Chain grinding Stihl vs ?

[alderman]

I was grinding some chains for my brother this afternoon. He had a couple of Oregon chains and some Stihl safety chains. I noticed the Stihl chains seemed to be quite a bit softer and easier to grind than the Oregon chains. Is this common knowledge or just a figment of my imagination

 

[Andyshine77]

Stihl chain is harder than Oregon or Carlton, so I guess it's a figment of your imagination.

 

[RatchetJaw]

no its not your imagination

stihl has a softer grade metal to take an edge better and quicker with the standard filing method how ever the oregon chains keep an edge alot longer. how ever stihl does make a harder toothed chain but the softer one is more common in oregon cause its prefered by the timber fellers who have to resharpen in the field alot on the go so its the most widely stocked.

 

[blsnelling]

stihl has a softer grade metal to take an edge better and quicker with the standard filing method how ever the oregon chains keep an edge alot longer. how ever stihl does make a harder toothed chain but the softer one is more common in oregon cause its prefered by the timber fellers who have to resharpen in the field alot on the go so its the most widely stocked.

Not according to 99% of what you'll find from others experience here. Stihl chain holds an edge better than any other chain out there. Even here where we beat up each others brands of saws, you'll find little to no arguing about Stihl chain being the best.

 

[Andyshine77]

stihl has a softer grade metal to take an edge better and quicker with the standard filing method how ever the oregon chains keep an edge alot longer. how ever stihl does make a harder toothed chain but the softer one is more common in oregon cause its prefered by the timber fellers who have to resharpen in the field alot on the go so its the most widely stocked.

Stihl chain is harder than Oregon or Carlton chain by a long shot, and it's no harder to file than the other two.

 

[Scandy14]

Not according to 99% of what you'll find from others experience here. Stihl chain holds an edge better than any other chain out there. Even here where we beat up each others brands of saws, you'll find little to no arguing about Stihl chain being the best.

+1

 

[RatchetJaw]

here in Oregon we mostly deal with fir , cedar and alder all softer woods and the softer tooth is prefered amongst the other fellers I know 2 for the short down time .

 

[Justsaws]

Oil thread? Stihl chain vs the 359?

Harder steel? Were there not a bunch of chainsaw manly men that were going to test this theory on their HARDNESS testers? HHHMMMM. I think they were giving O.E. a hard time about proprietary information and such.

 

[super3]

here in Oregon we mostly deal with fir , cedar and alder all softer woods and the softer tooth is prefered amongst the other fellers I know 2 for the short down time .

Price wouldn't have any thing to do with it?

 

[abohac]

I disagree

I think, (I don't know) that Carleton and Oregon chains are both harder than stihl. I use them both (I have J-red and Husky saws). That's why both Oregon and carelton chains tend to break more often. I don't think I have ever had a Stihl chain break on me. I would prefer a less brittle chain myself.

 

[BobL]

Guys, I can help end the argument for you. I will take some Stihl and other chain to the materials science lab tomorrow and test the hardness out using our hardness tester.

BUT , . . . . . . Hardness is not everything especially as far as wear is concerned. Wear also depends on Toughness and a whole bunch of other properties. Think BIG, like the blade of a bulldozer. If the blade was carbide hard the blade would chip and crack and bits would break off in no time. A tougher material might even be a bit softer but will crack or chip less so at the end of the day the remaining edge might still be sharper. Any given material compared to any other material may also have different wear characteristics depending on whether the wear is against a material harder than itself, the same material as itself, or a material softer than itself.

So the chain with the better holding edge might in fact be softer but tougher.

BTW, I reckon when filing, stihl is about the same hardness as orgeon and both are softer than GB chain.

Cheers

 

[SawTroll]

Stihl chain is harder than Oregon or Carlton chain by a long shot, and it's no harder to file than the other two.

:agree2: for normal touch-up, but there is a noticeable difference if you have to remove a lot of metal, after hitting something hard.....

 

[SawTroll]

.....

BTW, I reckon when filing, stihl is about the same hardness as orgeon and both are softer than GB chain.

Cheers

GB chain is Carlton chain.......

 

[ned coed]

one of our tree feller customers wont have his chains sharpened by machine. he says it overheats the chain and makes it useless. is he right or wrong?

 

[Patrick62]

one of our tree feller customers wont have his chains sharpened by machine. he says it overheats the chain and makes it useless. is he right or wrong?

Did he really think that the factory sharpening was done by hand??:help:

I am quite sure that a saw chain assembly line is populated by a bunch of guys running files across chain for 8 hours a day.... :hmm3grin2orange:

-Pat

 

[blsnelling]

one of our tree feller customers wont have his chains sharpened by machine. he says it overheats the chain and makes it useless. is he right or wrong?

He's wrong, although there are a lot of shops out there that do know how to ruin a good chain with a grinder.

 

[Andyshine77]

If you know what you're doing and you have a good grinder the chain will be fine. I however don't like my grinder, and I don't know what I'm doing, so I sharpen my chains by hand.

Andy.

 

[retired redneck]

I have two 511a grinders in my shop and i can testify that stihl chains are the hardest, I can sharpen two org or other chains to one stihl chain,you haveto slow down on stihl chains or they blue and you know what that means..........

 

[heimannm]

This could be more interesting than an oil thread...

 

[BobL]

OK - here are the results for hardness testing of standard Stihl, Oregon and GB chain.

All are 3/8, regular comp semichisel.

I measured a range of cutters, ties and drive links, at least 3, but typically 6 readings for each. About 100 measurements in all.

Stihl is the softest, Oregon was on average 3% harder, while GB was on average 4% harder. My measurement tolerance is about +/- 2% so there is technically NO difference between the Stihl and Oregon chains and the difference between Stihl and GB is borderline - I would not bet on it being a real difference.

Remember this Scientific hardness data and does not necessarily translate into how easy chains are to file or how long they take to wear - this depends on many other properties of materials.

This is what one would call a spot test. A proper test would require MUCH more testing across many different chains etc.

Cheers