Advice: Does this look normal

[DSChamber]

Hey folks,

See the below pics and tell me if this amount of paint wear on a chainsaw bar is normal. This is the new 15" Husky bar that came with my 445 that I bought in January. Since Jan. I cut approximately 10 cords of wood. I kept my saw clean (never used chemicals just wiped down with a rag and a bit of compressed air down the rail to clean out any wood chips/gunk build up (did this once a week), I never cleaned the bar of the sap that was on it, and never abused the saw. It always had the scabbard on the bar when it was the box on the back of the quad. I was cutting soft woods (fir, spruce, and juniper), no hard wood and the chain/bar never ran out of oil.

I mean the bar works fine and is good shape other than the loss of the paint. Should I bring the bar back to the dealer and see if I can get a replacement? I just want to know before I take the bar back to see what he can do..never cut this much wood before in a short period of time so I don't know but to me it seems excessive... maybe it's normal and if it for a Husky bar I will leave it be as the bar is fine other than the paint

Compare my Carlton bar on my Homelite that has cut probably 2-3 cords of wood and a lot of limbing/small jobs around the house

 

[Duke Thieroff]

Paint on a bar is going to wear, bottom line, whether it's 10 cords or 1000 cords.


I think if you took it to the dealer he would laugh at you.




Chris

 

[GLOBOTREE]

I wouldnt worry about it, probably wont matter much in the long run...but husky might replace it~ tell them it was on AS and they may say they don't want that on there who knows? interesting discussion here.Could have been a combination of factors, likely something to do with the temperature and cooling of the bar then heating up cooling then heating. Not sure if the dealer wood laugh at you, kinda rude if the dealer laughs at you dont you think?comments?

 

[rms61moparman]

Paint loss is normal.
The only real reason it is there at all is to keep the bar from rusting before it is sold.

I personally would probably knock the rest of it off with a wire wheel, do a light buff job and run it like I stole it.



Mike

P.S. I also agree with Chris above, I wouldn't take it back to the dealer unless you just feel the need to be laughed at!LOL

 

[rob066]

Yup paint dont last long. I dont care on my saws. Paint dont cut wood anyhow.

 

[nmurph]

I wouldn't take it back, and it won't affect the life of the bar, but that is not a normal wear pattern. You say you haven't used chemicals, but I see brake cleaner in the background; it will remove paint.

 

[wooddog 066]

no worries

Just a sign of breakin er in run it till it shines then you have got ur moneys worth

 

[oscar4883]

Some brands the paint will be gone in a goods days work and others , Stihl for instance, can take a long time to really wear off. IMO the paint on those Carltons like you have wears really, really well.

 

[DSS]

Oregon is probably the worst. You couldn't get ten cord out of the paint on an oregon bar. Some of those carltons are clear coated.

 

[sunfish]

It's normal, don't worry about it.

I sand the rest of the paint off, when mine get to lookin like that.

 

[fearofpavement]

A well used bar will usually lose ALL of its paint long before the bar needs to be replaced. Paint on the bar (assuming it's the original bar) can be an indicator of how much the saw has been used. Sounds like you used yours quite a bit so the paint loss is to be expected. If you took the hood of your car and slid it through wood a thousand times or so it wouldn't look to good either. Just keep cutting.

 

[wyk]

I can't remember the last time I saw paint on this bar:

 

[outdoortype]

10 cords is a lot of wood. The only thing abnormal is the fact that most of the wear is in the same area. You should try to put the spikes against the wood sometimes so that the bar will wear more evenly.

 

[DSChamber]

I wouldn't take it back, and it won't affect the life of the bar, but that is not a normal wear pattern. You say you haven't used chemicals, but I see brake cleaner in the background; it will remove paint.

I have never used Brake Clean on anything painted because I know it will remove paint... the Brake Cleaner was used when I did my brakes on my truck a few days earlier. This is a pic of my chainsaw sitting on the bench in my garage, there is a lot of stuff in the background.

Could you explain the "not a normal wear pattern" statement..... are you saying that maybe something is wrong with the bar or the way I used it?

 

[DSChamber]

10 cords is a lot of wood. The only thing abnormal is the fact that most of the wear is in the same area. You should try to put the spikes against the wood sometimes so that the bar will wear more evenly.

When I fell/buck trees I try to always bring the dogs against the wood (especially felling big wood), to me that is the only way to cut, gives you the most control of the saw. I have done a lot of noodling of the bigger junks which put the entire bar into the wood, so yeah I guess yer right that 10 cords of wood is a fair bit of felling/limbing/bucking/noodling.

