4 ms·

While we're doing that, can we please also ban 2-stroke engines used for landscaping. The gasoline fumes mixed with small particles that get kicked up are abso

While we're doing that, can we please also ban 2-stroke engines used for landscaping. The gasoline fumes mixed with small particles that get kicked up are absolutely noxious and can't possibly be good for you. This is especially egregious in dense suburban areas, where there's landscaping going on _every_ single day of the growing season.

formerly_proven 3y ago
> While we're doing that, can we please also ban 2-stroke engines used for landscaping. Why only for landscaping? These fucks need to be banned, period. It was a huge mistake to ban them in vehicles while grandfathering all the old crap in. Unfortunately mechanics keep decade-old two-stroke junk alive, and spare parts aren't even banned.
- 3-cheese-sundae 3y ago
  How exactly would you propose spare parts get banned?
  - ethbr1 3y ago
    Spare parts are manufactured and supplied into channels. If you ban that, inventory eventually depletes, and people shift to alternatives. Similar to freon. I would maintain a carve-out for chainsaws. Low use, specialty requirements, and electric alternatives can't replicate.
    - mcpackieh 3y ago
      > Spare parts are manufactured and supplied into channels. If you ban that [...] Easier said than done. You'd need to impose BATFE-style regulations and measures. You're talking about arresting people for selling partially manufactured parts, parts which they claim are actually for other things, plans for parts paired with uncut sheet metal, etc. Is a clutch illegal to manufacture if it happens to fit on some model of two-stroke motor, even though it could also be used for other things? Have fun getting tangled up in these weeds. And the only way you'd stand a chance of enforcing this is by threatening people with many years in prison for what are non-violent crimes. People tolerate this sort of thing in the case of the BATFE because nobody really needs a machine gun, very few people have one in the first place, there's little parts commonality with other machines and because machine guns kill people in very visceral and obvious ways. But with two-stroke motors you have a whole ton of people who use these machines to save on huge amounts of labor (you're fucking with the way they put food on their table and pay rent, not just their fun at a gun range) and the alternatives are subpar. You exempt chainsaws from this, but that merely reflects what you are personally familiar with and consider reasonable. And even if the alternatives weren't subpar, you'd still be asking people to purchase new expensive machines instead of performing cheap repairs on machines they already own. Point is, the incentive and willingness to skirt two-stroke spare part bans would be much higher than with machine guns. Your bans would fail without extremely draconian enforcement.
      - Groxx 3y ago
        If you're aiming for perfection, sure. Two stroke engine parts don't have a massive legally protected cult following like guns, nor are they high-cost many-times-repeated consumables like drugs. They're closer to antiques - some will collect them, most won't bother if they're not available. Ban it and you'll stop major places from selling it, and minor places from widely advertising they have it. You won't stop anyone dead-set on continuing to do so, but you will stop most people because the cost will be higher and it'll be much harder to find.
        mcpackieh 3y ago
