Chain Saw

[picksbigwagon]

I posted this in the tool section as well:

My wife was talking about getting some shrubs or something, I was on FM so I was pretty much ignoring her, anyway, she said, "what do you think of that?" to which I answered, "Well, I will probably need to buy a chainsaw then" Had no idea what she had said or what "we" were talking about, but she looked at me and said, "Why don't you have a chainsaw yet? How much are they? I don't care if you get one..."

Still have no idea what I am doing to the gardens in front of the house, all I know is I have the green light for a chain saw. So my question is, what is a good Middle of the Road 18" chainsaw? I don't want to spend over 300 bucks....Brands I know that are out there: McCulloch (said like it gets caught in your throat), Echo, Husquavarna, Stihl, Homelite, and whoever it is that makes the lime green Wild Thing.....

Thanks for the help

[jltimm]

You mentioned sharpening tools.I use a hand file to touch them up, and it does a little good, but I'd prefer another method if possible.What type of tools are you talking about, and where would a guy get them.Do they cost an arm and a leg?

[BAIT956]

Powerstoke mentioned the toolless chain adjusting feature available on new saws. This is a good time saving and safety feature. It makes it easy to have the proper chain tension at all times. It is an annoyance to manually adust the tension or worse, use the saw with a loose chain.

Chain sharpening tools are another needed addition. I have tried a couple besides the traditional file, but haven't been really satisfied with them. I would be interested to hear other input on sharpeners.

[Bobby Bass]

I use a stone/file for chains on my dremel, you can buy an attachment but I find working free hand does a better job.

[Powerstroke]

As far as sharpening goes, there are 2 things to sharpen. You need a round file for the tooth and a flat file to take down the raker (hook shaped piece in front of the tooth. The raker height tells the tooth how much to cut. If its too hight you don't cut enough wood and if its too low it can dig too deep and bog down the saw or break teeth. So getting it right is important and difficult cause you're dealing in one-thousands of an inch.

Check out Pferd filing system. You'll have to google. Its a chain sharpening system that has both a round file and flat file in one and its set to get the right angles and depth on your rakers all in one stroke. Its fantastic. Its also under $20 and comes with 1 of each file. A box of files is also less than $20. I sharpen chains about every other week and a file still alsts me about 2 months. The average joe homeowner can make a file last a year. They can be found at Sherrill. They are Vermeer sales in Burnsville. check it out.

There are bench grinders and dremel type tools out there that will sharpen a chain, but the best edge comes from a hand file. ALso, high speed grinders can do just that, GRIND. They can take off too much metal and can also temper the metal from being too hot (ever seen metal turn blue when you're grinding it?).

[Powerstroke]

Its kind of hard to explain chain sharpening without photos, but if you are really interested you should understand cause you can go look at a chain to see what I'm talking about.

In the actual cutter portion of the tooth, the only part doing the cutting is teh forward most point of that tooth (not the raker). That point should be a POINT, like a fishing hook. The straight edge that tapers back towards the opposite side of the chain should be sharp too cause that strips the chip out. Its not cutting, just stripping the wood at the depth created by the raker. The round bowed out side of the tooth doesn't really matter and neither does how deep the tooth is.

The biggest mistake people make sharpening is they sharpen DOWN towards the bar instead of BACK into the extra tooth metal. By pushing down they are sharpening away from the actual cutting surface which is the top of the tooth. There is nothing gained by having a big "hooked" tooth with a deep throat that holds that round file in.

The next part is the hardest to free hand. The rakers. The standard is the make the raker .025" lower than the top of the tooth. HOw the heck do you do that? There are depth gauges and tools designed to sit on top of the tooth and you file over it till the extra metal is gone. I've never found one I like and it takes forever to do all the teeth. With the new file guide I mentioned above, the flat file is incorporated into the sharpener and is mounted at the right height below the tooth.

The next toughest part is you want every tooth to be the same size and length. That means if you have a bunch of teeth that got chipped when you hit a rock or some metal, then you need to sharpen them all down to the size of the smallest tooth. You also want them to be equal from right to left. If the right side teeth are sharper than the left then you will not cut straight. It will cut on a curve through the wood and bind up. Getting this part right is hard with hand sharpening and can be great for using a bench grinder or dropping it off to get sharpened so they all are the right size again. I do this any time my chains get damaged.

If you sharpen a chain properly it should cut like a hot knife through butter, literally. WHen I place a saw to wood it pulls itself through the log. I don't push or "saw" back and forth. ALso a way to check the efficiency of your cutting is to look at the wood chips. Your saw should spit out nice long chips. Saw dust or powder is a bad sign. It means your chain is dulll or the rakers are too high. In theory, a perfectly sharpened chain would leave one long continuous strip as a wood chip. I've had chips as long as 1-2" before and thats pretty good. Almost never happens though.

A little tip for getting the best performance out of your chains is to touch them up before every use. Take your round file or shapener and make 2-3 passes on each tooth. You won't take much off, but enough to touch up that edge, just like you do on your filet knife. I touch up every chain even the new ones out of the package. Its the only way to get a "sharp chain".

Oh yeah, and always wear leather gloves. It may be for cutting wood, but properly sharpened they will slice skin in no time. Also there are burrs and metal slivers on the bar but thats a whole nother maintenance topic.

[jltimm]

Thanks so much for the in-depth reply! I'll look into this tool you've mentioned, and to think I always wondered why the chain would not cut that great after just using the round file they sell you when you buy a chainsaw!