Was the Oregon crosscut chain already broken in or also new? Really rare for any manufacturer to set rakers too deep on new ripping chain. But I've found really sharp new teeth can still be grabby with standard shallow raker depths. I don't want to judge a manufacturing process I'm not sure about, but I gather Granberg has to custom grind regular size teeth to create their scoring cutters, and that can create an inconsistent product. I like their design idea, but if the teeth aren't manufactured in the first place in the alternate widths with perfect consistency, it opens up too much room for error to grind them that way. It's like the Woodland Pro lopro ripping chain Bailey's is selling in recent years. Some factory seems to have decided to save a buck by regrinding crosscut chain to ripping chain angle for them, leading to wildly inconsistent tooth lengths. I'd never seen it before in new chain. I thought I got one bad one, but someone else who bought it a year later found the same thing. I like Granberg, their mills are far superior to knockoffs, their bars seem to be good, but they might wanna give up on making ripping chain if they can't do it right.
Bad chain is everywhere now. Paying extra for ripping chain is a no go for me running 100- 170 dl per loop. Grinding them doesn't fix the "bad cutter" that is usually offset or bent as produced. Fine those and you find the problem child or children so to speak. 404 68LX has been the most consistent off the reel with Oregon 375 050 full chisel full comp a close second. Stihl chain has few and far between with bad or whackedout cutters ime. Carlton chain was also good. Nothing else seems to hold up on the mill but old chain I might find from old North America manufacturers or European made reels.
to mill with or buck dead dry oaks. Too much stretch and it dulls quickly.Nice to see another lowpro enthusiast on here! My old setup was a 45cc husky running a 24” 3/8 std bar with a custom spun 3/8LP full skip chain. Probably did 30x 20-24” logs with that setup before splurging on a 2186. Now I run a 36” 3/8 .050 stihl bar with 115 links of 63PMX and the cut quality and speed is amazing. I’m now venturing into 50” bar territory and wasn’t sure if 86cc was enough to pull full comp 63PMX. I had entertained the idea of doing a grandberg grind on 63PMX but couldn’t find any long .050 bars besides the big money ones from the UK. Then I saw grandberg makes a “skip rip” 404 chain now which starts as a full skip chain then they apply a grandberg style grind to it. I’m testing it with the cheap 42” large mount stihl bar+adapter to make sure it pulls and oils ok before throwing down for the big boy 59” with the same skip rip chain. Hopefully I don’t have the same washboarding issues
There are a few of us lo pro folks who know how great it can work, good to see, though seemed there was way more discussion of it 10-12 years ago on here when everyone had to custom rig their lo pro setups with nothing but chain readily available, and people were machining down 8 pin .404 sprockets to 3/8LP, and putting LP nose sprockets on their bars. I'm a relative latecomer, I was interested for awhile but didn't jump in til I could get the whole bar/sprocket/chain package from the UK and understood it better. Now I've learned enough I've been able to share some useful knowledge with the UK people to help them with their offerings.
So the beauty of low pro is that it runs fine on std 3/8 drive and nose sprockets. So you can just change chains from 3/8 std to 3/8LP without messing with swapping rims and bars. When I shop for bars I just search for the length I want in 3/8 .050 and then I’m not paying the 5x inflated prices GB likes to charge.
That's interesting, people argued that back and forth a lot in the past about running LP on std 3/8 gear. Some found it okay, others said it would wear out your sprockets a lot faster due to the slight mismatch. I would assume though that you can't wear your teeth down as far on standard bars because at some point they're almost no wider than the bar and the bar binds up. LP bars are thinner. A guy in Missouri who I talked a lot with on another forum said that eventually got to be an issue with the standard bars he ran. I think he told me he used to get nose sprockets from Baileys but he hadn't bought anything new for his LP setups in years, and I've never seen anyone selling LP nose sprockets. I actually got all my 36" GB lo pro stuff from Chainsawbars as ex-demo packages at stupid cheap prices so didn't pay more than std gear, fair bit less actually for three 36" bars, three chains, and a sprocket. Oh yeah, I just got an ancient McCulloch w a pulley style roller nose you can run anything on, I could take it off and put it on a std long bar. That's the other solution I guess for making a std bar universal. But over 42" I haven't seen any decent bars at a decent price for the last few years, new or second hand. Waiting for this mob of enthusiasts who discovered milling during COVID to get bored with it and sell all their gear.
Why not get some standard skip 3/8 chain & do your own granberg style grind on it.
Add a drip feed axillary oil supply.
Skip sets not full skip was what I said. I don't really like full skip sequence chain we commonly see available.
3/8lp does not run right on regular 3/8 nose sprockets most times. If the rim is off the nose is off. How much depends on wear and manufacturers. It can be done but most people chewup both ends before they realize it wasn't a smooth mesh together.
Didn't mean to misrepresent what you said. I just meant you said it was time to move up to some form of skip, not normal full skip necessarily, I know we're on the same page about the skip sets.
Have an interesting bar off a 1960's McCulloch 250, I picked the saw up on a whim for $50. Don't know whether to keep the bar with the saw to make a better package for a collector, or cannibalize it for my lo pro gear. It's a 25" bar .050 gauge with a pulley roller tip. Can run anything .050, was designed for McCulloch's odd .404 .050 setups. Be a nice 25" lo pro bar if I modified the 9.5mm slot in the tail to 12mm for a Stihl and drilled new oil holes.
I still find long bars if I go looking. Most are found in places where old saws hide.
Sell it to me. I need an 050 404 bar for my nice 250 McCullough to move along for others to enjoy. Like it to leave as a complete working runner for gtg stuff. The saw is an original clean surviving runner.
Will think about it. Same boat with mine, though not a complete working runner at moment. I think it likely just needs rings, no more, though. Nice shape otherwise, good Tillotson carb. I don't need a lo pro bar in that size really so probably better kept w the McCulloch. Will hang on to it a bit more til I figure out if I have time or inclination to get the McCulloch going, will sell you the bar if I don't. Saw had just enough compression to run when I bought it, but on the 16:1 40 weight mix, and not that great, when I switched to 40:1 two cycle will only sputter and die.
