This is a wee tip for those who use a machine for maintaining their chains.

I picked up a digital tyre depth gauge on a whim to see if it would be of use to measure the rakers, not only does it work but heck yes it works. No more pissing about guessing when using a machine.

Ebay link




Yes, it is that time of year here.

i'll just use a file

That will work just perfect. I suspect that the manufactures are too conservative on their racker height recommendations.

When I used to cut timber there was somebody who made a plate that had a hole for the raker and plate went on top of 2 teeth and you simply filed the raker off to the top of the plate, cheap and easy

Had one worked great

Wear chaps too! And a damn helmet/facemask

I run a depth mic across the top of the saw teeth after sharpening to check raker depth gauge height. That little gizmo looks like it will do the same thing.

Never ceases to amaze how many people are unable to sharpen a chain with a $2 file. Yes it takes a fair amount of practice to master, but look at all the money saved. I often dream of being the one that came up with all these chain sharpening gadgets, could have made a fortune.

Elksalyer says he wears all that...and he doesn't even own a chainsaw!

I almost bought a power sharpener - but I picked up one of these, and can’t believe how good it works.... so I don’t need a power one anymore.

It’s a Stihl 2 in 1 sharpener (file system) that adjusts your rakers at the same time it’s sharpening the teeth - All good !!

While on the subject of chainsaws - scored this little beauty for a very good price a few days ago. It took a while but I finally found one in great condition!!!

Can only protect a liberal so much. They will still find a way to hurt themselves. Usually by thinking. We should tell him he should forego the helmet....

Nice Dingo! Does that still have the old style chain adjustment?

Geez, that's a nice one. I still have an 034 Super on the shelf. By the way, your bar is on upside down.

Real men still run McCulloch's. None of that Swede or Kraut crap here...you are a weinie if you think a saw should start on the first 4 pulls. Anti vibration technology is for transgender types. Noise and weight reduction is for pajama boys. How you gonna learn the manly mechanical skills needed to attract women if your saw never breaks down? Grin.

Switch it every time you sharpen to keep the wear even

Ever seen an old logger in decent shape at 50 that's still doin it?? Grin

Ain't that the truth Hank...but, my wife's dad worked cutting day wage out on the Olympic Peninsula until he was 63.

I think he was talking about wearing them out partying...some sort of bars or some such...some dude named Vito...

I was delivering firewood to a customer and he says to me.....hey can you use these?...He was showing me about 10 chains he had hanging on the wall. He said instead of sharpening them he just bought a new one. I guess he didn't know how to sharpen them, so one of the sharpening machines would work great for a guy like that.

This is a great sharpener made for Stihl by Pferd of Germany. The blue ones that don't say Stihl are the same, but quite a bit cheaper.

Pferd

I meant there were very few old hands in the logging industry, and if they were they were guys you wanted to listen to. I missed the Vito reference......

Nice!

My wild guess is that you're sharpening way more chains than the guy using a $2 file?

Spotshooter 2n1 = like !

I got 38 stitches in my left thigh, that says you are right. Stihl 039
What a bloody mess. Ruined my pants too.

I paid the same for the Stihl brand as the blue one in your post at my local dealer.

It works great, easy and fast.

The power sharpeners are fine for the guy cutting firewood next to his house, or the cutter who uses his saw less than 4 hours a year. The downside is once you use them on your chain you have to keep using them. A file will give you way more life in your chain and easier to touch up every time you fill up.

Interesting point as to the original post. I'll stick with the little plate to slap on and file them down but good to know!

simonkenton7:
Good afternoon to you sir, I hope the day is a fine one in your part of the planet and that all in your world are well.

I'm sorry to read of your chainsaw incident and hope too that you've healed completely.

After running power saws for personal use over the last 4 decades, never once did I come close to biting myself.... until I did...

My good wife and daughters felt it'd be not a bad idea for me to invest in some chaps or pants and then as I did some research - some of which was chatting with our fellow forum member 673 who makes his living with a chainsaw, I picked up a pair of lightly used Big K Clothing Logger King 4100 Threshold pants.

They're as tough as they are hot!

Anyways all that to say that PPE isn't a bad idea at any age, but as we age it's likely even a better idea.

All the best to you and all our fellow chainsaw users.

Dwayne

McCulloch 125 Super Pro

I went with a chains sharpener a month ago. I had several that were in bad shape and really needed a good grinding. It looks just like the one in the 1st post. It was $315 and a bit too much. I hardly take anything off of the chisel blade and they are very sharp. I did notice that I have to be carefull not to get the blade too hot. It can turn it a blueish color and I think that could effect the steels hardness, so I just go slow and real light. It takes about 10 min. and I will hand file if I can. Hopwever, I am getting all my wood, mostly ash for free. Just go there and they load it in 10' long lumber . It has a lot of nails , bird feeder hooks, and some other un identifiable metal in that wood. therefore , it is hard on the blade. I I cut right in the back yard , so a trip to the garage is close. .

Laughin so hard my wife is wondering what i'm reading. Just campfire stuff , I tell her and she gives me an eye roll sometimes.

