How do you guys sharpen chains?

[logbutcher]

Do they make seperate units for 3/8 vs .325? Or one size fits all?

PFERD is sized for the chain. I use two sizes.
Bailey's now sells the "new improved" tool that is self reversing for both chain sides.

I am sorry: this tool is soooooooo much better than silicone, since it won't kill you ( or a snake --story on the news ) if you by chance get to the silicone through the skin. :msp_w00t:Whew.

 

[fields_mj]

An alternative to Old Timer's technique is the bar on shoulder:

For chains on bars 20" long or more, sit down and rest the bar and chain on your left shoulder and the engine between your legs. With the file in your right hand, sharpen the teeth with a good file.

You can't do the rakers this way, but it will put you back in business after you rocked a chain.

Come on folks. Buy a $10 stump vise. It will out last your saws.

 

[slowp]

Come on folks. Buy a $10 stump vise. It will out last your saws.

That's just another $10 part to lose.

I use the Chaser method to file. Chasers are the guys on the landing who unhook the logs and then might do some bucking, or limbing, or buck off the broken limbs. They cut dirty wood. A Chaser tends to say naughty words when he has sent down the saw to the rigging crew and they send it back with a dull chain.

I knew how to file the teeth, but didn't know when to do the rakers. I do it all by hand and eyeball the angle. The Chaser advice was thus,

Every third filing, hit the rakers a couple of times with your flat file.
That's what I do. The Twinkle or Barbie saw is on the tailgate, ground, or if I'm lucky on the counter in the shop. No vise.

When they are spitting out chips that hurt my face, the chains are sharp.

Simple. No rocket science. No calipers. No extra stuff to lose. I do have a hard time remembering if it is the third time. So I carry an abacus around with me.....:jester:

 

[Charly]

That's the key IMHO. I use a file because it doesn't take off nearly as much material. I take a stroke or two off ever cutter every time I fill up the tank (I cut a lot of wood that has been skidded out to where I can get to it). It only takes me about 5 min, and it gives the saw a chance to cool off. One or two strokes is plenty to keep the chain sharp, and the chain lasts a LONG time that way. Grinding too much off with a machine is a good way to ruin the temper on the teeth.

I also carry a cheap set of calipers in my tool box, and I use them every once in a while to check the lenght of all the cutters. I bring them back to within 0.005" of each other (if needed). I do that two or three times a season depending on how much I've been cutting. When I'm measuring the cutters, I'm normally using the Granberg filing jig that I have. When I'm in the field, I use the cheap STIHL file guide and that's it.

I second the dial calipers. I use to find brand new Oregon chains with a difference of 0.010 on the cutter length's . I also look at the hash mark on top of the chain to gauge how even the cutters are staying from left to right. Right handed I believe you you wind up taking more off the right hand cutters than the left , with the same amount of strokes . So I add a couple of strokes to the side that needs more removed and things seem to stay even down the road, once checked with the calipers again.

 

[Oldtimer]

Come on folks. Buy a $10 stump vise. It will out last your saws.

A hole in a hardwood tree is free, and you can't lose it. And, ya don't have to lug it around.

 

[flyfshrmn]

Sharpening a chain

I have also found brand new chains with variable length cutters on them. I got a couple of Oregon chains once where all the right hand cutters were visibly longer than the left. The chains still cut straight. I don't think cutter length matters all that much as long as the teeth are at the proper angles and equally sharp. The only part of the tooth in contact with the cut is the edge and the teeth are tapered so the widest part of the tooth is the cutting edge. It doesn't matter what follows too much, because it's not contacting the wood. Raker consistency is also not that important as long as the rakers are low enough to allow proper cutter contact with the wood. The proper gage of sharpness is simple: is the saw throwing chips and is it cutting straight lines. If these criteria are met, then the chain is sharp. A bent or tweaked bar can cause a saw to cut off line, but it's relatively obvious and easily remedied.

 

[fields_mj]

A hole in a hardwood tree is free, and you can't lose it. And, ya don't have to lug it around.

