Tutorial: make your own raker depth gauge supported by software tool

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Wouldn't you have to make a gauge for each brand of chain?
The Carlton File-O-Plates ('FOP') were like that. Some guys loved them. Lots of guys runnust one type and size of chain, and they just need the correct one for their chain.

Freaks that run dozens of different chain types might want something more like a protractor.

Philbert
 
I am well known as a "freak" in the bedroom
It´s up to you to decide, if exactly here is the right place to discuss your skills in the bedroom...

Links to a couple of other threads on depth gauge measuring tools
Ah, I already knew the first link. For me personally your quoted "Oregon Universal Depth Gauge" would be second prize after my type 2 ;) Because it´s adjustable, you can maintain constant cutting angles of course. Its design should allow all chain types to work with it. Disadvantages: I´ve never seen such a tool being sold here in Germany. You have to take some measurements of gullet widths, take the mean value and set the gauge accordingly (e.g. 1/10 of gullet width). So this gauge works then with a mean value, if you don´t set it new for every cutter.
I thought about copying this one, if my approach haven´t worked out well enough, but I´m very happy with my results, so...
I think you can build this one yourself, but it will be a liitle bit more complex than my idea.

All other showed buyable or self-made raker depth gauge solutions in this mentioned threads are not suitable for me personally.

don't want to derail his thread too far off the tracks!
If offtopic talk is funny or interesting for all of us, I have no problem with it, if it consists e.g. of insider jokes I´m not really a fan of it ;)
 
Great presentation and contribution "hannes69". :yes:

Some time ago I adjusted a few chains over to progressive using FOP. Although they always cut well I later found them to be rather grabby for plunge cutting. For plunge cutting do we need to maintain DG at .025" or less?
 
Great presentation and contribution "hannes69". :yes:

Some time ago I adjusted a few chains over to progressive using FOP. Although they always cut well I later found them to be rather grabby for plunge cutting. For plunge cutting do we need to maintain DG at .025" or less?
Its rare that you can have the whole package. You file and sharpen for what works for everytthing but best for the majority. It can be a fine balancing act. If you are talking about one species of wood then more info is needed. Hardwoods depth is generally .025 and less hook. Perhaps one size bigger file or tilt the file up 10° into the corner. Interpretations of 'aggressive' can vary? Maybe the chain has a raker bent out a little or chain has a cracked strap? Its would be thumpy in the buck too. Lite bar? Tip size? could be endless. What's the depth and the wood?
 
This is mainly hardwood...ash, maple, birch, cherry. Most trees are under 20"
No bent chains or cracked straps.
Yes, tips are always RSN pro bars so larger radius.
Weve usually followed the constant DG of .025"
For bucking .030" works aggressively.

Since plunge cutting is exercised we've dispensed with progressive DG...and everything is good again :)

I'm still curious if others who follow progressive DG can plunge cut and whether it's on hard or softer species.
Comments and experiences appreciated.
 
Some time ago I adjusted a few chains over to progressive using FOP. Although they always cut well I later found them to be rather grabby for plunge cutting. For plunge cutting do we need to maintain DG at .025" or less?
Do we need? That´s maybe not the right manner of asking this question.
I´ll try to answer the question indirectly:
On one side there are influencing parameters from the physical world, on the other side it´s a matter of personal preference.
So you are cutting hard or soft wood, normal wood in the summer and frozen wood during winter, you have a large powerful saw and a small weak saw, you use chisel or semi chisel chain, maybe we are talking about milling, you use a sharpening angle of 25° or 35°, you are sharpening the chain very frequently or rather rarely, you use normal chain or bumper/safety chain, you use normal profile or low profile chain, you use an electrical saw with low chain speed or a two stroke saw with high chain speed, you have different bars and tips, the application varies from bucking to felling to limbing and so on; that´s all that comes spontaneously to my mind, there may be definitely more parameters.
And then there´s your personal taste. How experienced are you with chainsaw work? What about your physical power, age, constitution? What is more important for you, working speed or safety?
That´s all part of the whole story.
One argument for my raker depth gauge approach is, that you can adjust it to your needs and preferences.
E.g. my two setups:
1. Forest work: 80% pine 15% spruce 5% hard wood. Stihl 034 Super, semi chisel chain 30°, no frozen wood, chain frequnetly sharpened, normal chain profile, all forest work with this one saw at the moment (maybe a smaller additional saw planned for limbing), we are talking about making personal firewood in a rather small self owned forest, the amount of wood is sufficient for 2 households during a year.
Principally most of these parameters speak for using large cutting angles.
On the other side I´m a beginner with chainsaw work, though feeling very comfortable with this beast of a machine, I try for the moment to stay a little bit on the safe side, so I´ll not make my saw overly aggressive.
I´m using my self-made rager gauge with cutting angles in the region of 6.5° - 7.0° for the moment. But I have already made my second raker depth gauge for this setup with cutting angles 8.0° - 8.5° for the near future ;)
2. Home/garden work. Here I often use a small electrical chainsaw (less loud, no idling, there´s a power outlet in the garden). All sorts of wood. I use semi chisel low profile chain 30°. It´s an all purpose setup, my girlfriend uses this saw as well. In this use case safety is more in the foreground, speed not that important. So I use a chain with bumpers and a cutting angle in the 6.0° - 6.5° range.

