Restoring a rocked chain

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husqORbust

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Hi, couple questions about restoring a heavily rocked chain.

Here are 3 pictures of the same tooth.
20201108_002612.jpg20201108_002636.jpg20201108_002531.jpg


Here are several pictures of that tooth smartened up a bit. This where my questions comes in. As you can see, its taking shape well, but the top plate is a smidge rounded still where its been rocked. My finger nail shows where I'd have to take it back to in order to get it fully squared up.
Im not fully done with the gullet yet.

Is it acceptable to leave this as is(with a smidge more C shape and gullet removal)? Or do I need to shave off ALL of the dinged top plate?
20201108_003612.jpg20201108_003600.jpg20201108_003233.jpg20201108_003832.jpg20201108_003815.jpg
 
Heres 3 pics of a separate tooth on the same chain that I took all the way back. As you can see theres a lot of wasted chain doing this.

20201108_002857.jpg20201108_002904.jpg20201108_002939.jpg


Will it cut well only smartening up the bare minimum? Durable? Or do I call it a loss and cut half the cutter off?
 
Just run it and continue regular sharpenings. No big deal.

Sharpen on the bar on the saw.

That was fast.

Normally I'd be on the bar but I was given 2 free chains with all the cutters pretty dinged up. Just playing around with this and then I'll put em in my spare bag.

Is it going to cause me excessive wear to the bar, or will I be fighting crooked cuts with some cutters shorter than others? Once I'm cleaned up I'd trim the rakers appropriately to .025"...
 
Try it.

It will be fine.

I usually just take it back until it will kind-of cut. 3 or 4 sharpenings (tanks of fuel) later it is all better until the next rock or wire or whatever.
 
hus it appears you are an amateur so you want suggestions as what to do with your chains. It does not matter if you cut one hour a month or 300 hours a month we all are at some place where we learn as we go. The links with the damaged cutters either need to be sharpened properly or replaced. The cutters need to be filed or ground as to where the cutter is straight to the leading edge of the cutter with no rounding on the top. I mostly hand file all my chains because it is fast easy and cheaper than any thing else. I have the skill and experience to do so and every one can learn this too, but it takes some time that not every body chooses this process. The damaged cutters will not cut well and they will get hot because they are skimming over the wood rather than cutting. I sharpen the cutters until they are in good shape and then file the rakers equally. The opposite cutter must be filed at least some with the raker also filed. As the chain wears it may be that the damaged cutters are the first to break out. Use some partially worn chain links in their place to use the entire chain. I have a bench mounted breaker and spinner which gets used from time to time. Chain breakers and spinners are easy to come up with or just discard chain and use good links out of it for future repairs. If you do not want to buy a whole roll of chain get some 25' or 50' and go make some chips. Thanks
 
Thanks Ted. That's probably something like what I should have said.

It was apparent to me that husqORbust has a pretty good handle on sharpening, so he will figure out how far he has to go to make a rocked chain cut good. Every damaged tooth is different, and requires more or less work to make good again. I just make sure the chain self-feeds. If it won't eat on it's own, it can't be used.

I don't get too, too serious because I know if I get it it close in one round, after a couple of tanks with touchups I'll be cutting like new, or better. I spend most of my saw time cutting snags and blowdown leaners, so I'm not bucking and bucking into firewood sized pieces. If my chain is a little slow for a bit it doesn't bother me too much, nor cost me much time. I have several saws so I always have several with "not-rocked" chains I can use if I want (for bigger jobs) until I decide to fix the rocked ones.

Murphy's Law (for me); take the time to sharpen a chain perfectly and get it just right..enjoy it for a tank or less and BOOM!, there's a damn fence wire, or a staple, or a rock stuck in a tree, or some damn thing. Not always, but many times. A lot of the trees I cut have sand blown into the bark near the base, so that is sometimes discouraging too.

husqORbust, you are definately on the right track wrt sharpening. You'll figure it out pretty quick, that is obvious to me.

i had another look at your pics. Your profiles are good, but all your fixed teeth actually need more work before you even run it. Not much more, just a little. Try applying some light upward pressure into the top of the gullet to concentrate on the cutting edges, especially the leading corner. 3 or 4 more strokes will do it to actually get it sharp enough. One more go around while on the bar...you really have to get rid of all of that curled edge. The cutting corner and side plate have to be crisp. The inner corner not so much. That can be solved over a tank or two.

that's how I approach it anyway.
 