You're going to destroy a young hardwood every time you go cut rather than spend $10, and you're telling US to tighten up OUR game???? Destroying one perfectly healthy hardwood would get me kicked off of just about any of the properties that I cut on.

Different strokes for different folks I guess.

 

[RPrice]

I have also found brand new chains with variable length cutters on them. I got a couple of Oregon chains once where all the right hand cutters were visibly longer than the left. The chains still cut straight. I don't think cutter length matters all that much as long as the teeth are at the proper angles and equally sharp. The only part of the tooth in contact with the cut is the edge and the teeth are tapered so the widest part of the tooth is the cutting edge. It doesn't matter what follows too much, because it's not contacting the wood. Raker consistency is also not that important as long as the rakers are low enough to allow proper cutter contact with the wood. The proper gage of sharpness is simple: is the saw throwing chips and is it cutting straight lines. If these criteria are met, then the chain is sharp. A bent or tweaked bar can cause a saw to cut off line, but it's relatively obvious and easily remedied.

+1, I've found everything above to be true. Some people get too worried about everything being exact. I file by hand. If the cutters are sharp, reasonably close in length and one remembers to file the rakers every 3 - 5 sharpenings, you're golden!

 

[slowp]

View attachment 176436

This is my cutting partner of the week. We have been opening up roads. No firewood, just cutting trees out of the road. I lost the file handle, I think. We didn't take time to make a new handle out of native materials, although we had the skill.

Just a file, tailgate, and gloves. That's it. No technology.

I got hollered at for taking this picture.

 

[Gologit]

You don't need a stump vise. Use the stump...just cut a kerf in it deep enough to steady the bar and you're good to go.

And dial calipers? If you're fine-tuning a race chain they'd probably be a handy thing to have. I've never seen them used in the woods.

If any of these anal-retentive "my chain must be perfect" types ever put a dial caliper on one of my chains he'd probably go into shock. But, somehow, in spite of my less than perfect cutter length and raker height, I seem to get a lot of wood on the ground.

 

[flyfshrmn]

chain sharpening

Unless you hit something hard, drop the saw into the ground or cut stuff up that's been in the mud or been dragged enough to pick up grit, touch up sharpening in the field, just as illustrated in the pic above, is 90% of your sharpening. I just cut twelve cords out of a huge oak with four different saws, kept the bars out of the dirt, and I knocked the bark off the surface where I was cutting the trunk (farm field oak - the bark is full of wind blown dirt) and never had to change a chain on any of the saws, just touch up filing in the field and two or three runs on the small saws with a diamond sharpener when I felt the field sharpening was not enough. Good chains, relatively green wood, clean cutting and no nails, wire, or other metal pieces in the tree to wreck your chains.

 

[J.W Younger]

wheres my boots

 

[Gologit]

...I just cut twelve cords out of a huge oak...

Oh, c'mon. I know we have some big oaks in your part of the state...but 12 cords?

Got pictures?

 

[chucker]

"I just cut twelve cords out of a huge oak with four different saws, kept the bars out of the dirt, and I knocked the bark off the surface where I was cutting the trunk (farm field oak - the bark is full of wind blown dirt) and never had to change a chain on any of the saws, just touch up filing in the field and two or three runs on the small saws with a diamond sharpener when I felt the field sharpening was not enough. Good chains, relatively green wood, clean cutting and no nails, wire, or other metal pieces in the tree to wreck your chains. " just another one that needs to tell us whet a cord of woods measures out to in lxwxh= like (8'x4'x16"= a cord)????? just remember hes also a fisherman, like a lot of us!! lol

 

[Gologit]

" just another one that needs to tell us whet a cord of woods measures out to in lxwxh= like (8'x4'x16"= a cord)????? just remember hes also a fisherman, like a lot of us!! lol

In California a cord is 4X4X8 or 128 cubic feet. We don't, and legally can't, use measurements like rick, face cord, bush cord, or pick-up load.
I've cut quite a bit of oak in the same area as flyfishrmn but I never got more than four or five cords out of a tree. They were pretty big...usually at least forty eight inches dbh. Usually at that size they tend toward hollow rot and often the first third of the tree up from the stump is a stove pipe.
I'd sure like to find some solid healthy oak tree that I could cut 12 cords from. I didn't know any like that were left in this area.

