Thread: is full skip chain for racing?

Im a residential tree service and have been reading about full skip chains. Not knowing what a full skip chain was, I did the google search and found out what it looks like. Now that I know what it looks like, I want to know what its used for. Since it only has half the cutters I see the time it would save sharping the chain. My question here is, do you lower the rakers to allow it take extra wood ?

It's usually run on long bars to allow extra room for chip clearance and to prevent loading the engine too hard; let's you keep the revs up.

It will also allow you to run a longer bar on a smaller head, cuts slower but gets the job done. A lot of tree guys around here only use 360 size saw for their daily work. Typically they are running 20" bars. So they keep a longer bar 36" to 42" with a full skip chain on hand in case they get a larger-than-normal tree in the bunch. Most clearing jobs around here are smaller growth lots.

I also have one for my 660 in case I run into really hardwood in a heavy diameter. But no, I don't file deeper on the depth gauge. I would think that would be defeating the purpose?

I like skip chain in sappy wood to minimize loading up the chips.

Cutting the drags down will place more stress on your saw, you don't need to force it to take big bites, just keep the teeth sharp, the revs high, and let your saw eat as it was designed to do.

I run a skip tooth chain on my 372 xp husky with a 36" bar. It takes alot less power to run it. I leave this set up all the time to make nice clean cuts on the big stumps.