http://www.baileysonline.com/itemdetail.asp?item=15200&catID=9958
The Bailey's link above shows the unit, along with it's pdf instruction file and a video of a guy using it.
I spent a Saturday with the #1 son building yet another retaining wall at the mountain place, out of, yes, you guessed it, railroad ties. A few needed to be cut at angles to make some of the curves in the wall look right. The embedded gravel in them is pretty rough on a saw chain.
I had bought the FIL one of these units for Christmas last year. He would be the last guy on the planet to actually need it, since he is pretty good at hand filing, but I figured he might have some fun with it. I also picked one up, thinking it might be nice to be able to straighten out a really messed up chain in the field, if I did not happen to have a spare loop with me.
I clamped the MS250 in the bench vise, by the bar. I then put the couple of pieces together on the Grandberg guide, installed a new 5/32" file and attached the unit. It took a little thinking to get it set up right, so the chain would slide through, but not be sloppy. I measured the cutters with a digital caliper, then set and filed the shortest cutter into submission and marked it with a back sharpie. I proceeded to then file the rest of the cutters that faced left to the same dimension, switched the unit to the right facing cutters, and filed them all to the same length.
Next, I installed a flat raker file and set the height up to file the rakers to 0.020" below the cutter tip. This only took a couple of strokes on most of the rakers.
The whole process, including learning curve, reading the directions, and fooling around, took about 30 minutes.
I took the saw out and made a few cuts on some 8" dead oak logs. As far as I can tell, the old full chisel Oregon chain is now back to cutting like new.
I then picked up the MS200T and set it up in the vise. I repeated the sequence above, on a mostly sharp chain. It took about 5 minutes, total.
I probably would still manually file a chain between tanks while working, but this thing will be pretty nice in the truck, for those days when you find something unexpected in a tree trunk and severely dull up a chain, without a handy backup loop. The saw does not need to be in a vise to use it, but if one is handy, it is easier.
Quality note: The castings, knobs, wingnuts, etc. are all pretty cheesy looking. If you could find one of these things from 50 years ago, it would probably be more pleasant to use. I think the modern ones will hold up ok, but they sure engineered the cost out of them.
The Bailey's link above shows the unit, along with it's pdf instruction file and a video of a guy using it.
I spent a Saturday with the #1 son building yet another retaining wall at the mountain place, out of, yes, you guessed it, railroad ties. A few needed to be cut at angles to make some of the curves in the wall look right. The embedded gravel in them is pretty rough on a saw chain.
I had bought the FIL one of these units for Christmas last year. He would be the last guy on the planet to actually need it, since he is pretty good at hand filing, but I figured he might have some fun with it. I also picked one up, thinking it might be nice to be able to straighten out a really messed up chain in the field, if I did not happen to have a spare loop with me.
I clamped the MS250 in the bench vise, by the bar. I then put the couple of pieces together on the Grandberg guide, installed a new 5/32" file and attached the unit. It took a little thinking to get it set up right, so the chain would slide through, but not be sloppy. I measured the cutters with a digital caliper, then set and filed the shortest cutter into submission and marked it with a back sharpie. I proceeded to then file the rest of the cutters that faced left to the same dimension, switched the unit to the right facing cutters, and filed them all to the same length.
Next, I installed a flat raker file and set the height up to file the rakers to 0.020" below the cutter tip. This only took a couple of strokes on most of the rakers.
The whole process, including learning curve, reading the directions, and fooling around, took about 30 minutes.
I took the saw out and made a few cuts on some 8" dead oak logs. As far as I can tell, the old full chisel Oregon chain is now back to cutting like new.
I then picked up the MS200T and set it up in the vise. I repeated the sequence above, on a mostly sharp chain. It took about 5 minutes, total.
I probably would still manually file a chain between tanks while working, but this thing will be pretty nice in the truck, for those days when you find something unexpected in a tree trunk and severely dull up a chain, without a handy backup loop. The saw does not need to be in a vise to use it, but if one is handy, it is easier.
Quality note: The castings, knobs, wingnuts, etc. are all pretty cheesy looking. If you could find one of these things from 50 years ago, it would probably be more pleasant to use. I think the modern ones will hold up ok, but they sure engineered the cost out of them.