Sharpening chains in the shop I use the old Granberg File-N-Joint jig and a raker gauge. In the field I go free hand with a file holder, that is until now I use the Pferd tool in the field.





The hired man has better eyes then me (so he says) and insists on touching up in the field with file.

Not about to get rid of my raker gauges just yet. The top one I ground down below specs to use when I cut a pine plantation sale. Takes a real bite in the wood.

Old, outdated, and cool as hell.

I have 10-10's that get brought along as pinch saws.
Sometimes I just enjoy running them. But not for long!

Carlton made those, invented by Ray Carlton, one of the nices guys you could ever want. After he died the company was sold to Oregon. I have several of those somewhere but I file rakers by how the chips look.

Yes, I worked in the machine shop at Carlton.

Those work great with a grinder.
Grind a lot of chains. All sizes. That tool covers everything

I had a big old McCulloch many years ago. Man I'm glad that thing is gone.

Those were fine Sherm but Carlton made a stainless file o plate that took each tooth down to the right depth individually. It also cut the raker at a angle to help with boring through a log

I ground all my chains on a Silvey Razur Sharp II chisel bit, I only used the Carlton plate a little while then by feel on how the chain fed while cutting. You better not go to far on the rakers bucking logs using the tip boring into a log it would be if your face.

Unless one of you boys have a Homelite 8-29 (as far as I know the biggest saw ever built, frequently seen with a 87 inch bar for ripping redwood etc) Roundoak hereby nominated "Bull Buck" for the Manly Man Sidehill Gouger Society. For those of you pilgrims in Ioway what ain't seen big timber, the Mac SP 125 makes full grown redwoods quake in terror. The Sierra Club did a study, and a 6 hour day with a Mac 125 burns so much mix it causes the Pacific Ocean to rise 2 inches. Which the Sierra Club don't like, but clams do.

They were rated for a 60” bar

I got ported saw only 7ccs smaller.
And another 8 ccs larger. Also ported.
Lol
And they vibrate way too much

I cut some 70+ km from my house and take a half dozen chains and two bars with me, each time I refuel I drop on another chain and change the bar over as it saves getting fingers hot and keeps my chains in good order.
I cut black box and river gum which has a lot of dirt in it from white-ants...I don't piss about with chains and files as I am not interested in sitting about touching up chains instead of cutting.


Eight to ten loads gets us through winter, the fire will be lit in another week and it will go out around September/October.


Oh...and I am down to an even dozen chains for the 372 and a half dozen for the 455...both are 3/8 .058...seems to work for me.

JSTUART those termite pipes surely blunt a chain in no time at all! When I used to get firewood they were the bane of my existence. Used to borrow a farm chainsaw, even bought a sharpening kit for it, the farmers seem to use it without ever sharpening......

Hello Rocdoc, a bit like the fellows at work, they all just wander in and grab a saw and to a man feel compelled to use the damned file to screw things up...cockies...council workers...same diff.

The file o plate is exactly the name I was trying to think of Tim. They would fit right in your front pocket.

You light the fire in April and it goes out in September? Where are you, Australia?

Best advice you can get!

I use a little $30 Harbor Freight grinder to sharpen my chains. It works good, but technique is everything.

I set the stops on the grinder where it only dusts off the cutting edge of each tooth. Also, I file down the rakers the first time I sharpen the chain. In my opinion, the rakers are too high on the chains sold today. After taking a 16th of an inch off the rakers, the chain teeth take a deeper bite and results in a faster, cleaner cut.

Amazxing the crap you pick up on this site.
Can't imagine buzzing through a nice log and hitting a freaking
clay tube. That would put the Kibosh to things.

What do you do then?
I assume the thing would run up the trunk aways?
Just keep cutting?
Or abandon the log?



Do you run round chain or chisle

I have a couple- maybe 3? - of the File-N-Joint jigs. They work so well (and I don't do that much cutting), that I've never found the need for anything else for the last 50 years.- One goes in each chainsaw case that I am using. I have the flat raker guides too.

Freehand filing in the field will ef up a chain in a hurry- seen it many times, so I don't even try, myself. That Stihl devise looks like it may work for touchup if used with care, but I'd still use a decent jig- guide before starting each day, to reset the cutters accurately. Nearly everyone rocks the file on the stroke without a jig or clamp-on guide.

Working trail crew for the USFS back in late 60's and early 70's, I noticed people ( including myself) got a lot more careless with cutting tools when wearing chaps, be it with chainsaws axes, or brushing tools. I've never owned a pair for myself since then - when we were required to wear them (if the boss was looking). Nicked a couple boots over the decades, but that's it.

We had a couple "fire-safe" guys thin out our yard trees last year on their off-days, for additional $. Both had been "trained" on how to field sharpen chainsaws every fill-up. By noon both were claiming I needed new chains on both saws. They WERE new the day before.... including one of the saws. After that, I did it myself with the File-N-Joints

McCulloch . . .

When ya rather be pullin and CUSSIN than cuttin!

Course I haven't run a chainsaw seriously since the Homelite 66 days.

I'm going to the stihl shop this week for mower blades and will be checking out the 2n1. Is the holder itself 1 size for all just add your file for saw you're using?

