Congratulations to Gregory Lively of Hants County, Nova Scotia, the winner of our Tough Jobs Tough Tools Contest. Below is Gregory's Tough story:

"My name is Gregory Lively. I work for the Department of Transportation & Public Works in Hants County, Nova Scotia. I am writing about the ECHO 510 chainsaw.

Some time after Hurricane Juan, the base in Noel Hants County purchased a CS-510 from the Tractor Dome in Milford Station.
This year I had a chance to see how tough this ECHO chainsaw really was. In September, the crew out of the Noel base had to maintain a couple of bridges in our area. We used the CS-510 to divide the bridge in half so as to keep traffic flowing. First an excavator stripped one lane of asphalt, then we used the chainsaw to cut through two layers of bridge flooring, which consists of pressure treated rough timber, rocks, asphalt, dust and nails.

I would never have tried this with my own saw, but this was the tool I was instructed to use. The conditions were harsh and we wrecked three other chainsaws, but not the CS-510. The vibrations were so strong they made the chain brake fall off and the oiler needed adjusting, but as the parts came off, we put them back on and the saw just kept going. Talk about tough! We used that saw to replace centre stringers before putting the new deck on the bridge. Our crew uses this saw for cribbing timbers, guardrail posts and large Douglas Fir stringers, etc. We moved up river to replace another bridge deck and again, the ECHO CS-510 was the tool of choice. This time we sharpened the chains more often trying for fewer vibrations.

The ECHO rang out loud and clear."