        If you're not shooting for perfectionism and won't bother to enforce a spar parts ban, then why propose a spare parts ban in the first place? Just ban the production/sale of new two-stroke machines, not the spare parts. As old machines wear the cost and effort of keeping them in service will eventually exceed the activation energy for buying a new machine. An unenforced ban of spare parts would accomplish nothing productive; it would waste your political capital and train a new group of people to have contemptuous disregard for laws. With respect to the antique analogy, you have it completely backwards. Antiques are things which have outlasted their practical usefulness but are kept around anyway because people have some nostalgic or aesthetic affinity for them. Machine guns fall into this category; they are essentially fetishes (in the traditional nonsexual sense of the word). Virtually nobody is earning their living with machine guns. Two stroke motors on the other hand are in active use by thousands if not millions of people to earn a living. If they were in fact antiques, then they wouldn't be a problem in the first place because antiques aren't put to use. If you banned new production of two-stroke machines, the ones that already exist would gradually become antiques despite the existence of legal spare parts, and eventually the only people keeping them in running order would be the antique geeks who own it because they like it, not because they earn a living with it. The people who are actively earning a living with two stroke motors today are the people you [should] have a gripe with, the lawn care guys who run two-stroke leaf blowers in your neighborhood aren't antique collectors doing it for fun, they're guys trying to feed their children.
        deleted 3y ago
- toomim 3y ago
  [flagged]
iancmceachern 3y ago
California just did this
- imoverclocked 3y ago
  Yeah, but my Stihl MS880 is still legal here in California… and likely will be for some time. Good luck getting a usable, heavy-duty chainsaw to work on any tech besides a two-stroke motor of some kind.
  - Scoundreller 3y ago
    What’s the barrier to making a li-ion powered electric and “usable heavy-duty chainsaw”?
    - imoverclocked 3y ago
      I have a Stihl combi-system which includes a polesaw attachment. It’s electric with a lithium ion battery backpack that weighs at least 20 lbs. I love the thing. I’ve felled trees that are up to 8 inches in diameter and done some real cleanup work around my property with it. It might be possible to make something for me but the average heavy chainsaw user needs to be able to trek into the woods and spend significant time away from any power source. Furthermore, I want to be nimble and able to drop everything and run when a tree starts moving. A heavy weight strapped to my back for real tree work is a death trap. Firefighters have even more stringent requirements for their chainsaws in highly demanding environments. If you want to convince anyone that an electric chainsaw is workable, convince them first. Everyone else will be easier. I use my bigger chainsaws for bigger trees (just took down a mature Monterey Pine that dropped its last needle) and some Alaskan milling. The latter takes a lot of power for a single pass. I’m already lugging 22lbs just for the power head, making that electric with similar capacity to a tank or two of gas will be completely impractical in terms of weight. That’s especially so in rugged terrain.
    - mech987987 3y ago
      If you want it to last longer than 20 minutes it would weight about 250 pounds. Chainsaws are at the very corner of tools that have to be both portable, handheld, and very powerful. This means that their energy source should very dense. Lithium does not come close for the big saws. Urban tree climbing arborists (that need a small saw to chop limbs while up in a tree) now sometimes use battery powered saws that run off of an "umbilical"- a cable off of the saw runs to a separate (backpack or other container) battery. These saws are among the smaller chainsaws (maybe a 12" bar, sized for chopping limbs). The other extreme is a saw for bucking and felling medium and large trees, which uses a MUCH more powerful motor and a 30" bar or bigger.

