Life of Chain

[basswidow]

How long can you expect a chain to last on your saw? Years?

Let me say that my saw is not a professional saw - Echo 370 and the chain is the one that comes with the saw and spare chains sold at Home Depot. I am guessing it's a safety chain - nothing fancy. When the chain is new - it cuts amazingly well and is good for awhile. Then it reaches a point where it's not performing like it should. I use the corresponding round file that matches up with the chain and point it up.

I still could learn a thing or two about sharpening the chain. I do NOT have a flat file to use on the bump in front of the tooth. Sorry my terminology is not up to speed. Maybe not filing this part of the chain is causing my problems?

I scrounge alot of trees from construction sites so some of the wood is dirty - but I do my best to make my cutting area clean and I avoid making contact with anything that would instantly dull the chain (like the ground). I am not sure of the species of wood either. About the only one I can identify is the cherry. Most of it's been laying around awhile. None of it is fresh green wood.

My routine is: When I reach a stopping point, I fill up the fuel, bar oil, and clean/adjust the bar and chain tension and file the chain. Usually 2-3 files per tooth or so proper angle and direction. And then I get back to cutting. It cuts just fine. But there comes a time when sharpening the chain this way- just doesn't get me the performance I expect. I wonder if the chain is beyond use (poor quality) or am I wearing out these cheap files? Or do I need a flat file for the gauge bump thing in front of the tooth?

Chains are cheap enough, I just threw out 2 and bought 2 new ones. I cut 8 cords of wood with the 2 I threw out. Seems like you could get more out of them? I'm sure being new to this - I am rough on them. Which makes me wonder is it me? Is it cheap chains, cheap files, wrong sharpening technique? None of the teeth were broken - should I have kept those chains and worked on them alittle more? The local shop will sharpen my chains - but it's $ 10 a chain and buying new ones are just $ 16.

Any help you could offer this chainsaw rookie is appreciated. Or is it acceptable to wear a chain or two out in two years time?

 

[zzr7ky]

Hi -

sounds like you're doing fine. After 5-7 tanks full, sharpening a stroke or 2 after each tank I knock the raker teeth down with 2-3 strokes. Then you should see nice 'chips' again instead of 'dust'. Nothing wrong with running an Echo.

You might really enjoy some good chain. Bailey's or Amick's should be able to help you by phone.

ATB,
Mike P

 

[SPED]

It sounds like your technique/frequency is good for sharpening the chains, but you do need to address the rakers(bumps in the front), hopefully my terminology is on, if not someone else will be along to correct me. If you look at home depot there is an oregon kit that comes with a flat file and the gauge to check the depth. You don't need to do depth every time you file, more like 2 or 3 with safety chain from what I've seen. This will make a big difference in your performance, the depth controls how big of a bite the chain takes each time, so no matter how sharp the teeth are your chain won't perform like new unless you address the depth gauges.

FWIW most of that is what I've gleaned from the boards here and my own sharpening, chances are someone will be along to correct or fill in the holes I've left. There were some good threads about this recently as well, may want to try a search.

 

[basswidow]

Thanks for the responses Mike and SPED,

OK, so the little bump is a raker. I haven't filed one yet. So that must be the issue. I do have a gage that fits over the chain - it just didn't come with a flat file. I will pick one up and give this a try in the future. Too late for the chains that I tossed out. I bet that would have made them perform again. I just figured I had used them up. Despite sharpening the tooth, they still weren't cutting well. Not filing the raker - means the higher raker wasn't letting the tooth get to the wood? Figures. Another rookie mistake - but I am learning. Someday - I will graduate and get these training wheels off.

Yeah, the chips tell alot. When the chain is fresh and good, those chips are flying like crazy - and are good sized. Cuts wood like butter. By the time the chips get to be dust like, the chain needs some attention.

So do you check the raker every time you sharpen? or maybe each day before you head out? 5-7 tanks is about an average day of cutting for me. I can usually fill my truck in 2 hours or less and be done for the day, unless I go out twice.

I just used the Echo replacement chain. Is there a brand of chain anyone can recommend? I am assuming a new brand chain, might also mean - a new diameter file?

How about the life of the round files? The ones I bought - come in a 3 pack. The seem to bend easily. Is there a difference in quality with files as well?

 

[Kong]

It sounds to me like you are tossing your chains when they still have about 2/3 of their life left in them.

You can continue sharpening a chain until the cutters (teeth) get so short from having been filed that the first one of them breaks off. That's the tell-tale, when you stop the saw and go to sharpen it and find one of the teeth has broken off - then its time to toss the chain. Anything before that and you are wasting perfectly good chain.

Those hump parts you are talking about, sometimes called the depth gauge regulates the depth of the cut that will be made by the cutter directly behind each one. You will notice that the shape of the cutter is such that as it gets filed back its height decreases. Well, to some extent the depth gauge wears to compensate for the reduced height of the cutter but in fact they don't wear fast enough so you have to take a little bit of metal off after a while yourself.

