After reading this whole thread I must say it's been very interesting.
Someone asked for a picture of a Husky progressive gauge, which I gather is equivalent to the type 1 gauge on page one? (I never knew Stihl made such a gauge.)
It is equivalent to type 1, yes. Stihl made them too, I linked somewhere in this thread to a video showing it in action.
I guess I'm not seeing the difference between one of these and the ones Hannes is making except perhaps their application to the task by way of the reference point on the chain for positioning the tool and most probably the material used for making the tool.
Yes. It´s all about the pivot point, it determines the cutting angle. I don´t know what material the buyable ones are made of, I guess steel
I mean: I don´t know what sort of steel they make it out of. Stihl e.g. mentioned on their homepage with older ones, that they cannot be used directly in combination with a file but only to look at it, when showing the newer ones they put an accent on that it is usable directly with the file. So they maybe made the old ones out of a 'softer' steel and the newer ones out of 'hardened' steel. There are many qualities of steel out there. I´m talking personally simply only about 'normal' steel and 'stainless' or 'hardened' steel. The hardware stores here offer these two types as stripes or plates. I used both of them for my gauges, but more or less out of the reason that they are offered in different thicknesses. It was welcome for my process that I have at least these two given thicknesses, and by accident one is stainless and the other one normal steel.
It has an influence on the gauge itself of course. On on side the use of it: hardened steel will withstand direct filing much longer. On the other side the production of the gauge: Try e.g. cutting the hardened steel with an angle grinder by using a normal cutting disc and not the one appropriate for hardened steel, and you´ll not be happy
(I tried that once; when using the right disc you see sparks and the metal disappearing, when using the wrong one you see dust and the disc disappearing
)
My point of reference for placement is always the back of the raker regardless of how the front slot of the gauge straddles the chain.
Yes.
If I could make em, I would..., because they wear out eventually
I explained how to do that
And be assured, I´m not the perfect craftman having perfect tools and decades of experience in this field.
You can even simply copy your Husky one if you´re happy with them. The difficult part is the squared cutout. When making mygauge type 1, I only made it out of the softer steel and I used a Dremel with normal drillers as cutting tool. For hardened steel this will rather surely not work out...
A good raker file will eventually wear down (or through) any gauge and obviously affect the cutting face to raker relationship (angle) over time. Granted it's a gradual effect, but another variable nonetheless.
Yes. Using a gauge made of very high grade steel should lower the wearing effect. Of course the gauge will last forever, if you don´t file onto it, but you file free hand and only control with the gauge. I do it like that. For shaping the raker I already have to free file, so... And I´m not feeling that comfortable when holding the gauge in one hand in its position and the file in the other hand, for me it´s better handling to file and the other hand holds the bar against.
I use a smaller file as I get toward the last third of a cutter. Where do I plug in that variable?
Good point
This variable and some others are neglected within the simple 'constant cutting angle' concept.
The thing with the smaller file is the following in my eyes: Because the cutter height decreases over time, you may come to a limit, where you can´t even use the bigger file due to a to high diameter. So you are maybe 'forced' to use a samller one. The other point is the hook shape of the cutter´s front. With decreasing cutter height, you get a smaller arc (part of a circle built by the file). The smaller the part of a circle is, the more it appears as a straight line. To maintain the hook, you have to use a circle with a smaller radius. Can´t explain it better and maybe it´s not the right theory, don´t know
Other thing to mention here at this point because it seems very suitable to me: It´s maybe a little bit the matter from what point of view you are looking to this subject. I see it like that: You want to cut wood. This work is done by the chain, by the cutter. In front of the cutter is the raker. The raker allows or prevents the cutter to cut depending on raker depth. When having no raker depth, you can´t cut, it doesn´t matter at this point what´s going on with your cutter, is it sharp or not,... On the other side when having no raker at all maybe nothing happens because your chain stucks. So we need the right setting between these extremes. Now let´s say we have a small raker depth. And a perfect cutter. You get perfect chips, but really small ones. So your cutting speed is very low. Now let´s assume bad cutters (not sharp,...) You produce powder, with a higher raker a small amount of powder, with a lower raker a litlle bit more of powder
Ideally you have perfect cutters and now the raker depth is more or less adjusted to your saw´s power. With perfect cutters and too high rakers you waste the power. You could use it to make bigger chips and work faster.
Overdoing this leads to the point where the saw bogs down or the chain doesn´t work smooth anymore or undesirable effects like kickback danger rise up. A balancing act.
What I want to say: Having a saw with ultra power, having the perfectly sharpened chain is not of much use when the rakers aren´t set in the right manner... The rakers allow to set the forces free or block them.
keeping in mind a saw chain doesn't roll around a bar in a smooth linear fashion, but rather 'rocks' up and down front to back link to link as it cuts through wood. Thus a taller raker on a longer tooth doesn't necessarily inhibit a shorter tooth with a shorter raker from grabbing wood or make the saw cut crooked or in circles as many would suggest.
I think: Yes, it rocks up and down. But this maybe can cover only a certain degree of variations in height. If a tooth is very high compared to the surrounded ones, it may lead to a 'lifting' off and make the other cutters not used. Or one tooth very low maybe doesn´t really cut anymore or at least with lower pressure and so a smaller chip.
And the cutter´s length has an influence on the cutting: I had already the same experience like many others with a chain having all left cutters having an other length than the right cutters (due to different filing / grinding). The chain doesn´t cut straight. So at least in this regard constant cutter length would be desirable
The progressive raker depth gauge maintains the right raker depth according to its cutter,yes, that´s one of the advantages of this type of gauges.
All that said, it just seems to me that the rear of the raker should be the reference point for positioning any type of progressive style depth gauge tool in order to maintain a consistently appropriate relationship (angle) to the cutting edge (working corner, actually) of the tooth.
Yes.
All I know is the various Husky gauges work for me for the various types of chain they can be used on and if I could make something similar cheap I would. In the meantime, they're 3 bux apiece.
They´re rather cheap, yes.
My point is, that you can actually make one yourself, that type 2 may be even better than type 1 and you can adjust it to your needs.
When already using a progressive raker depth gauge, most of the part is already done of course, my approach maybe adds the last 20 % in direction to perfection
Did I mention I run a chainsaw for a living
that was Scarry... Lol
ask him
