can a chain thats hit a nail be made good again

[durvo]

i recently wrecked my chain on a nail while cutting up some old beams i bought a new chain as the other was to bad to resharpen with the file i would like to know if my chain could be made good again?

 

[randyg]

That depends. If good quality chain, and you hit the nail perpendicular to the bar, it will often times cut right through without really hurting the chain. If the nail is more close to parallel to the bar, will more often take the chrome way back esspecially on all the teeth on the one side. Then I usually pitch it. So really depends how far back you need to file to get to good chrome, and how much tooth will be left when you get there.

And welcome to AS

 

[durvo]

thank you for the reply il take it to the shop and see if it can be salvaged its a stihl chain i must have hit it at the wrong angle as every point on the cutters is gone :msp_sad:

 

[oscar4883]

If the cutters are really trashed you can file the damaged ones off. This depends on how long the chain is and how many cutters you are getting rid off.

 

[struggle]

I have hit several nails cutting in a farm grove trees and been able to reuse every chain. They have to filed a lot and the rakers have to be lowered.

It will never be the same chain again but it can be made to cut again at a decent level.

 

[Cantdog]

It will also depend on how much "life" there is left in the chain....if it were close to new, then yes it most likely can be salvaged but if it were old and pretty well filed away then probably not...A lot of shops get nearly half the cost of a new chain to grind a dulled chain, so you would have to the judge as to if it were worth it or not.

 

[tomtrees58]

just pop out the no good links and put new ones i do it all the time

 

[Evanrude]

I once sliced a nail in half lengthways. It was my felling cut in an old white oak, the nail was a good 2" under the bark. I was using a brand new Stihl square ground chain :msp_cursing:. Didnt hurt it too much. I was able to file it back to get a good point. Make sure when you do, keep both left and right hand cutter length as even as you can. One chain of mine bit a rock once, I had to take that one in and ground back to shape.

 

[indiansprings]

All the guys have give you great advice. We hit more old barded wire and steeples than nails, 9 out of 10 times if there is any life left in the chain to start with we will grind the damage out and use it again. I have removed the teeth that are really damaged before and had a chain still perform well, just a poor man's skip tooth lol/

 

[maico490]

The Redneck Way

Be warned this is crude but if the chain is badly damaged and the options are either throw it away or spend an age to file you can use a 4.5" hand held angle grinder. You need a 3mm cutting disc which has had the square edges worn off and get it lined up to something like the angles on a real grinder. This is best done without the grinder spinning. Once you've got these angles about right hack away at all the teeth on one side back past the damaged chrome and then repeat on the other side. Plunging down rather than back will help avoid overheating the cutters. A quick filing will then get you to the correct profile again. Reset the rakers and you're done. With a bit of practice a chain can be cutting well again in about 15mins. Remember you were going to throw it away else.
Oh and wear goggles and gloves.

 

[CentaurG2]

You can fix just about any chain as long as you have enough cutter left to file out the damage, the time to do it and a good supply of files. Sometimes it is more economical to simply throw away a badly damaged chain. Cutters seem to get much harder after a strike with steel and it can be a lot of work with a hand file to remove the damage. If you have access to a simple hand grinder (dremel) you can remove the heavy damage with the grinder and just give the tooth a stoke or two with the file to clean it up. The trick is to set the corresponding raker to the height of the shortened cutter. You need a guide that set the raker height to the individual tooth not 3 or more cutters. I use the simple husky roller guide and it works well for this.

 

[Jeff_Rich]

I have hit old pipes in the middle of some trees....:msp_mad:
I was able to grind out a good bit of the damage.
Of course when I first hit it, I thought it was a nail so I kept going......
After a bit, I thought, that sure is a big nail.
I was able to make another cut at a 90 to the first, pop out the quarter log and found a 15" section of pipe with a union nearly cut all the way through.
It takes a while to sharpen a 30" chain.