Race chain

[troutfisher]

They're advertising the full programme at a forthcoming show on Seven Central (Queensland/NT regional TV) ATM

Apart from Tommy and Dennis continuing to say "wood is wood" I have a hard time believing that a square chisel race chain sharpened for poplar or pine will standup cutting Eucs but i could be very wrong too.

Will/lumberjackau races in both speed and post rip events, you could drop him a PM.

How about some more info on the Aussie racing gear? What is the wood, comparable to US hardwoods? Any pics of race chain for this stuff?

 

[J.W Younger]

Closest I will ever come to droppin a cookie is cutting the root spread off a stick of firewood thats too long.Still, chains intrest me and whats being done by the factorys and racers to improve em or make em faster is more intresting to me than modifying powerheads,but I like that as well.If a man was gonna build a chain from scratch would there be any advantage to using a narrower than.058 drive link?I belive all stihl chain is.063 and oregon is .058 unless its.063 guage,so is there any.050 gauge d/l available other than low profile?Narrowing.058 down to .050 sounds like a real PITA.
Not that I'm ever going to do it anyway,just gathering info..

 

[pioneerguy600]

Closest I will ever come to droppin a cookie is cutting the root spread off a stick of firewood thats too long.Still, chains intrest me and whats being done by the factorys and racers to improve em or make em faster is more intresting to me than modifying powerheads,but I like that as well.If a man was gonna build a chain from scratch would there be any advantage to using a narrower than.058 drive link?I belive all stihl chain is.063 and oregon is .058 unless its.063 guage,so is there any.050 gauge d/l available other than low profile?Narrowing.058 down to .050 sounds like a real PITA.
Not that I'm ever going to do it anyway,just gathering info..

There sure is, .050 is a common drive link for 3/8" chain by most makers. Stihl RSC in 3/8" is what I run on almost all of my production saws.
Pioneerguy600

 

[J.W Younger]

There sure is, .050 is a common drive link for 3/8" chain by most makers. Stihl RSC in 3/8" is what I run on almost all of my production saws.
Pioneerguy600

Not talkin about the guage but the width where the tie straps attach.

 

[pioneerguy600]

Not talkin about the guage but the width where the tie straps attach.

Just re read your post, gotcha.
Pioneerguy600

 

[the woolfe man]

Thanks everyone for the information.
I think ill just have to tinker around and experiment.
Thanks for the ideas

 

[tdi-rick]

How about some more info on the Aussie racing gear? What is the wood, comparable to US hardwoods? Any pics of race chain for this stuff?

I'm the wrong person to answer, lumberjackau is the man, but haven't seen Will on for a bit so I'll have ago.

The timber varies, depending on what's native to the area but it'll be Eucs of some description

lumberjackau has a you-tube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/aussieracesaw and they've used 'Bloodwood' (Janka hardness, 8.8kN) at a number of his state's shows. You'll find that whatever Eucs they use, generally it'll be harder than Black Locust (Janka 7.6) and often harder than Hedge (Janka 9.1) too and a lot of Eucs are very dense.
To give an idea of how tough it may be, if they use something like Grey Ironbark for the post rip (common fence post timber) it has a Janka hardness of 16.

Chains in the speed events are a closely guarded secret, but in the post rip it's generally Oregon 21LP (I was told 'Pixel' chain, which is the Husky name) with the top plate angle re-filed running 18" bars (+-2") driven by 3120's and 088/880's.
The post rip is an endurance event, so the saw needs a bit of a different setup to a cookie cutter and the chain needs to be pretty robust.

This is one of Wills vids of the Post Rip final at a big show that I've posted up a few times already.
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[PLAYINWOOD]

Closest I will ever come to droppin a cookie is cutting the root spread off a stick of firewood thats too long.Still, chains intrest me and whats being done by the factorys and racers to improve em or make em faster is more intresting to me than modifying powerheads,but I like that as well.If a man was gonna build a chain from scratch would there be any advantage to using a narrower than.058 drive link?I belive all stihl chain is.063 and oregon is .058 unless its.063 guage,so is there any.050 gauge d/l available other than low profile?Narrowing.058 down to .050 sounds like a real PITA.
Not that I'm ever going to do it anyway,just gathering info..

Bar width is the same. Its whats outside the bar width that counts, so your driver width isn't ever touched.Some bars have been thinned also, but only marginally
Take a look at a chain, its the tie straps and tooth width(curf) that's played with.

 

[ironman_gq]

Bar width is the same. Its whats outside the bar width that counts, so your driver width isn't ever touched.Some bars have been thinned also, but only marginally
Take a look at a chain, its the tie straps and tooth width(curf) that's played with.

If your talking about 3/8 chain than most of the stuff out there is .050. Husky seems to use the .058 on a lot of their stuff but most of it is .050. in .325 I mostly see .063 and .050. Not sure about .404 I never use it

 

[adam32]

4k.....i can't see anything you are doing other than filing off the back of the cutter. you mean your chains are twice as fast as stock with only this mod?

