I know what I'm doing and didn't take any outrageous risks on the ladder. I grew up in Alaska, and had jobs requiring professional chainsaw use from teen years through college). The cherry tree trunk was about 10" at the base. I had cut a little bit of the canopy down with a tree handsaw a few weeks before I got this DeWalt saw, but given that I was only "one light down" on the battery, I'm pretty convinced I could have easily done the entire job with one battery charge, and had power left over. The chain and bar: The 16" Oregon chain bar and chain cut quite convincingly, but they have a light build and a narrow kerf (kerf is a term for the width of the material that any kind of saw removes entirely when cutting). A narrow kerf blade removing less wood allows a battery to last longer and do more cutting, but it also means the saw is a slightly more delicate tool than some of its gas equivalents. How to use it: If you understand good chainsaw technique, know how trees and logs behave when being cut, and don't ever make a cut that will pinch or torque the blade, you should be able to enjoy really good cutting, and get a lot from the saw without hurting it. It's also important to keep the oil reservoir oiled, of course, and keep blade tension reasonable. I loved that it was easy to pull off the drive housing and used the technique of blowing with compressed air while sucking with a shop vac to get the oily chips and debris out before I stored it back on the wall. I think it's important to understand that you'll run into trouble if you want to use the saw indiscriminately. There is a LOT of bad chainsaw technique you can get into if you think that a chainsaw should cut anything in any position under any stress or weight. Most of it is bad for the saw, and some of it is dangerous for the user. Go slow, and learn from an expert if you possibly can.