Since plunge cutting is exercised we've dispensed with progressive DG...and everything is good again
I consider plunge cutting not as the 'normal' usage scenario. If you use that technique frequently then you maybe have chosen a bar or saw not that appropriate for this job ;)
If you have rarely some larger trees, you can use a bar that´s maybe on the working limit of your saw. If you have that case more often maybe it´s time to buy a bigger saw with a longer bar.
Plunge cutting, in my opinion, is the exceptional case. You are already in the forest with your saw and a maybe little bit too short bar, and this one tree has to be felled now, for whatever reason. Then it´s time for the plunge cutting. But that´s the opinion of a hobbyist´s point of view and I know that pros use this technique more frequently.
I personally don´t like this technique very much. But I´m not a good reference at this point, I´m a beginner and so if I had the chance, I´d like to do all cuts with the bottom side of the bar ;)

So I´d say at this point with the explanations above in mind: Use a raker depth that feels comfortable to you.
In the end it´s all about safety vs. speed. When using safety chain and very high rakers you are on the very safe side, but maybe the plunge cut is even not possible at that point ... On the other side you want to work very fast and make a very aggressive setup, but then maybe the saw starts to wobble around and the forces come free at the wrong place and you maybe get injured.
It all depends.
I personally avoid 'unsafer' techniques and when not possible I work slowly, concentrated and with high body tension and awareness level.
On the other side, when bucking straight clean soft wood trees on a plain and even field in the summer with a properly sharpened chain and a powerful saw, I see no reason for having rakers at all ;) ;)
 
Its rare that you can have the whole package. You file and sharpen for what works for everything but best for the majority. It can be a fine balancing act.
This is probably the key idea to keep in mind when trying to sharpen chain to improve cutting

Love your work Hannes69!
 
Hannes,
I'd like to hear about your experience above 7 degrees of drop on the depth gauges. My experience is it will be rough. So be careful there my friend.
 
These are 'finger goiniometers' (really). Special protractors designed to measure range of motion for fingers, etc. Cheap, plastic ones start at $7 on eBay. Better ones are $35+ in stainless steel, from medical supply houses. Think they could easily be modified for depth gauge service?

Screen shot 2018-04-25 at 10.33.58 PM.png Screen shot 2018-04-25 at 10.35.07 PM.png

Philbert
 
I'd like to hear about your experience above 7 degrees of drop on the depth gauges. My experience is it will be rough. So be careful there my friend.
A cutting angle of 7° with a standing alone number like this without considering the circumstances says nothing.
I mentioned some of the influencing parameters in post #33.
It´s like always - it depends.
When using full chisel chain, a higher sharpening angle of 30°+ and cutting hard wood or doing techniques like plunge cutting, maybe a cutting angle wide above 7° is not recommended.
Here a quote from my post above:
On the other side, when bucking straight clean soft wood trees on a plain and even field in the summer with a properly sharpened chain and a powerful saw, I see no reason for having rakers at all ;) ;)
That was meant a little bit ironic, but with some truth in it. I work in such conditions and I´m using semi chisel chain 30°. The pine wood I cut is REALLY soft.
My father hand filed his chains and didn´t use tools like raker depth gauges. I have one of these chains here and I measured and tested it. It is half worn, has a raker depth of 57 mil, that corresponds to a cutting angle of 8.5°. Of course this chain is not running exactly as smooth as a chain with a cutting angle of 6.5°, but in pine wood it works as it should, spraying chips all over the place :)
I personally wouldn´t use this chain for felling and limbing (even for soft wood), but for bucking very soft wood it works very well.