Now this is a critical part of the sharpening regimen. But it comes on slowly and by the time the cutter has been worn down about a third of its length it won't matter much how sharp you get it, the depth gauge will stop wood from being fed to the cutter. You can go out and buy a special guide that will make filing the things to the right height a snap. Both the guides and files are relatively inexpensive.

However, if you don' want to go to the trouble to get a guide let me tell you how to double the useful life of your chains. When you have got them to the point where you are now tossing them file the gauges instead. Just take a fine-toothed 6" or 8" flat file and give each one of them 3 strokes. Then go on with your regular sharpening. You'll be amazed at the difference. You can do it again when the chain is about 3/4-dead.

Now if you really want to get an inexpensive restart on chain life just do what you're doing up until its 'toss-it' time and then take it to a local sharpener. My local guy gets $7 to do one if you bring the chain in off the saw, $10 on it. You get that $7 sharpening and its just like taking a new chain out of the box.

As for how long do chains last? I really don't know. We cut quite a bit of firewood, at least 10 cords per year. But the saws get used for a lot small cutting too. I generally end up buying about 2 chains a year and they just sort of pile up. Now and then I'll look real close at the pile of them (actually they are hanging) and pick a few to toss. So, how long do they last? I dunno, maybe 5 or 6 years, but as they get skinnier they get picked to be used less and less. Oh, the one good thing about having a lot of old chains sharpened and ready to go is if you know you're going to be getting into some dirty wood you can just take a half a dozen old ones with you and not worry about the mud too much. Change them as you dull them and resharpen them later when you get the time.

As for the question of chain quality between brands I have two things to say. First there are probably a lot less actual chain makers than we realize and second that if there's any real difference between them its not particularly noticeable. I happen to buy Stihl chains but if someone closer than my Stihl dealer was selling chains cut from bulk cheaper then that's what I'd be using. I don't think it makes anywhere near as much difference about who made the chain as it does how well the chain is maintained.

 

[Bigg_Redd]

My chains last for years if I stay out of the rocks and nails.

 

[Wood Duck]

My system, which may not be the best way but works for me, is to sharpen the chain myself maybe 5 or 10 times, depending on how much abuse the chain is taking, then take it to a pro. I do an OK job sharpening, I think, but after a few sharpenings my small errors tend to compound and become larger errors, and I sometimes the chain starts cutting crooked. I explain to the guy at the shop what is happening, and when I get the chain back it is fixed. This way i don't have to worry about depth gages, they are done professionally.

 

[JeffRey30747]

Instead of just tossing them, I try to keep a nearly worn out chain or two around for those times when I don't want to use a "good chain" such as dirty wood, possible nails/staples or stumps. I have an old bar too if things look really messy.

 

[ManiacPD]

I recently attended a chainsaw safety class and the instructor's saw had a chain that was like none I'd ever seen. The thing had been sharpened to the point that the cutting teeth were about 1/2" from the raker with a huge gap in the middle. I have clearly been wasting chains by throwing them away at about 50% of their life.

A good raker gauge and some practice filing them down will treat you well and you'll be surprised how much better your chain cuts. If it doesn't cut as well as when it was new you'll know you still have some more skills to hone, pun intended.

 

[Kong]

That chain you saw was a skip-link chain. Most of the chain's you see have a cutter on every link with a pair of straps holding them together. But there are chains that have cutter every other link. They are called skip-link chains. You use them on very long bars. The reason for the space is to accomodate the larger volume of chips that have to be removed from a long kerf - like when long bar/chain combinations are in use. A lot of wood has to be pulled out of the cut when a 25'+ bar is on a saw or it just jams up and cutting slows considerably. By omitting every other cutter there is more space for the chips.

Make sense? Oh, and yes, they do still cut just as fast (faster actually) than a conventional chain would have on one of those long bars.

 

[basswidow]

You guys are great with the info.

A person can really shorten the learning curve on this site.

I wish I hadn't throw those chains now. The rakers were never filed - they had plenty of life left.

Now I've got to dull these up - just to try out my hand at filing the rakers.

Saving old chains for dirty wood is a good idea - except most of my wood falls into that category.

Great info on the skip tooth chain. That makes perfect sence that a longer bar would need more space for removing chips.

Here I was blaming the quality of the chain, the files, the wood, and my technique and all I needed to do was file the rakers about 3 swipes each and I would have been back in business.

One of many more lessons to learn - I'm sure. Thanks again.

 

[Kong]

That advice about 3 swipes with the file is sort of a general thing - it generally works pretty good. However ManicPD gave you the best advice, just take it a professional sharpener when they get goobered up real good. Check with places that sell saws other than big box stores in your area and you'll find one that sharpens chains - some rental places offer the service as well.

