Learned hand sharpening recently, thanks Covid19

Arborist Forum

Help Support Arborist Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

deepwoodbigbear

Just get me close
Joined
Dec 23, 2012
Messages
83
Reaction score
59
Location
Lost in Ohio
Well with all this extra time on my hands I decide to give hand sharpening a shot and started perfecting my method. You guys that say it is the best way to sharpen are right on point, I am very impressed with the results! I now have an electric grinder for sale.
 
Well with all this extra time on my hands I decide to give hand sharpening a shot and started perfecting my method. You guys that say it is the best way to sharpen are right on point, I am very impressed with the results! I now have an electric grinder for sale.
I keep the grinder for if I really eff up or every so often just to "square" things back up evenly. I agree though, a file job is sharper, and if the time is available it's fun to sit down and do one.
 
Well with all this extra time on my hands I decide to give hand sharpening a shot and started perfecting my method. You guys that say it is the best way to sharpen are right on point, I am very impressed with the results! I now have an electric grinder for sale.

Sold my grinder last year after finally learning to hand file. Never looked back.
 
Yep, I kept my grinder for a year or two thinking I might use it to restore a badly rocked chain. But even if I go to the trouble of grinding a chain, then I still have to file it to get it right. The grinder just won't sharpen well enough for me. So I finally donated my grinder to our fire dept. garage sale last year.

I buy Woodland Pro chains from Bailey's when they go on sale for 10 chains for $100. At $10 each, if a chain is half-used or more and it gets badly dull, I toss it and start with a new one.
 
I hand file primarily but I’m looking to buy a grinder (know a guy locally that is selling) so I can square up rocked chains.

The worst chains I get always come on used saws I pick up. I couldn’t get them that bad if I tried lol. They almost always need a machine grind or like 50 strokes per tooth lol.
 
:thisthreadisworthlesswithoutpictures:

Once I learned how to hand sharpen with a round file in the gullet to open up the gullet under the cutting edge for chip clearance and a file n guide for the top edge of the cutter. My Oregon grinder collected dust it just sat there.

On 3/8” chain I use a 3/16” round file to open up the gullet, I put a 7/32” file in the file n guide just to sharpen the upper part of the cutting edge. I don’t use one size file to do it all.

If you file the tooth with one size file like a 7/32” file on 3/8” chain your forcing the wood chip to curl inside the tooth. This slows down the exhaust of the wood chips that follow. I guess I need to do pics.
 
Buckin' Billy Ray on YouTube has some great videos on getting down in the gullet in order to get a nice beak on the working corner. All my life the sharpening instructions said not to have a beak on the working corner! Following Billy Ray's method of a few strokes to clean out the gullet allows the file to come up under the top plate and gives a great edge and sharp corner. I'm a believer. I also learned I was using my double bevel file wrong for square filing. I'm not a huge fan of square filing because I frequently cut dirty logs, but I'm looking forward to trying the double-bevel Buckin's way just to see. If I can square file in the field, I may give it a go for the summer cutting.
 
My problem in the beginning was sharpening the upper edge of the tooth was tough trying to get a straight cutting edge while doing the gullet at the same time. I do the gullet separate below the tooth’s cutting edge. The file n guide cuts the upper edge, it bevels the upper edge so the chip doesn’t curl into the gullet so tight. In the field cutting only the file n guide is needed. One swipe at the gas up time does it.
 
Back
Top