Best way to sharpen chains for dirty work

[muddstopper]

My buddy, who has a stump grinding business, asked me if I would sharpen a few chains for him with my grinder. I said sure just bring them by. Little did I know he had 28 full chisel chains for a 24in bar. My buddy doesnt cut wood and only uses his 395xp for sawing stumps as low to the ground as possible before grinding them. After seeing the type chains he was using, my first suggestion was to stop buying full chisel chains for stump work, semi chisel will stay sharp longer for that type of saw work. That doesnt solve the problem of the 28 full chisel chains I have to sharpen. Knowing that these 28 chains are mostly never been sharpen, but all are rock bit to some degree or other, I am just wondering what angles might work best to allow these chains to stay sharp longer knowing that sooner more than later, they will probably see some dirt and rock work while sawing off stumps. Normally, for a full chisel, I grind at 30* and 10* angles, and use a sthil filling system to set the rakers and this method works extremely well bucking clean firewood, but not so much in dirty wood. I am pretty sure these angles arnt going to last long sawing dirty stumps so looking for suggestions before I set my grinder up.

 

[Trx250r180]

When i cut stumps full of dirt ,10 degree top and zero on side plate lasts longer ,pretty much same angles as a milling chain . object is to get the outer corner as strong as possible ..404 is also better for stumping ,use full skip so have less teeth to fix ,it is also going to ruin your chain ,so if have some at end of their life may as well use them up for stumping .

 

[svk]

Only 28 of them? How long has he been collecting those!

I think Brian has good advice for you.

 

[muddstopper]

Yep 28 and I dont think any of them have ever had a file on them. Thats a good $6-700 worth of chains.
Not sure hat you mean about zero degrees on the side plate, are you setting your grinder straight up and down because thats what I would consider zero degrees. My grinder angle finder isnt accurate I set it using a new chain for reference. I think it reads 52 degrees and that works pretty good for bucking logs.. Anyways, I went ahead and started sharpening the chains the way I would normally, I think before I commit all of the chains to a new grind, I will just try one or two and see how he likes them before doing something and then haveing to redo all of them.

 

[Full Chisel]

I really hope he plans on compensating you for sharpening all of those...that is a lot of work!

I agree with Brian's advice...10-20* top plate and keep the wheel high on the cutter to reduce hook. Not sure what settings would be on a grinder as I file my chains but it definitely wouldn't be an aggressive looking cutter like what I would use for bucking logs.

Using chisel chains for stumping is plain silly...no wonder he has almost 30 loops!

 

[Trx250r180]

Yep 28 and I dont think any of them have ever had a file on them. Thats a good $6-700 worth of chains.
Not sure hat you mean about zero degrees on the side plate, are you setting your grinder straight up and down because thats what I would consider zero degrees. My grinder angle finder isnt accurate I set it using a new chain for reference. I think it reads 52 degrees and that works pretty good for bucking logs.. Anyways, I went ahead and started sharpening the chains the way I would normally, I think before I commit all of the chains to a new grind, I will just try one or two and see how he likes them before doing something and then haveing to redo all of them.

Hope this helps ,zero degrees is the bottom adjustment ,which is normally 10 or zero on a chisel chain ,you guys would cringe if you saw me use my square chisel in stumps ,lol ,i can sharpen either just as fast so i just use square for everything now .I hardly use round for anything ,the round grinder is more or less for cleaning the gullets for me .
set here at 10 degrees for stumping/milling ,gives the top plate angle

set the bottom adjustment at zero ,gives a stronger side cutter angle ,this is a stihl usg grinder for reference

On reg chisel chain i think a starting point for an oregon grinder is 60/30/10 or 0 for reference
on the usg ,i think 50 /20 /20 are settings to play with on usg ,for a good work chain ,if go 30 instead of 20 on the usg for top plate chain will dull faster .
here is a usg cutter with my work #s

 

[muddstopper]

My grinder is a Oregon clone from NorthernTool. after a little modifying, it works pretty darn good. Like I said the angle readings are a little off. For a full chisel, I use 52/30/10 and semi chisel I use the 52/30/0. That was about as close to a factory sharpening as I could set the machine using a new chain for reference. I found one chain in the bunch that is pretty well rocked, I will try a new grind on. I have a 24in bar for my 365 and some big knotty whiteoak I can try it on before giving back the chains. I still am not sure what angle to set the grinder up on. Thinking about keeping the 52 degrees and setting up the machine for a 52/20/0 for that one chain and giving it a try. Dont want to grind a bunch of chains and then find out they wont cut. I would think that using the zero degree would give more hook which would wear faster but maybe I am looking at it all wrong.

