Hi and Thank you to everyone who contributes to this site. Here is proof that your time here is helpful to others.
I recently got back an old Stihl 026 that I purchased some 20 years ago. It has had very little use and my plan is to use it for my own person woodcutting needs (smoker and a little firewood).
The saw ran great when I cleaned it up and gave it good quality packaged fuel/oil mix. But it did not cut well. It just kept bogging down and struggling on every cut.
I knew it probably would benefit from a good sharp chain so after lurking here and reading as much info on chain sharpening as I could, I picked up a Husky sharpening guide (the little octagon shaped do-hickey) and some files. It comes with practically no instruction and my attempt to use it failed miserably. Back to this site for more research. Got some better directions and hit the cutters with a file. Time to test my handiwork. Result: Marginal improvement and still way worse than my experience with this saw 20 years ago.
After more research, It was time to check the raker height. I tried to use the raker guide on the Husky tool and again failed miserably. After more research, I grabbed a feeler guage and a flat file and started checking the raker height. The first ten rakers I checked were somewhere around 0.10 off the cutters, less than half the clearance there should be.
So I hit those rakers and got all of them to 0.25 below the cutters. (Whoever says that just a couple swipes with a file will knock these down has never tried to take 0.15" off a raker with a file.). Anyways, I got the rakers down and decided to do a better job with the round file on the cutters. I took my time and dressed each cutter carefully with the hand file and the guide. Time to test my handiwork. Result: Butter-smooth cuts, chips flying off the end if the saw, and significant improvement in speed as well as running much cooler.
Here's two piles of cuttings. The dark pile of dust was before the rakers were adjusted and the cutters were not properly sharp. The other pile is after all the chain sharpening and raker adjusting was done.
Thank you all!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I recently got back an old Stihl 026 that I purchased some 20 years ago. It has had very little use and my plan is to use it for my own person woodcutting needs (smoker and a little firewood).
The saw ran great when I cleaned it up and gave it good quality packaged fuel/oil mix. But it did not cut well. It just kept bogging down and struggling on every cut.
I knew it probably would benefit from a good sharp chain so after lurking here and reading as much info on chain sharpening as I could, I picked up a Husky sharpening guide (the little octagon shaped do-hickey) and some files. It comes with practically no instruction and my attempt to use it failed miserably. Back to this site for more research. Got some better directions and hit the cutters with a file. Time to test my handiwork. Result: Marginal improvement and still way worse than my experience with this saw 20 years ago.
After more research, It was time to check the raker height. I tried to use the raker guide on the Husky tool and again failed miserably. After more research, I grabbed a feeler guage and a flat file and started checking the raker height. The first ten rakers I checked were somewhere around 0.10 off the cutters, less than half the clearance there should be.
So I hit those rakers and got all of them to 0.25 below the cutters. (Whoever says that just a couple swipes with a file will knock these down has never tried to take 0.15" off a raker with a file.). Anyways, I got the rakers down and decided to do a better job with the round file on the cutters. I took my time and dressed each cutter carefully with the hand file and the guide. Time to test my handiwork. Result: Butter-smooth cuts, chips flying off the end if the saw, and significant improvement in speed as well as running much cooler.
Here's two piles of cuttings. The dark pile of dust was before the rakers were adjusted and the cutters were not properly sharp. The other pile is after all the chain sharpening and raker adjusting was done.
Thank you all!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
