How much chain do you use up before you retire a chain?
- Thread starter GrizG
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My biggest is 105 full comp and yeah its plenty long enough so 116 be a good long time if hit something.
I have found that when bucking trees from about 10 ft. on down, your best friend is a metal detector. A basic model can be had very cheap, just one that can tell you is there is or is there ain't metal there. A few years ago I cut a large hickory about twenty feet from our cabin in the woods. I used a metal detector to find the nails, screws and various fasteners that had been grown over. When I had it cleaned up, there was a double handful of metal removed. It made me wonder if the previous owners' favorite pastime was pounding nails into that tree. I bucked the last 10 ft. or so of that 24" hickory without hitting a single nail.
This j-bolt was about 20 feet off the ground... turns out it had been used as a clothes line anchor many years before!
I often cut on old farm lands and fencing, fencing staples, nails, etc. are very common. Yes most of the stuff is under 6 or 7 feet from the ground but there are times...
fool skip
ArboristSite Operative
If I don't rock a chain, I'll use it till it's throwing teeth. If it's rocked I'll toss it if it's had more than a couple sharpens
I rocked a chain last week... Ugh... 84 drivers and it took 20-30 strokes on each tooth to sharpen it. This was one of those "I'm not going to let a rock beat me" experiences.
I rocked a chain last week... Ugh... 84 drivers and it took 20-30 strokes on each tooth to sharpen it. This was one of those "I'm not going to let a rock beat me" experiences.
20-30 strokes per tooth? With a new sharp file- that should equate to about half the viable tooth length gone in dust.
This one log had been rolled, pushed, dragged by machine to this final resting spot- fair bit of dirt and stone lodged on the outside- thats a 36"bar, full comp 3/8 chain and 114 drive links- all bought back to good with a hand file.
But to answer the original question- I keep filing until the top plate is no longer viable- the plate is less than the chain width, then they are retired.
They may be well off the front line before that- but they are handy for stumping- or trees that might have been fence posts for wire fences in a former life...... as others have noted earlier.
That's about right... That chain had only had two minor filings prior to that incident and it's half or more gone now! It took that amount of filing to get the tip of the tooth back to being the high point on the tooth...
The one I mentioned earlier in the thread took more strokes than that. There was damage on the outside edge of the chisel tooth for almost half of the cutter. Ended up having one side of cutters significantly longer that the other but with rakers set right on both sides the chain cut great.
This one was fun. I can’t take credit for it though, it came with the saw.
Yeah especially when you are cutting in a rubble field like I have to around my house!Yep, when you have to file that much steel into dust, it kind of makes you think about the old carpenters rule of "check twice- cut once", especially when running long bars and many cutter chains.
I cut off one of the opposing side and make semi-semi skip chain!
Ryan'smilling
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Cutting stumps with a 114 dl chain was what made me buy a grinder. I haven't run my Cannon that takes 156dl, but I'm thinking those loops probably won't ever see a file. Grinder only.
I love how they cut at that stage just sucks when ya snag a tooth
They do. I've even replaced a few cutters on chains like that just to enjoy them a little longer. Get a preset and put on the other side of a "spare cutter" off another old chain and peen it over with a hammer. I had 1 chain with 6 cutters I'd done that too lol
