Death Of A GB Bar

[Artemis]

I was helping my neighbour mill up some slabs of Doug fir with my homemade Haddon lumber maker. The first 3 slabs were beautiful and the saw functioned as it should. The 4th slab started just fine but wound up very out of shape by the end. My 32" GB bar began to curve in the cut and we hadn't noticed.
The wood was about 34" in diameter so the bar was burried, and that gave us very limited view of what was happening with the bar. There was lots of smoke which we assumed was steam given that the wood was soaked and covered in wet snow.
The cut wasn't long, only about 5 feet, but near the end we could start to smell burning wood and knew something was up. Sure enough the bar had blued and been bent permanently in a curve.
I'm not terribly sad about it, in fact I'm kind of happy because now my wife will let me buy a bigger one
We finished the milling with my neighbour's 30 inch Husqvarna brand bar, and it worked as it should with nice clean cuts.
But honestly though that GB bar was the worst bar I've ever had, and I've posted before about the headache it has been since day one.
It was bad enough that I almost swore I'd never buy another GB, after all the CN40 titanium is hailed like a flagship model of their bar lineup, so you can imagine how let down I was that it didn't even function like a normal bar.
I'll give GB another try, but to that bar i say good riddance! It won't be missed!

 

[Big_Wood]

put it on a fresh cut stump and wack it right in the center of the bent area with a 3.5 pound or greater axe. lighter hit the heavier the axe of course, feather tap on light bars. still plenty of life left in that bar.

 

[Artemis]

put it on a fresh cut stump and wack it right in the center of the bent area with a 3.5 pound or greater axe. lighter hit the heavier the axe of course, feather tap on light bars. still plenty of life left in that bar.

trust me, this bar ain't worth it. I'm done with it. I'll probably paint it up nice and use it as a wall ornament.

 

[Big_Wood]

Straighten and a rail freshen up, get another year out of it lol have you done any maintenance on it? Still looks like the original tip, GB paint sucks so they look ****** in no time. How on earth did you bend that thing milling? Lol

 

[Adirondackstihl]

Yep, paints gone, time for a new bar - this one is junk.

 

[bwalker]

The fact that bar got that hot tells me it was a lack of lube and no fault of the bar itself.
Back when Inwas logging I had decent luck with the one GB bar I tried. I eventually retired it because it suffered from rail chipping, which isnt that uncommon with most bars used in snowy conditions.

 

[Bwildered]

I was helping my neighbour mill up some slabs of Doug fir with my homemade Haddon lumber maker. The first 3 slabs were beautiful and the saw functioned as it should. The 4th slab started just fine but wound up very out of shape by the end. My 32" GB bar began to curve in the cut and we hadn't noticed.
The wood was about 34" in diameter so the bar was burried, and that gave us very limited view of what was happening with the bar. There was lots of smoke which we assumed was steam given that the wood was soaked and covered in wet snow.
The cut wasn't long, only about 5 feet, but near the end we could start to smell burning wood and knew something was up. Sure enough the bar had blued and been bent permanently in a curve.
I'm not terribly sad about it, in fact I'm kind of happy because now my wife will let me buy a bigger one
We finished the milling with my neighbour's 30 inch Husqvarna brand bar, and it worked as it should with nice clean cuts.
But honestly though that GB bar was the worst bar I've ever had, and I've posted before about the headache it has been since day one.
It was bad enough that I almost swore I'd never buy another GB, after all the CN40 titanium is hailed like a flagship model of their bar lineup, so you can imagine how let down I was that it didn't even function like a normal bar.
I'll give GB another try, but to that bar i say good riddance! It won't be missed!

Good luck with that, you might find that it will happen again no matter what brand you buy, especially when there was smoke coming off a bar caused by a blunt chain, BTW throw the chain away also, it will be finished too.

 

[Bret4207]

Oiler wasn't up to the job and the chain may have been dull, maybe on one side. We sold a lot of GB bars and they were good stuff. Recondition it, learn, check out the oiler too.

 

[merc_man]

The fact that bar got that hot tells me it was a lack of lube and no fault of the bar itself.
Back when Inwas logging I had decent luck with the one GB bar I tried. I eventually retired it because it suffered from rail chipping, which isnt that uncommon with most bars used in snowy conditions.

How does the snowy conditions make bars rails chip?

Sent from my SM-G950W using Tapatalk

 

[Bob Hedgecutter]

I have used and still use a lot of GB bars and will rate them up there alongside most quality bars and a lot better than bars that USED to be quality.
Chain sharpness- lubrication- over zealous pushing/leaning, coupled with a homemade mill, can lead to longer bars doing funny things- regardless of the name stamped in them.

 

[windthrown]

I have bent Oz made GB bars and bent them straight again, and I am still using all of those bars. I have had a lot of them, and they are all holding up well. Rant all you want about them being crap, but they take more abuse than any other bars that I have (Stihl, Carlton and Oregon). Even the cheap Chinese GB bars on my small saws work better and last longer than my laminated Stihl bars. I bought about a dozen of them from Left Coast Supply (for real cheap) before they went under.

And I never throw a loop away. They can always be used for flush stump cutting, trash wood and potential naily wood cutting, and bamboo root cutting. I keep them past the tell marks for that stuff. I also keep old worn bars around for cutting that stuff with. But hey, one man's trash... is my treasure.

 

[bwalker]

How does the snowy conditions make bars rails chip?

Sent from my SM-G950W using Tapatalk

Bar gets hot on a long cut. At some point it touches snow. This happens enough times and the rail chips. Most commonly occurs near the tip.