 

[wendell]

Maybe he's originally from NY where face cords are cords so his 12 is actually 4. :hmm3grin2orange:

 

[Gologit]

Maybe he's originally from NY where face cords are cords so his 12 is actually 4. :hmm3grin2orange:

You might be right. Everybody in California moved there from someplace else. Except for TreeSlingr, RandyMac, 2dogs...and me.

Those guys are all pretty good saw hands but I'll be willing to bet a beer or two that they've never cut a 12 cord oak. Redwood, maybe, but not an oak. This is a safe bet...if I lose I still get to help drink the beer.

 

[flyfshrmn]

doubters

Attached are three pix of the tree. They were taken in early June, after I had been cutting on it for several days. This tree was a 100 year old valley oak, six feet in diameter at the point I stopped cutting with two major branches, one four feet in diameter at the trunk and 40 feet long, the other 30 feet long and about 3.5 feet in diameter plus several smaller branches at least 20 inches in diameter. When I started cutting, all of the branches smaller than about 10 inches were gone or cut up into firewood lengths by the leaseholder's farm crew. We threw away a lot of punky, dry rotted stuff from the branches and left the last six feet of the trunk because if was full of nails, bits of wire and other metal junk. One of my cutting partners is shown in the pictures for perspective. He came over twice from Reno with a large trailer and 3 foot sideboards for his long bed Dodge pickup. We carefully measured both the trailer and the truck and calculated the cubic footage. He took a measured 3.5 cords out of this tree and confirmed that by measuring again after stacking at his house. My wood hauling trailer is 85 cubic feet, 2/3 of a cord, and we usually load it mounded up fairly high because it settles during transit, so I only count a load as 2/3 of a cord. We took 10 trailer loads off this tree and the last load I used vertical cordwood to build higher sidewalls and it was loaded at least 18 inches above the top rails all the way round. Estimating conservatively, that's about 7 cords. My other cutting partner loaded his Toyota full size bed each time we cut. We measured the truck, subtracting for the wheel wells, and calculated his volume at 1/3 of a cord. He took 7 full loads and a couple of partial loads of smaller stuff for his daughter's stove, at least another 2 cords. I also provided the landowner another third to half a cord of small stuff for his shop stove, giving him all the 8-12 inch split pieces. The smaller branch wood, cut up by the farmer's crew to clear the access road which the tree had fallen on, I gave to the farmer, at least another 1/3 cord.

Cutting trees this size is not firewood cutting, it's logging and now that this one is done, I'm selling the 066Mag and the Efco 7200 I bought to cut this tree up. This is the second one of these I have cut for the landowner and I'm retired from the logging profession. I worked on this tree from late April to late June, often by myself.

 

[Gologit]

That's impressive. And, much as I hate to admit it, that well could be a 12 cord tree. I won't take the time to double check your math but looking at the pictures it seems to be legit. Fine piece of wood.

There aren't many of them left. Did base rot get it or did you guys fall it? If it was base rot how far up the trunk did it go? Just curious. I took some good sized oak out north of Colusa and anything over about 36" dbh was pretty much a stove pipe for the first few feet.

My apologies for doubting your word.

 

[flyfshrmn]

doubters again

This tree went over in a windstorm in November 2009. I cut up a similar size one for the landowner in 2007, out of which I took about 10 cords. One of the attached pix shows the butt end about where I quit cutting on that one because it was again full of bits of metal where people had attached things to the trunk. In 2005, I cut up a branch that had fallen off that one, 44 inches in diameter at the base and over 50 feet long, out of which I got 4.5 cords. I finally located a pic of my trailer and of one of my cutting partner's truck with the sideboards attached. Also, another pic of the tree from different perspective, while we worked on it.