formerly_proven 3y ago

> While we're doing that, can we please also ban 2-stroke engines used for landscaping. Why only for landscaping? These fucks need to be banned, period. It was a huge mistake to ban them in vehicles while grandfathering all the old crap in. Unfortunately mechanics keep decade-old two-stroke junk alive, and spare parts aren't even banned.

3-cheese-sundae 3y ago
How exactly would you propose spare parts get banned?
- ethbr1 3y ago
  Spare parts are manufactured and supplied into channels. If you ban that, inventory eventually depletes, and people shift to alternatives. Similar to freon. I would maintain a carve-out for chainsaws. Low use, specialty requirements, and electric alternatives can't replicate.
  - mcpackieh 3y ago
    > Spare parts are manufactured and supplied into channels. If you ban that [...] Easier said than done. You'd need to impose BATFE-style regulations and measures. You're talking about arresting people for selling partially manufactured parts, parts which they claim are actually for other things, plans for parts paired with uncut sheet metal, etc. Is a clutch illegal to manufacture if it happens to fit on some model of two-stroke motor, even though it could also be used for other things? Have fun getting tangled up in these weeds. And the only way you'd stand a chance of enforcing this is by threatening people with many years in prison for what are non-violent crimes. People tolerate this sort of thing in the case of the BATFE because nobody really needs a machine gun, very few people have one in the first place, there's little parts commonality with other machines and because machine guns kill people in very visceral and obvious ways. But with two-stroke motors you have a whole ton of people who use these machines to save on huge amounts of labor (you're fucking with the way they put food on their table and pay rent, not just their fun at a gun range) and the alternatives are subpar. You exempt chainsaws from this, but that merely reflects what you are personally familiar with and consider reasonable. And even if the alternatives weren't subpar, you'd still be asking people to purchase new expensive machines instead of performing cheap repairs on machines they already own. Point is, the incentive and willingness to skirt two-stroke spare part bans would be much higher than with machine guns. Your bans would fail without extremely draconian enforcement.
    - Groxx 3y ago
      If you're aiming for perfection, sure. Two stroke engine parts don't have a massive legally protected cult following like guns, nor are they high-cost many-times-repeated consumables like drugs. They're closer to antiques - some will collect them, most won't bother if they're not available. Ban it and you'll stop major places from selling it, and minor places from widely advertising they have it. You won't stop anyone dead-set on continuing to do so, but you will stop most people because the cost will be higher and it'll be much harder to find.
      - mcpackieh 3y ago
        If you're not shooting for perfectionism and won't bother to enforce a spar parts ban, then why propose a spare parts ban in the first place? Just ban the production/sale of new two-stroke machines, not the spare parts. As old machines wear the cost and effort of keeping them in service will eventually exceed the activation energy for buying a new machine. An unenforced ban of spare parts would accomplish nothing productive; it would waste your political capital and train a new group of people to have contemptuous disregard for laws. With respect to the antique analogy, you have it completely backwards. Antiques are things which have outlasted their practical usefulness but are kept around anyway because people have some nostalgic or aesthetic affinity for them. Machine guns fall into this category; they are essentially fetishes (in the traditional nonsexual sense of the word). Virtually nobody is earning their living with machine guns. Two stroke motors on the other hand are in active use by thousands if not millions of people to earn a living. If they were in fact antiques, then they wouldn't be a problem in the first place because antiques aren't put to use. If you banned new production of two-stroke machines, the ones that already exist would gradually become antiques despite the existence of legal spare parts, and eventually the only people keeping them in running order would be the antique geeks who own it because they like it, not because they earn a living with it. The people who are actively earning a living with two stroke motors today are the people you [should] have a gripe with, the lawn care guys who run two-stroke leaf blowers in your neighborhood aren't antique collectors doing it for fun, they're guys trying to feed their children.
        deleted 3y ago
toomim 3y ago
[flagged]

iancmceachern 3y ago

California just did this

imoverclocked 3y ago
Yeah, but my Stihl MS880 is still legal here in California… and likely will be for some time. Good luck getting a usable, heavy-duty chainsaw to work on any tech besides a two-stroke motor of some kind.
- Scoundreller 3y ago
  What’s the barrier to making a li-ion powered electric and “usable heavy-duty chainsaw”?
  - imoverclocked 3y ago
    I have a Stihl combi-system which includes a polesaw attachment. It’s electric with a lithium ion battery backpack that weighs at least 20 lbs. I love the thing. I’ve felled trees that are up to 8 inches in diameter and done some real cleanup work around my property with it. It might be possible to make something for me but the average heavy chainsaw user needs to be able to trek into the woods and spend significant time away from any power source. Furthermore, I want to be nimble and able to drop everything and run when a tree starts moving. A heavy weight strapped to my back for real tree work is a death trap. Firefighters have even more stringent requirements for their chainsaws in highly demanding environments. If you want to convince anyone that an electric chainsaw is workable, convince them first. Everyone else will be easier. I use my bigger chainsaws for bigger trees (just took down a mature Monterey Pine that dropped its last needle) and some Alaskan milling. The latter takes a lot of power for a single pass. I’m already lugging 22lbs just for the power head, making that electric with similar capacity to a tank or two of gas will be completely impractical in terms of weight. That’s especially so in rugged terrain.
  - mech987987 3y ago
    If you want it to last longer than 20 minutes it would weight about 250 pounds. Chainsaws are at the very corner of tools that have to be both portable, handheld, and very powerful. This means that their energy source should very dense. Lithium does not come close for the big saws. Urban tree climbing arborists (that need a small saw to chop limbs while up in a tree) now sometimes use battery powered saws that run off of an "umbilical"- a cable off of the saw runs to a separate (backpack or other container) battery. These saws are among the smaller chainsaws (maybe a 12" bar, sized for chopping limbs). The other extreme is a saw for bucking and felling medium and large trees, which uses a MUCH more powerful motor and a 30" bar or bigger.