 

[fiasco]

Could you explain the "not a normal wear pattern" statement..... are you saying that maybe something is wrong with the bar or the way I used it?

All the painy wear is far away from the saw body itself. Looks like you hardly ever get the saw spikes/dogs into the wood. That's all. If you're doing a lot of leaning over to cut smaller stuff, I can see why that would be the case.

Paint wears off, and a paint job only holds up as well as the worst part of the prep work, and I'm guessing they aren't prepping these bars for show car quality paint jobs!

If you had lots of discoloration on the bar, then you'd be worried about (a lack of) sufficient bar oiling or too much heat from running a dull chain, or pinching the bar, etc.

 

[DSChamber]

A well used bar will usually lose ALL of its paint long before the bar needs to be replaced. Paint on the bar (assuming it's the original bar) can be an indicator of how much the saw has been used. Sounds like you used yours quite a bit so the paint loss is to be expected. If you took the hood of your car and slid it through wood a thousand times or so it wouldn't look to good either. Just keep cutting.

:msp_thumbup: ... that's good enough for me

 

[Philbert]

Could you explain the "not a normal wear pattern" statement.....

Almost all of the wear is at the front half of the bar, and not even on both sides. It suggests that you cut more with the front/tip of your bar rather than close to the spikes. Maybe you or your chain pulls to the left when you cut?

I would expect the paint to wear more evenly across the bar in normal use. That said, like others noted above, the paint is mostly cosmetic, so even if it is a defective paint job, it should not affect performance.

If you had bought the bar separately, like off of eBay, I might start thinking that it was a counterfeit or knock-off bar. But if it came with the saw, it might just mean a bad day at the paint factory, or poor quality control at the plant. Again, should not affect the wear or performance.

Philbert

 

[DSChamber]

Thanks for the replies .... I was thinking along the same lines as everyone here anyway... just wanted to confirm my suspicion.

To answer some of the questions...

1. Fancy paint work or having a saw that looks "pretty" is far from the top of my priority list. I want a good running machine that is reliable. I only gave my saw a half decent cleaning once after all of my firewood cutting was done... most of the time she was covered in balsam fir tree sap, sticky messy stuff but cleans up fairly easy.

2. Yes I did cut a fair bit of small wood, and a lot of underbrush to get at the bigger stuff. So I wasn't bringing the dogs up to the wood on all of that small stuff. I did bring the dogs up against the wood on the bigger wood though when felling and bucking

3. I did a lot of noodling as well which put the entire bar/chain into the wood at once plus going along the grain. This I think will take it's toll on a bar's paint job.

4. I flipped the bar half way through the season... so about 5 cords with the letters "right side down" and 5 cords "upside down".

5. I was cutting at times in fairly cold temps (some days it got down to 5 - 10 degrees F)...so the whole "heating/cooling" cycle could have played a role. Before someone asks... I was using winter bar oil that was rated between 50 degree F to -25 degrees F

6. I tried to keep the chain sharp by filing them and used two chains alternating between them... on the end though while plowing through the last bit of noodling my chain was getting fairly dull, I knew it was dull but I didn't want to stop and sharpen the chain... so this probably put more heat into the bar... no discoloration that I could see on the bar though... might be a little bit at the end of the bar where it bolts to the body though, that might be normal


I will take the advice above and sand off the rest of the paint and run it til it's shiny..or just leave it alone until it all falls off... lol... probably cheaper prep work as one or two people eluded to above as well (given the times we live in where 1 coat is good enough that in the past got 5). The Husqvarna lettering faded fairly quickly so that leads me to believe the paint wasn't very thick....

Thanks again folks.... great board with great feedback!!

 

[DSChamber]

I wanted to add just one last thing that I would like to point out in the pics just so everyone knows that I was using the dogs properly... although the majority of the paint came off closer to the nose/tip of the bar, I want to point out the sap residue on the bar (look at the top of the bar), you can see the balsam fir residue almost the full lenght of the bar with the most concentrated closer to the saw body and the mid point, not much is on the tip. With the dogs up against the wood, the majority of the sap gets flung to the middle of the bar, or at least that is wear it mainly stuck.

You might wonder why it's only on the top of the bar, the second half of the season I had my bar flipped so all that sap was really on the bottom of the bar when I was cutting, I just put the bar back the original way the other day after I cleaned the saw.