These are 'finger goiniometers' (really). Special protractors designed to measure range of motion for fingers, etc. Cheap, plastic ones start at $7 on eBay. Better ones are $35+ in stainless steel, from medical supply houses. Think they could easily be modified for depth gauge service?
Hmm, what I see is a scaling accuracy of 5°, that would mean some larger modifications to make it appropriate for a depth gauge.
Beside that: It´s the second time in this thread that you are giving hints towards alternative raker depth gauge solutions other than mine. If you think that my solution has weaknesses, flaws or could be improved feel free to communicate that in a direct manner by talking about my solution and not by this indirect manner with pointing to alternatives. Feels a little bit like inviting someone to Sunday´s coffee and cake, offering a self made cake, and the guest says "Maybe you don´t already know, but Walmart sells really good cakes...".

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To a certain degree I really don´t understand what´s going on here. It´s ok to make discussions around topics, talking about basics, experiences, alternatives and so on.
Why do you guys not talk about the topic here? The topic is called like that and also meant like that to make your own raker depth gauge, that this is personalized to your needs and that this process is supported by a software tool.
I didn´t think about doing all the discussion from the very beginning on, I already refered to BobL´s thread.
For me it is a given (and so no big need of discussing that) that
- a raker depth gauge is easening the raker filing process
- a progressive depth raker depth gauge (constant cutting angle) is far superior to a constant depth raker depth gauge (decreasing cutting angle)
- there is no all in one solution, we have different chains for different needs, so we need different raker depth gauges
- there is no fixed best cutting angle, it depends on many many things
- cutting angle is also a matter of personal taste beside the hard facts

I wanted to discuss my solution for the given problem. So discuss what is better of my solution and what is worse compared to other ways? What can be improved? How is the usability of the software tool?
And what´s really disappointing to me: Noone really wants to simply try it? I´m really sure that many of you guys have a piece of metal sheet lying in the corner of the workshop. You simply could take this piece and take an angle grinder or whatever you want and make this simple tool within a very short time. And then you can report back that it is working like a charm or a really big piece of crap.
Don´t get me wrong - I like theoretical discussions a lot, but at a certain point I think there has to be the connection between theory and practical experience. In the sense of this thread it leads nowhere, when I am the only one who actually makes use of this raker depth gauge solution.
It´s up to you what to make out of this thread. My plan was mainly, that as many people as possible should have a direct practical benefit for everyday´s chainsaw working. We can work together on this benefit, if you´d like to. :)
 
I don't think anyone here quite shares your "zeal" in depth gauge maintenence, and they are just posting out of politeness.
However, I think the politeness just ended.
I think you understand here something very very wrong. With my starting post I am offering something to you, the flow is not the other way round as you may want me to think about it.
I found out something for me, invested a good amount of time, knowledge and brain into making photos, a software tool and writing the huge starting post in this thread. And decided to give it to the community here.
My solution is already working for me and I know why and how it is like that, so maybe you can take advantage of it.
Of course nobody has to share my zeal in this topic, but when I personally have no zeal in muffler mods, I simply don´t write posts in muffler mod threads e.g.
Posting out of politeness? Please don´t do that, it´s in nobody´s favor. What is my benefit if someone is posting out of politeness? Your argument smells like I need pity or charity? I really don´t think so :)
If you can make use of my thread, use it, maybe discuss it; if it is nothing for you, please simply ignore it instead of pretending to be polite.
By the way in the style you write that, you personally don´t really seem to be a polite person, so better not talk about politeness.
And here we are again, talking about things pretty far away from the topic and my intention.
BTW, I appreciate BobL´s work in this field as already mentioned, he seems to share my zeal and I see it like it is - he gave me something in this regard and I´m thankful for it. That maybe is polite as sideeffect from me, but mainly it´s simply like I said. Hopefully some people having enough zeal chime in in this thread during time :)
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The truth is simple: you can gain something by this thread, I can´t loose anything here (apart from some people not being polite to me anymore, but that´s a problem I can probably live with ;) )
 

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