New to chainsaw mills.

[Coralillo Lo Pro]

If I down size the new bar to 0.050 gauge, could I run a "regular" chain for firewood and lopro for milling?

Some people do. The regular 3/8” drive sprocket and bar nose sprocket are slight mismatches to 3/8 lo pro chain though and will wear out from the mismatch. I wouldn’t do it myself but I have enough saws I can run dedicated lo pro setups. If you’re only milling on rare occasion w the lo pro it might not do too much harm. I do use .050 yes. The ideal is an old school roller nose bar that can run any type of .050 but those have become kinda rare. Still a mismatch in the drive sprocket though. While lo pro chain can kinda run on normal 3/8 drive/nose sprockets, normal 3/8 chain won’t fit lo pro sprockets. A lot of people are put off by it being its own thing they can't easily interchange with standard 3/8 gear, so unless you're doing a lot of milling particularly for cants/beams/lumber it's tough to sell people on. It really works well with Logosol kind of milling setups for milling small to moderate size logs comfortably and quickly.

 

[Kurt Helgerson]

I’m leery of recommending it too much without more availability. I’ve been talking to the US distributor of GB, the lone company that makes lo pro bars over 20”, about selling their bars but they haven’t responded to my last inquiries about pricing. Otherwise the only seller for complete packages of chains, bars, and drive sprockets is in the UK. And then you need to switch back to a regular 3/8 sprocket and bar to use the saw for cross-cutting. To keep life simple and inexpensive, a new 42” Oregon 3/8” .063 bar off Amazon - 423RND009 - for $99 is a good way to go, w ripping skip chain if you can find skip.

Thank you!

I’m leery of recommending it too much without more availability. I’ve been talking to the US distributor of GB, the lone company that makes lo pro bars over 20”, about selling their bars but they haven’t responded to my last inquiries about pricing. Otherwise the only seller for complete packages of chains, bars, and drive sprockets is in the UK. And then you need to switch back to a regular 3/8 sprocket and bar to use the saw for cross-cutting. To keep life simple and inexpensive, a new 42” Oregon 3/8” .063 bar off Amazon - 423RND009 - for $99 is a good way to go, w ripping skip chain if you can find skip.

“To keep life simple and inexpensive, a new 42” Oregon 3/8” .063 bar off Amazon -- for $99 is a good way to go, w ripping skip chain if you can find skip.”

What would you think about these for it? I guess I have to grind off half the teeth to make a skip chain?

This bar: https://www.amazon.com/Oregon-423RN...mzn1.fos.18ed3cb5-28d5-4975-8bc7-93deae8f9840



With this Chain: https://www.amazon.com/Oregon-Fores...x=saw+chain+42+inch+0.063+3/8+,aps,288&sr=8-7

 

[Coralillo Lo Pro]

With this Chain: https://www.amazon.com/Oregon-Forestry-PowerCut-Chain-0-063/dp/B091TTTHVG/ref=mp_s_a_1_7?crid=2AZGLGX4YPOOF&keywords=saw+chain+42+inch+0.063+3/8"&qid=1707105795&sprefix=saw+chain+42+inch+0.063+3/8+,aps,288&sr=8-7

The bar is the right one, the chain appears not to be ripping chain and as you note it's full comp. It depends on how much experience you have and how much patience, whether you want to get into custom chain modification. It's no big deal with a grinding wheel or angle grinder, but it might be more bother than it's worth vs just buying ripping skip chain. Problem is, only Archer makes ripping skip in 3/8" and they seem to only sell it in 136dl loops not 135dl. You can buy this Archer ripping chain in full comp and modify it any number of ways. My favorite is grinding every other PAIR of teeth off, makes for a balanced set of teeth and gives you only half as many teeth as full comp so easy to resharpen and a 592XP would blaze thru anything with it - https://www.amazon.com/Archer-8-063-135DL-Chainsaw-Replaces-A3EP-RP-135E/dp/B08LP3DPXJ

Or you could buy this Oregon skip chain at a good price and each successive sharpening take it back 5 degrees til you eventually had a 10 degree chain. But you'd need an electric chain sharpener to do that consistently and accurately. A lot of people over the years have not bothered paying the heavy extra premium for the 10 degree tooth angle of ripping chain and just bought regular chain and lowered the aggressiveness of the teeth with each resharpen. Some people just use standard aggressive 25-30 degree chain and are happy with the results and never bother with modifying it to ripping chain. With skip, there's a lot less aggressiveness because of only 2/3 as many teeth so I think it's easier to get okay results milling with regular chain. Plus you can use the same chain for cross-cutting. (You can't grind full comp chain to regular skip, the spacing is different. You can only grind every third tooth off to get the same amount of teeth - 2/3 as many as full comp - or grind off every other pair to get half as many as full comp. I prefer the latter because it keeps the cutting pattern balanced.) https://www.amazon.com/Oregon-75EXJ135G-Skiptooth-Chain-063-drivelinks/dp/B08CBK2LPF

I'd probably buy the Oregon skip chain, try milling with it, if you don't like the results you still have a good big crosscut chain for your saw. And as I say you have the option of changing the tooth angle gradually to turn it into ripping chain. The specialized Granberg grind that has been mentioned - and can be bought from Granberg - is too much modification for me to ever consider, and I'm not sold on it being superior. It's way too easy to end up with an unbalanced chain that mills badly, and even the stuff Granberg sells comes w an unbalanced enough grind occasionally that people have had terrible results out of the box with it.

 

[GeneralKayoss]

Sorry for my slow responses to everyone. I am still in the market for a saw. Starting to look in earnest soon.

If you want a big saw that won't break the bank, look into the Holfforma G660 Pro (a clone of the older Stihl 660). You can pick up the power head for less than $500, vs $1500 for a new Stihl 661. I've milled about 25 6-8ft slabs with it so far without a single issue.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09PYRJNMM?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details