Now that's weird: I first saw this site when surfing with my Droid phone. It allowed me to post a reply WITHOUT making me join the forum. I'm the Lane Dexter above. Then I went back to this discussion thread from a PC at work. It wouldn't let me post until I joined. I would not let me use Lane Dexter (my name), so I tried Hamilton Felix and it refused. Then I tried HamiltonFelix (no space) at it accepted. So after considerable runaround (initial membership confirmation said I had to log in as Lane), I'm a member. Yay. I still want a heavy duty brushcutter/clearing saw. I want to use a 10" blade, with as few teeth as I can; one doesn't like filing any more than necessary. I sure wish I could still find a Homelite XL in good shape, but it's a bummer when your favorite tools are only listed under "vintage" or "collectors" sites. Sounds like I'm stuck with buying something that locks me into their proprietary blades. I suppose the biggest Stihl is my best bet.

Is your objective to cut in tight areas where a mower will not go and mulch or cut grass as a mower? Very little blade could be exposed out of the guard if you know the area is clear except for brush. Plus, a 2nd bar/blade could be mounted to hold grass to be cut. Or, think abut mounting the hedge cutting attachment on the wheels. Why not use a straight shaft trimmer with a hard blade for trimming parallel to the ground with 1 or 2 fixed wheels clamped to the shaft close to the head for control and weight? Why not reduce a mower’s body to 12” with a hard blade if wheels and motor will allow?

bob I just went through this with our build which finished in dec 08. Our house is in the blueridge mtns of VA - and we had a very dense lot of trees with a lot of nasty brush. We also had no idea of what we were getting into when we bought this lot and my goodness - and it was a tremendous amount of debris that had to be removed. I wish we had thought about this first - but I leraned a few things that might help. The big problem with a lot like ours is that when you start to push brush out of the way it piles up very quickly. The brush pile can get so large that a wheeled tractor might not be able to push it. We started with a medium size bulldozer with a blade to cut the driveway and allow us to get back to where the house would be located - about 700 feet in from the main road. The brush that was ripped (and you need to make sure they rip the roots out of the ground) was pushed into a large pile which the dozer ran over many times to compact. It really wasn't that hard for the operator to avoid the medium and large trees - but the smaller trees in the drive had to go anyway and the dozer just pulled those right out of the ground. So after step 1 - we had a rough cut drive and a large debris pile which was tucked away in a portion of the lot where we could hide it. It is a great idea to locate that spot before you start and think about access to it after the house project is done. Then the big machines came in to clear out the septic field and house site. This was a large dozer, a large back hoe, and a large chipper. They cut the trees down with chain saws so that they had long logs - about 20 feet each - which they neatly piled in 2 out of the way places on the lot (they were out of the way but could be accessed easily later.) The crowns and branches of the trees were cut up and run through the chipper. The root balls were dug up with the back hoe and pushed to the front of the brush pile where they could be accessed later. The additional brush was pulled up and added to end of the brush pile. When they were done clearing the various types of debirs each type was piled seperately. And each of these piles could be accessed by trucks and heavy equipment later for disposal - without tearing up my yard or driveway. You can burn brush but we opted to not go that route. Aside from the very strict fire codes and special requirements by the fire marshall when you do a large open burn - we were affraid to start a forrest fire. Once you get one of these piles on fire, you can try and contain them (if you have the right equipment in place and build a proper pit) but the embers are going to fly. We just didn't want to risk it. If you start a fire you are liable for any damage. Our strategy is to let the brush pile rot for a few years and we will then have the large pieces removed (big pieces of trees and root balls) but the rest will be crushed and either burried on the site or crushed by the machines and spread out on the lot as mulch. Once the brush has been weathered a lot of it will decompose and fall apart when it is run over by a large machine. Since they piled the parge piecs at the front of the pile and the smaller stuff at the back of the pile, we have some sense of order for attacking it. For our future clearing efforts, i plan on using a light machine (tractor, skid steer, or bob cat) to clear out brush and a smaller chipper to grind it down. With these smaller machines, I can avoid ripping small trees that I might want to keep and will certainly maneuver around large trees. Once I get the brush and smaller stuff ripped out and chipped, then I will bring in the lumber jacks to take out some trees. I will have the logs cut and piled, and chip the crown and branches just like my excavator did. I plan on doing this over a number of years, in smaller manageable chunck of land, so that I don't wind up with a giant pile of debris like I had when we first cleared. It is a good thing you are planning this now. I wish I had the foresight to see what happened and we counted on the builder to deal with it. He had a plan - but I am not happy with the end result. Some of that big brush pile is hidden in the woods but there is a good chunck of it that I can see when I look out the front of my house (that is beacuse we started to run out of room on the 1.5 acres in the front of the lot where we piled all this stuff). I need to have a portion of that brush pile removed because I am tired of looking at the mess. A DR machine might not be big enough for your clearing project - especially the first cuts you need to make for the drive, septic, and house site. I could see going in there first with a bob cat just or skid steer to clear a path so you can walk into the lot and site things - and those machines are very easy to steer around small trees. When you start to rip out stuff to clear larger areas - you will need a beefier machine like a dozer. Best of luck with he project.

I know what you are saying. I scream at Corona's choice of forest green all the time. Where is that d@mn thing. I want a fluorescent fuchsia saw. My job today is to paint the metal on the loppers. I waste hours looking for it on the forest floor and in the tall grass.. I have a 16" Stihl easy start chainsaw. Not too big . A lady like saw. I recommend the size. The smaller ones shake too much and don't have anti vibration bars built into them. I had a small Poulane "land shark" that tore up my carpal tunnel bad. It was months to get my body back to normal. If you go smaller than that , you are having to do a lot more work compared to letting the weight of the tool do the work. My husband use to call me Madame Poulane. That was a waste of money but I liked the name. We were a two chainsaw marriage. Daisy, I have mostly small trees. it is classic brush. semi arid Juniper brush with small "Spanish" Oaks , redbud, Escarpement cherries, toothache trees. The grade is intense. It is a rugged little gorge. Beautiful Wild orchids. I love it back there. But it is a scramble.