A Mini Chainsaw for Aging Boomers

By Larry Hodgson

My wife surprises me sometimes. Well, a lot, really. Like yesterday, when a medium-sized box showed up at our door. It was in her name, of course. (Therefore, it didn’t contain plants.) She snuck away with it, a mischievous smile on her face. Well, if she wants to keep a secret, that’s fine with me. It’s my birthday soon and you never know.

Instead, she came back with the contents 15 minutes later. Inside a black carrying case was a . . . mini chainsaw! And she’d bought it for herself! My health really doesn’t allow me to do much around the yard anymore and she knows it. I like the fact that she’s taking things into her own hands.

My Light Chainsaw Wasn’t Light Enough!

It was only last week that she tried a chainsaw for the first time. It was a small, electric one I bought a few years ago when declining health made using my decades-old standard model too difficult for me to handle. I was actually surprised to see her use it. Marie’s never be one to do any heavy gardening. But she did. And it turns out she had found it a bit too heavy. It tired her after only a few minutes.

But she’d found one herself. I’d never seen anything like it! It was so small, at first I thought it was a kid’s toy!

The mini-saw is only a bit over 1 foot (30 cm) long and the description says it weighs only 2.4 lb (1.1 kg). That’s with the battery. That’s about the weight of a liter/quart of milk!

It’s also cordless (it runs on a battery) and can run for 20–30 minutes. Since there is a backup battery, you could double that. But Marie won’t be wanting it for long sessions chopping wood. If there’s major damage or a tree comes down, she knows enough to get one of our children over. Or an arborist. This is mainly a tool for fast and easy pruning of branches too thick for pruning shears.

Even so, the mini chainsaw can cut through branches up to 4 inches (10 cm) thick.

There’s even an LED light so you can better see what you’re doing.

Inside the Carrying Case

The kit included, besides the saw and the carrying case, an extra battery, a charger, a spare chain, tightening tools, oil and even a pair of work gloves for small hands. Plus an instruction manual. And it comes already assembled. You basically just had to charge the batteries and possibly adjust the chain before use.

In other words, it seems to have been developed with a senior citizen in mind or possibly a woman. Now, Marie is not frail, but she did turn 70 a few weeks back.

The Supplier

The brand was SeeSii, a company from Guangdong, China. There seem to be other companies offering the same mini-chainsaw (or something very similar) in other colors.

What does it cost? Check it out for yourself online. I saw prices all over the map, from less than $70 to over $200. You pick!

Now, I’m not recommending this product, nor am I not not recommending it. It’s too recent. And I haven’t tried it myself. Ask Marie what she thinks of it in a year or so. We have a lot of trees and shrubs on our property. So, having a quick tool to grab when a branch comes down or gets in your way, but is just too thick to cut with pruning shears. . . Well, that will be handy.

All I’m saying is that this cordless mini chainsaw is cute, handy, easy to use and can be quite inexpensive. Ideal for seniors, women, people with reduced mobility and others for whom a standard chainsaw doesn’t cut it. But only if you’re dealing with branches, brush, etc. You won’t be cutting down trees with this little guy!

Just keep it out of reach of visiting children (you could hide the batteries separately): it does look a lot like a toy!