Just keep cutting and keep sharpening, pipe runs up a fair way. Timber in some places is hard to get to be too fussy 😩

Was funny for the kids if you holed into a bee hive!

Not sure what you mean by run round chain or chisel?

That sounds like where I would have been a couple times if not for the chaps. S**T happens!

Worse, I was solo in the woods when both incidents happened, and figure I might have bled out before getting to help.

An outstanding investment.

home cooked food restaurants


The semi chisel is what we call round, it holds up better
than chisel, but doesn't cut as well.

The flat ground cuts better than normal chisel, but dulls even faster.
At least that's my understanding on flat ground. It's common around here,
more a western thing, where I'm guessing they use it on cleaner wood.
Would like to try it, but supposedly it's hard to hand file and the jigs
don't work for it. Need to order a loop and give it a whirl, just to see.
Be my luck to hit something right out of the box, and still not get to
run it.

I ground all my chains like your square pic, there's an art to it. The guy I bucked logs behind starting out in the woods filed his and my chains square before I bought a grinder, his hand filing was a thing of beauty OMG did they cut.

Anyone use the timberline? 30 secondsto set up, 3 spins a tooth.....and you can't get a better finish.

Holy crap. Learn how to use a file already. Its not that hard.

That gizmo must be designed for Forest Service employees.

OK- which one of you guys put a curse on me yesterday?



I'd also ask "What are the chances?", but we all know that's nearly 100%.

Lottery!

Isn't it amazing. A 1/8 " thick nail in a 30' long piece of wood and you choose that exact spot to cut. I have even just cut the edge off one.
How I thee hell...?

I bet that was rough on the chain.

Ya can’t coach that. That’s natural talent!! 🤣🤣

Been using this for a few years now... it’s simple enough even I don’t screw it up...

Take 1/16” off the rakers!!!

You mean MAYBE 1/64”........and you need a manly saw for that.

Just kidding. You’d know if you took off 1/16”

Tried tocut a big log with my dads Husky 2100.
That's a 100cc saw, it's got some balls.

Anyway, it kept bogging down. It has a system in the anti vibe that
engaged the chainbrake under enough load. And the chain grabbed and
pulled so hard it either stalled the clutch or engaged the brake.

Gave up and used my 372.

Later, dad ask if it did ok?

Then explained that he used an angle grinder to take down the
takers, and "maybe" took too much off.

It ruined a good chain. The teeth would have been almost gone if
you tried filing them untill the takers were right.

No idea what the hell got into him. Been running a saw for a long time.
He just got a wild hair and thought a grinder would be quicker.

Because, a 70 year old retired guy is in a big dam hurry.

Glad you found a system that works for you, although it seems more of a niche scenario more than the norm for most wood cutters. Toting around a slew of chains and extra bars doesn't sound enjoyable. I don't cut as much as I used to but when running 1-2 8 man crews I wouldn't have relished buying or making enough chains that everyone had 6 spares. Seems an expensive way to get out of using a file is all

Big wind storm knocked a bunch of timber down in as nearby state park
several years ago. They big the logging and it went to some helicopter crew.

Now that was a novel deal. Nobody here had ever saw such a thing.
People came to watch them fly the turns in.

Anyway, this was a corporate, organized by the book operation.
The cutters were required to run the safety chains on their saws.
Anyone caught with anything else had problems.

So, they went to the local shop and bought traditional chains, and carried
them into the woods in a pocket. At the end of the day, they swapped,
And hung the good chain in a tree. It became a common topic in logging
circles. Logging here isn't corporate. It's family or a couple guys
running saws, cutting wood. No HR BS. These rednecks couldn't imagine
being told to run crappy chains or being forced to wear helmet and
ear muffs.

Not that safety gear is a bad idea.

I cut for myself, the amount I cut each load generally fetches between $250-$300 per load depending on who you purchase from locally ...it costs me $25 to cut and transport to my back yard.
I do this for personal use on my weekends off work.

I generally buy five more chains each fourth season and these cost me $120 for five Carlton 72 .058 3/8 delivered to my mailbox.

I also drive right up to the wood I cut.

It works for me.


PS...and if I can figure out an easier and cheaper way I shall give that a whirl too.

That's about $150-$230 US dollars! Not sure what your load is but a full size pickup truck here is about a 1/2 a chord of wood and at least out at our camp in WV it would run you $75-$90 depending on when you bought it. Usually red oak so good burning stuff.

I got lucky a few years ago and the power company came through trimming the lines. And trim they did! Cut a bunch of 20" and larger stuff. None of the folks on our road wanted it so I cut it all and split and stacked and covered and we didn't need to buy any wood for 5 years. We sold the camp this year and there was still almost a chord there.

I did learn a lesson though and was glad I was wearing chaps. All it took was a second and if I hadn't it would have been a bloody mess.

I don't cut without chaps or ppe...I leave that risk to those that can afford it.


added, load is heavy 7x5 trailer with a 2' 6" cage on top stacked to the max, and that load consisting of black box is HEAVY.

Yeah, shocked the heck out of me too, I was still under the impression a load was $120.