I have one of his chains. Definitely faster then a stock off the roll chain, not twice as fast though, and not built to run against a full blown thinned, dog boned race chain, but it would work fine to run up against your buddy or at a small show or gtg...

 

[J.W Younger]

If your talking about 3/8 chain than most of the stuff out there is .050. Husky seems to use the .058 on a lot of their stuff but most of it is .050. in .325 I mostly see .063 and .050. Not sure about .404 I never use it

I know nothing about .404 either, what I do know is carlton and oregon 3/8 chain uses a .058 drive link whether it is .050 or .058The portion of the link that rides in the bar will be either.050 or.058 depending on the guage.Both will have a.063 d/l in.063 guage.I don't have a stihl chain handy to measure but belive they are .063 in all three guages.This is all in 3/8th, no picco or low profile included.
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[ronT2]

I know nothing about .404 either, what I do know is carlton and oregon 3/8 chain uses a .058 drive link whether it is .050 or .058The portion of the link that rides in the bar will be either.050 or.058 depending on the guage.Both will have a.063 d/l in.063 guage.I don't have a stihl chain handy to measure but belive they are .063 in all three guages.This is all in 3/8th, no picco or low profile included.
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

Looks like you're right about the .058 gage. I just checked the one .058 gage stihl chain that I have and it is stepped down from .063. I don't have a .050 gage chain to check.

 

[MCW]

How about some more info on the Aussie racing gear? What is the wood, comparable to US hardwoods? Any pics of race chain for this stuff?

I am certainly not up on the race saw scene in Australia but did ask one of the larger Tasmanian Stihl dealers about whether they have any racing down in that part of Australia. Apparently Stihl provide saws for some sort of racing tour that follows the various shows around the state - at the end the saws are refurbished (with extremely low hours) and sold with full warranty at around $400 less than retail. It may even be along the lines of the post ripping that Rick posted earlier as a video.
The dealer did say that a few guys down that way self mod their saws but none of the pro fallers use modded saws. Basically all use stock MS660's and 395XP's.

I don't have a stihl chain handy to measure but belive they are .063 in all three guages.This is all in 3/8th, no picco or low profile included.
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

Correct

 

[PLAYINWOOD]

If your talking about 3/8 chain than most of the stuff out there is .050. Husky seems to use the .058 on a lot of their stuff but most of it is .050. in .325 I mostly see .063 and .050. Not sure about .404 I never use it

Up here .063 Stihl is almost extinct almost exclusive .050, Husky is .058.

what I was explaining was the driver width isn't played with, its above that that counts.The kerf.
The amount of friction created.
Make the "cut" narrower,and its less friction, meaning less energy= more speed.

 

[little possum]

Why not run .325 for less friction, or is it too much of a risk because it is smaller?

 

[J.W Younger]

Up here .063 Stihl is almost extinct almost exclusive .050, Husky is .058.

what I was explaining was the driver width isn't played with, its above that that counts.The kerf.
The amount of friction created.
Make the "cut" narrower,and its less friction, meaning less energy= more speed.

This is easy to understand since all drive link will either be .058 or .063 a cutter attached to a .063 d/l will only be .0025 farther from the bar than a cutter attached to a.058 d/l because the difference in thickness is only .005".
If the D/L was.050 all the way to the top instead of the step down from either.063 or.058 the difference would be .0065.
When you speak of narrowing the cutter is all this done from inside the cutter or is some material removed from the outside of the side plate?I measured a new cutter and there is .008 taper front to rear with some of the taper on the inside.

 

[J.W Younger]

All the pics of race chain I see are based on oregon .050 chain and by the looks of them most started as 72 lp. Is this due to the thickness of the crome/shape of or location of the raker ?

 

[pioneerguy600]

This is easy to understand since all drive link will either be .058 or .063 a cutter attached to a .063 d/l will only be .0025 farther from the bar than a cutter attached to a.058 d/l because the difference in thickness is only .005".
If the D/L was.050 all the way to the top instead of the step down from either.063 or.058 the difference would be .0065.
When you speak of narrowing the cutter is all this done from inside the cutter or is some material removed from the outside of the side plate?I measured a new cutter and there is .008 taper front to rear with some of the taper on the inside.

Some chains have been ground on the outside of the cutter to give it sort of an offset at the front cutting edge, 15 degrees seems to work well to provide extra clearance and reduce drag.

Pioneerguy600

 

[PLAYINWOOD]

I'm not in to racing, just production arboriculture. Everybody loves a fast chain though and I'd love to give one of those race chains a spin. I've got a collection photos of a lot of race chains sent in here. The work done is amazing.....for instance....grinding off the back of the tooth until the witness mark......the dog boning...the beveled edges of other parts of the tooth...the steep angles, etc.

I give huge credit to the artists that can do it, grinding with a machine is more of a science but also very effective especially when you want to change a few degrees for different wood.
The chassis work is the last 10ths of a second.

 

[PLAYINWOOD]

I've never seen a race chain, can someone post some pics of a true race chain.

your saw porter makes a few chains, maybe you'll post a few pics of his.