Progressive Depth Gauge vs the others

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Sharpened and filed the Rakers this morning with the new progressive raker gauge. Wow! :rock:

The progressive with the angled plate seems to cut much faster then the old gauge of mine that would straddle two cutters. I'm convinced the progressive makes a difference. I'm thinking the angle on the raker makes less of a bump, letting the cutter grab the wood faster and more firm. That's my theory at least. Regardless, my older gauge is now looking for a new home. Neighbors are getting a gift sometime soon.
 
Sharpened and filed the Rakers this morning with the new progressive raker gauge. Wow! :rock:

The progressive with the angled plate seems to cut much faster then the old gauge of mine that would straddle two cutters. I'm convinced the progressive makes a difference. I'm thinking the angle on the raker makes less of a bump, letting the cutter grab the wood faster and more firm. That's my theory at least. Regardless, my older gauge is now looking for a new home. Neighbors are getting a gift sometime soon.
Carlton did a write-up on their File-o-plate gizmo which is essentially a progressive raker gauge. Search the forum for "progressive" and it should pop up.

The main take-away is that the optimum raker height gets lower as the cutter gets filed back. This is what a progressive raker gauge accomplishes.
 
I came across an old Stihl chain and the progressive wouldn’t work, the height of the cutter from the tie strips was more than modern chain and so it took off too much from the depth gauge . Just a word of caution so you don’t go through what I did.

I like that the Stihl ones are hardened too.
 
Keep in mind that these gauges are designed to rest on:

1. The top of the cutting tooth (usually no problem).
2. The rivet heads outside of the tie straps. This can be problematic depending on the chain manufacturer and the brand of the gauge. I think that I bought and tried some Husky gauges and had to modify them to work on Stihl chain.
 
I'm keen to hear how it goes

First impressions. The Husky seems to be tougher and would last longer over the same use. The WCS is a bit larger making it easier to hold, which was something about the Husky that bothered me.

The Husky has a hard/soft wood slots, and I used the hard wood that is suppose to be 0.025 and worked well with the ms261. The softwood setting is suppose to be 0.030 and is what I will try with the 500i.

The WCS has the same initial 0.025 slot, but according to WCS then jumps to 0.035. Hold on, why the big jump? Seems a bit much to me and may be of no value. When I use it on the 500i, I'll know if that is accurate and if it is to much. The next two steps up, 0.038 and 0.050 seem extreme. I've no idea on what or when I might use those.

I'll add that when I ordered the WCS the picture below wasn't on their web site, and I had no idea which slots were for what and I could find no videos or other explanation. I was about to write to WCS, and soon before the explanation picture showed up.

1638198661411.png
 
First impressions. The Husky seems to be tougher and would last longer over the same use. The WCS is a bit larger making it easier to hold, which was something about the Husky that bothered me.

The Husky has a hard/soft wood slots, and I used the hard wood that is suppose to be 0.025 and worked well with the ms261. The softwood setting is suppose to be 0.030 and is what I will try with the 500i.

The WCS has the same initial 0.025 slot, but according to WCS then jumps to 0.035. Hold on, why the big jump? Seems a bit much to me and may be of no value. When I use it on the 500i, I'll know if that is accurate and if it is to much. The next two steps up, 0.038 and 0.050 seem extreme. I've no idea on what or when I might use those.

I'll add that when I ordered the WCS the picture below wasn't on their web site, and I had no idea which slots were for what and I could find no videos or other explanation. I was about to write to WCS, and soon before the explanation picture showed up.

View attachment 944897
Aren't the 261 and 500 using different size chains?
 
I use a flat file on rakers I eye ball the depth. I keep the raker height even by the same amount of passes.

The 100 cc husky 2100 doesn’t care where I set the rakers at it just cuts with no respect.
 
I use a flat file on rakers I eye ball the depth. I keep the raker height even by the same amount of passes.

The 100 cc husky 2100 doesn’t care where I set the rakers at it just cuts with no respect.

You must have really really good eyes. Hard to believe that someone can tell 5/1000th of an inch, and you get to save <$10. :ices_rofl:

What about your other saws? Are they so so forgiving to have the rakers wildly different?
 
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