Check out Buckin Billy Ray's sharpening vids. Particularly when he talks about "the boat". That technique saves me a ton of time when handfiling rocked chains.
 
Chains are a consumable item. Better than damaging more expensive parts, or getting hurt. Philbert

I go a few years with out worrying about chain until I get down to 50' then go and buy about 500' knowing that chain wears out. I am often watching for sales on chain and when I see a pretty good deal on chain I go for it. some times I end up with less than high performance chain, but never had any chain that did not cut. I was cutting near a base of a live Oak tree watching sparks shooting past me last week. I had already brushed as much dirt and sand away as I could. So I did not stop or flinch just finished the cut and looked at the chain to see if I had to stop or not. However I hate seeing sparks knowing the chain is going through a heck of a lot. Right now most of my loads are bringing at least $600 a cord so I can not let a few chewed up chains concern me. And once again it does not matter how the chain gets sharp as some use grinders and some people like me carry a file or two. Thanks
 
600 a cord? Damn.

Thanks for the tips. My cutters do look a bit fuzzy in the pic. There is a burr rolled up on the top and side plate but the finished tooth is SHARP. How do I get the burr off without inadvertantly dulling the razor edge?

I dont cut enough to warrant the $200 in tooling and having a $300 spool on hand to spin my own chains. I'm fully an amateur cutter in the sense I dont make money on what I'm doing, but I want my tools to operate at a professional standard. I really dont have much tolerance for sub-par equipment. Hence my questions...
 
How do I get the burr off without inadvertantly dulling the razor edge?
Just run the chain. The burr will be gone in a fraction of a second. Sharpening is a skill that you will develop with experience, Try different things and see how / if they affect the way your chains cut.

BTW - A tip for shooting close up photos of your chains is to hold a solid piece of cardboard behind the tooth so that the camera has something to focus on.

Philbert
 
600 a cord? Damn.
Thanks for the tips. My cutters do look a bit fuzzy in the pic. There is a burr rolled up on the top and side plate but the finished tooth is SHARP. How do I get the burr off without inadvertantly dulling the razor edge? I dont cut enough to warrant the $200 in tooling and having a $300 spool on hand to spin my own chains. I'm fully an amateur cutter in the sense I dont make money on what I'm doing, but I want my tools to operate at a professional standard. I really dont have much tolerance for sub-par equipment. Hence my questions...
$600 a cord is not much money for a cord of wood. I need to collect about $800 a cord to be able to make a profit. If I was not carrying and rebuilding saws the stuff would not be happening. To be able to pay a decent person $20 an hour that can not get as much done as I do there would not be much left over. However a $1000 a cord is not far off. I am averaging five calls a day for nice wood and about half of them never ask how much. I have delivered most of my loads for the past few months and price has never been brought up.

As an amateur you will need to do and spend as seems right for you as only you can decide how to get it done. You are wise to not take too many shortcuts and you will enjoy your wood cutting experience. As far as for myself taking shortcuts would make the cutting wood experience non rewarding too. Thanks
 
For the amount of work it takes to pull a cord out of the woods, I know $600 isnt that much. We're allegedly $220USD ($280CAD) for a cord in the interior of BC where wood is plenty. I say allegedly because I havent ever picked up the phone and made an order or boughten a cord. That price figure is as of 5 minutes ago punching "firewood" into kijiji in my area. You sure as heck wont find me out there in the woods felling and bucking cords to sell em for $280. Maybe theres more to it that I'm missing (quality of wood and etc.) But I'm not that experienced at the whole deal. I just figured the $600 USD range is getting closer to the it'd be worth doing to sell at that price point.

Threads getting a bit off topic but thats alright. I'm interested in the info of demographics.

As for something related to the sharpening of chains... I'm just using the flat style depth gauge with the slot in the center to make my .025 depth. I understand that it is basing it off of 2 or 3 cutters height to make the slot index on the raker it's filing. If the 3 cutters are at different lenghts it makes the tool able to rock either up or down, depending on if it's pushed down on the forward tooth or down on the rearward tooth. That would then make the specific tooth youre setting the depth for either a smidge deeper than .025 or a smidge shallower. And so on and so forth and you end up with rakers that are inconsistent to the actual cutter it's gauging.

Does that variance on either side of the .025 tool matter when dealing with cutters of various lengths?

I guess to make each raker .025" to the exact cutter would involve some sort of different jig to make it efficient to zero in on 1 cutter:raker at a time without completely wasting time...

Whats the authourity on that?
 
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