I just use that 3-swipe thing as sort of a rule of thumb. You don't want to take off too much metal (and not much at all can be too much) because if you do it will often bog down the saw and make the chain chatter in the cut badly. So basically you can take off too much metal and render a chain worthless; we all file differently but 3 swipes will not take off too much metal - 8 might, 10 probably would.

 

[Gooserider]

Before trusting your chains to a grinder shop, find out if they do the rakers - many in my area don't touch them... Also note that it is really easy to ruin a chain with a grinder, if one tries to take off to much material, to quickly, the tooth will burn, or turn blue, which means that it has lost it's temper and won't hold an edge for more than a few seconds until the burned area has been filed away... I've also seen many posts here where the grinder guy will take off large amounts of tooth, which could have been used for cutting - thus shortening the chain life...

I hand file exclusively unless I hit a rock or otherwise really mung up the chain, at which point I will use my cheapo HF grinder to clean it up - taking off as little metal as I can. I file after every tank of gas, and spot check my rakers each time, though they normally only need to be taken down about every third sharpening...

"Officially" if your chains have a line on the top of the tooth to show you the sharpening angle, you are supposed to toss the chain when you get to that mark - but in practice, I agree with the guys that say go till the teeth start coming off...

Gooserider

 

[lobsta1]

Number one piece of advice I can give is don't buy your chains at HD. They have two knocks against them. They are made in China & they are safety chains. One recommendation would be the Woodland Pro chins from Baileys. They are probably the best bang for your buck.
Al

http://www.baileysonline.com/category.asp?CatID=70

 

[basswidow]

Thanks again for the advice. I will be careful not to take too much off the rakers. My chains do not have a line on the tooth, but if they did, that would be helpful. The gage that came with the file - shows the angle. Sometimes I use it - other times I feel I have the angle right just from doing it so many times. It's a pain trying to file in that contraption. I know you are suppose to file each tooth the same number of times, but sometimes a couple of the teeth need alittle more or alittle less. There is kind of a feel - when the tooth is good and the file has done it's job, it no longer feels rough - it feels smooth and good. I got a stump vise that helps greatly to hold the saw. I also will use a marker on the starting tooth so I know when I've gone the whole way around and haven't done a tooth twice.

It's becoming an addiction and I can see myself adding another saw before spring and I am always shopping for a splitter.

 

[billb3]

I always start filing at the chain link that makes a loop of the chain. Some are painted to make them easier to spot.
It takes quite a bit of sharpening to need to file the rakers down.

I'm still not terribly good at sharpening, but I've found keeping a new chain for a reference seeems to help for a reference re what should be there .

If you file the rakers a bit agressively, careful with the saw at the first cut it can have a bit more bite than you may have been used to .

 

['bert]

Don't forget about the maintenance of the bar that goes with sharpening your chain. I flip mine over about every 4 tanks of fuel and usually clean out the grove and oiling holes at the same time. When I flip the bar over I also check to see if the edges need to be cleaned up with a file.

'bert

 

[k3c4forlife]

I am in the same boat as bass, want to be learning how to keep my chainsaw as efficient as possible. I sharpen the chain every 3-4 tanks of gas. Can someone throw up a picture of a chain link up close and what part is the raker? Having a hard time picking that out to file. I haven't ever filed that down and I am wondering if thats why my chain is struggling.

 

[Kong]

I went looking for a good picture, and I know there are some on the internet, but didn't have much luck. You see the sharp part that sticks up and does the cutting? Well, its the hump that's about 3/8" in front of it. You file down the top of the hump, and maybe a little bit of the ramp that leads up to the top. You see, that hump is there to limit how deep the cutter - that is coming along right behind it - can cut into the wood. If the hump is filed down too low it allows the cutter to bite off more wood than the saw's engine can power the chain through. However if the cutting part has worn back more than the hump has worn down then the hump will hold the cutter up out of the wood so it won't cut at all no matter how sharp it might be. That's the problem guys talk about when they say no matter how they try they just can't get the saw to cut right even though they are sure its sharp or they are pretty sure they sharpened it correctly. Well, they did - as far as it went.

On finding that starting place, if the chain has an odd number of links there will be two cutter in a row somewhere on the chain that both face the same way rather than the normal alternating left and right pattern. Start there. Some chains don't have the two links and also don't have the painted tie-straps. I have a little squirt bottle with white paint in it that I use to put a little drop on the first link I file. The paint is just regular HOK basecoat white (I do some custom motorcycle painting and this is premix stuff for my airbrushes) and it wears off almost instantly so I I have to do it with every sharpening. If you had one of those little bottles of model paint you could do the same, just find something very very fast drying.

 

['bert]

Here are some close ups of saw chain, look about 1/2 down to see the raker. It's just in front of the part that you sharpen.



http://www.eaglecarving.com/maintenance.html

 

['bert]

here is a another picture