Bench grinders are great, you can zing along and sharpen a chain fast but their shortcoming is, you can only do this if each cutter is the same length. Many chains get damaged and only a few teeth are affected or you could get a chain that has been hand filed and all the cutters are not the same length so what do you do? The following seems to be the options.
1. Do you start sharpening the chain by just taking off the minimum and as you go along and find a damaged or shortened tooth, do you stop and reset the chain-stop to properly sharpen it and then carry on adjusting the stop as necessary to sharpen each tooth as you go?
2. Do you sharpen the whole chain by just taking off the minimum that will do for the bulk of the cutters and then come back and fool with the chain-stop to sharpen each damaged tooth as necessary?
3. Do you proceed as in #2 but ignore any damaged/short teeth, knowing that eventually with a number of sharpenings, all the cutters will get ground back to a length that will include the damaged/short ones?
4. Do you just keep running the chain around, taking off a little more on each pass until even the damaged ones are sharpened? In other words, do you grind back all the cutters until they are all the same length as the shortest one?
Despite the information in the owners manuals, we know that for a chain to cut properly it is not necessary for each tooth to be the same length as long as they are all properly sharpened. What we need is a grinder that has the vise mounted on a lever operated slide that would allow the vise to be advanced a small amount and then returned to a home position. With this feature, if you find a damaged tooth, you could leave the chain clamped in the vise, slowly advance the tooth and nibble away at it until sharp, then return to the home position and carry on sharpening without disturbing the original chain-stop setting. I have yet to see a grinder with this feature.
Anyone who thinks that each tooth has to be the same length should visit Buckin Billy Ray's sharpening instructions on U-tube.
1. Do you start sharpening the chain by just taking off the minimum and as you go along and find a damaged or shortened tooth, do you stop and reset the chain-stop to properly sharpen it and then carry on adjusting the stop as necessary to sharpen each tooth as you go?
2. Do you sharpen the whole chain by just taking off the minimum that will do for the bulk of the cutters and then come back and fool with the chain-stop to sharpen each damaged tooth as necessary?
3. Do you proceed as in #2 but ignore any damaged/short teeth, knowing that eventually with a number of sharpenings, all the cutters will get ground back to a length that will include the damaged/short ones?
4. Do you just keep running the chain around, taking off a little more on each pass until even the damaged ones are sharpened? In other words, do you grind back all the cutters until they are all the same length as the shortest one?
Despite the information in the owners manuals, we know that for a chain to cut properly it is not necessary for each tooth to be the same length as long as they are all properly sharpened. What we need is a grinder that has the vise mounted on a lever operated slide that would allow the vise to be advanced a small amount and then returned to a home position. With this feature, if you find a damaged tooth, you could leave the chain clamped in the vise, slowly advance the tooth and nibble away at it until sharp, then return to the home position and carry on sharpening without disturbing the original chain-stop setting. I have yet to see a grinder with this feature.
Anyone who thinks that each tooth has to be the same length should visit Buckin Billy Ray's sharpening instructions on U-tube.