 

[barton174]

Wow, I certainly hope you're getting paid for this!

 

[muddstopper]

Paid???? Whats that?. I couldnt charge him for this. He's all the time plowing my garden or mowing my roadbanks and never takes a dime. I needed a goose neck trailer last week to haul a tractor, no problem, just come and get it. Heck if I was doing this for someone else, I probably wouldnt even do it.

 

[barton174]

Paid???? Whats that?. I couldnt charge him for this. He's all the time plowing my garden or mowing my roadbanks and never takes a dime. I needed a goose neck trailer last week to haul a tractor, no problem, just come and get it. Heck if I was doing this for someone else, I probably wouldnt even do it.

OK, good! That's certainly like being paid, just not in money!

Mike

 

[Trx250r180]

My grinder is a Oregon clone from NorthernTool. after a little modifying, it works pretty darn good. Like I said the angle readings are a little off. For a full chisel, I use 52/30/10 and semi chisel I use the 52/30/0. That was about as close to a factory sharpening as I could set the machine using a new chain for reference. I found one chain in the bunch that is pretty well rocked, I will try a new grind on. I have a 24in bar for my 365 and some big knotty whiteoak I can try it on before giving back the chains. I still am not sure what angle to set the grinder up on. Thinking about keeping the 52 degrees and setting up the machine for a 52/20/0 for that one chain and giving it a try. Dont want to grind a bunch of chains and then find out they wont cut. I would think that using the zero degree would give more hook which would wear faster but maybe I am looking at it all wrong.

the 52-20-0 should cut fine ,if you get to much hook adjust the depth of the swing arm to stop sooner .

 

[muddstopper]

OK, good! That's certainly like being paid, just not in money!

Mike

Better than money, you charge someone money and they forget about you when you need something. Let them owe you a favor, well some folks would forget about that as well, but I'll take my chances.

 

[CR888]

Instead of 60/30/10 try 75/20/0.

 

[GVS]

Paid???? Whats that?. I couldnt charge him for this. He's all the time plowing my garden or mowing my roadbanks and never takes a dime. I needed a goose neck trailer last week to haul a tractor, no problem, just come and get it. Heck if I was doing this for someone else, I probably wouldnt even do it.

That's what neighbors and friends do.Should be done much more often.

 

[muddstopper]

Instead of 60/30/10 try 75/20/0.

75/20/10 just sounds dull to start with. I have a junk chain I might grind a toot on just to see how it looks. It would have to look like it would cut before I would commit a whole chain to it.

 

[CR888]

It will support your working corner and tone down the aggressiveness of the inner top plate. Its about detuning the chain for durability. Of coarse whatever you try do it on 1 chain and give it a run. He would be much better off with semi chisel or carbide. Its that naked fine point on the full chisel you need to support combined with a less aggressive inner top plate.

 

[svk]

Just a thought if all of these chains were new and aren't rocked too badly he could sell them once sharpened and start buying semi chisel. I know that would mean you would have put a lot of time sharpening in for nothing but in the big picture you are going to end up sharpening these 28 chains probably 3-4 more times each depending on how badly he rocks them each time.

 

[muddstopper]

I agree about the semi chisel but carbide is probably out of the question. I did advise him to buy the semi chisel in the future. Right now with about $600 or so worth of chains, he will just have to make do until they are all worn out and not worth saving. Or maybe give me a few of them for my 365. I do think he took the "Never have to many spare chains" a little bit far. I was down at his place about a week ago and remember seeing a 5gal bucket about full of chains and I am pretty sure those he gave to me for sharpening didnt come out of that bucket. No telling how many "spare chains" he has. I dont see how he is making any money grinding stumps if he is going thru that many chains. Of course, I also dont know how long he has been hoarding chains either.

 

[muddstopper]

Skv, you must of been posting while I was typing. Not sure him going to semi chisel is going to help me much, I will probably end up having to sharpen them too. I think my best bet is to talk him into buying a grinder and help him set it up so he can sharpen his own chains. Sort of the ideal I have had ever since I saw that stack of chains.

 

[svk]

It's a catch 22. The semi will last longer but he will be lucky to get 30-50 cents on the dollar selling those one use chains.