I bought the Stihl one that Ol Thumper recommended, that extends to 14’. Has a 14” bar, and it will eat some wood. Non-extended, it’s 9’ or so. Not hard to use at 9’, but extend that rascal out to 14’ makes it a younger man’s tool if you want to use it a lot. This will build or at least toughen up my left bicep for sure. It is, for sure, a Big A__ Pole Saw. Not for sissies…

Yes Sir, I've got what was the biggest pole saw available that Stihl had at the time. It's either 12' or 14' extended with a 12" bar and it will straight up eat some wood. I'm quite a bit younger than you but it will ware you out if you stay on it for a while, especially with a hurt shoulder. Yes it's heavy.

See if 2 shoulder straps work better for you, one on each shoulder.
Love our Stihl pole saw and we've Husqvarna folks.

It has a shoulder strap, but I haven’t used that yet. Next big job I do, I’ll hook it up to myself. Haven’t even thought about using it so far.

They are powerful enough to cut a good sized tree but they will whoop you for sure! Tornado clean up the other day, by the end of several hours we had one guy holding the saw up one guy running the gas, we were whooped

juan and jose are the name of my shoulder straps.

Careful when using the pole saw, limbs have a tendency to slide down the pole right at you. Don’t ask how I know this.

I remember the first time I set out on our lake house property with a pole saw. Man I loved that thing. I flat cut some wood in an hour. Took me 7-8 hours to get it all picked/cleaned up!!

Yep, I’ve cut more than I wanted to pickup also.

When extended and it starts falling to the ground you aren't going to stop it the pole will crack in the middle it happened to me when I cut threw a limb and couldn't stop the fall and snapped it.

My neighbor had neck surgery a few days ago, and he had some trees broken up. Asked me to get the broken limbs down, so I did. Put his kid on the little pole saw and sicced him on a few jobs. I did the bigger stuff, which pretty much wore me out. Then I Kubota-ed over to our place, where the wife was waiting for me. She ignored the fact that I was soaked with sweat and my tongue was hanging out. She had all sorts of limbs she wanted me to cut down - mostly smaller dead limbs on the yard full of young oaks. I toughed it out and got it all done. Give that woman time and she can really think up stuff ‘we’, which is really this old white guy, need to do.

You got it figured out Poppa.

Congrats I’d like to get that saw!

I have a Stihl pole saw and I hate that heavy SOB. After buying a battery powered Dewalt I haven't used it in probably 2 years.

Use that shoulder strap and possibly add one for the other shoulder if needed, those are a game changer in handling the weight of the saw. If you ever happen to run over it and need some spare parts let me know, I’ve got more than a couple like new parts machines in the shop