How do you sharpen saw chain?

Looks like a go-gettin' machine, Willard. Got any pics, or better yet video of it in competition action?

Hat's off, sir.
 
Cool post and shop, Willard!
Thanks cory.
Its just a 22' x22' double car garage attached to my house, did all my welding and everything in there. My wife and I now have the place up for sale and got our hearts set on a nice little 4 acre place 5 minutes out in the country with a 3 bay shop with 9 ft high doors and a nice little farm house. This will a big change for us and our kids. We were out there again last night and man is it peaceful out there and all that grass to cut.
 
I always kind of wanted to build a bike saw just never did .Maybe some day and get someone else to run it .I came to the realization these youger gents have much faster reflexs than I .You could get the fastest saw in the world but without a good sawyer you're dead in the water .

Looks like a go-gettin' machine, Willard. Got any pics, or better yet video of it in competition action?

Hat's off, sir.

Al I agree it does take a young mans reflexes to do good with these machines, but take veteran Sven Johnson and his CanAm 250cc bikesaw, he was breaking speedcutting records into his 60s.

Burnham the newest video I have is on VCR but I'll try and dig up and scan some old photos of my saw and also my brothers hotsaw adventures with their McCulloch 101 kart saws.
 
Don't make it an imposition on your time, Willard. It would be fun to see, at your leisure...which you may have little of, seeing as moving house can be a BIG job. Hope it works out that you get that little piece if peaceful country living.
 
Nice to see a well cared for 090 primed for activity. Not some beat up thing on ebay that the seller wants megabucks for.
 
Jay, looking back at my previous post's photos of my 090, one photo of it cutting that paper roll shows how the saws paint got burnt off from a fire when the muffler ignited the paper roll and debris a few days before.
I just stuck a new fuel line on and wrapped some tape around the burnt spark wire and I was back to business cutting paper rolls for the local mill. That was about 6 years ago , since then I have replaced the burnt covers and plastic pieces with brand new ones from Stihl. The old girl looks brand new again, plus its only got a few hundred hours max on it if that.
 
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  • #334
Hey Al: Not to derail your derail, but I was wondering abt what you said regarding 3/8ths not being used much on saws over 100 cc's except on racers.

Now why, do you suppose, that is? Does a narrower kerf always require less energy to cut? If so, why aren't we all running the narrowest little chain we can get our hands on? Cld larger chain just cut smoother and straighter? I doubt it. Is there, perhaps, some weird threshold at which a longer bar begins to require a bigger hole to pull all the chips through? I'm thinkin' that that's it.:/: If so: we got ta nail this stuff down boys! What are the thresholds, and who established them, and when? Shld we trust them? In short, Al: Why wld a "racer" want a narrower chain? What length bar did it have, etc?

Chime in boys. What say all of you? Inbreds can't be expected to think their way through this sort of thing. :?
 
Maybe because it is a lighter chassis and requires less power to pull? On a racer that is.
I would be worried about breaking 3/8 on my 3120. Also I think there is a trade off with chain pitch and cutter count meaning, can you imagine pulling 1/4" full comp on a 60" bar that would be a hell of a lot of drag and almost impossible chip clearance.
 
I tried the picco micro chains on my 200t's a couple years back and they kept breaking before I ever filed them. Seems it would just be a matter of are they strong enough to hand day in and day out work. A race chain lives for one or two cuts.
 
No worries about the 3120 breaking 3/8 chain. I have run Oregon .050 3/8 LG on my 125cc Yamaha bikesaw and have never broke a chain.
Race chain calls for the max cutter height with the largest gullet possible and a kerf width as narrow as possible. I've seen the big 1/2 inch pitch chisel chain modified to cut as narrow as a little 3/8 [.375].
If your really competitive it takes many hours taking a chain completely apart [or buy the parts seperately] thin them out , modify a few items and put the chain back together. Then you have to adjust the "gear ratio" [drive sprocket size] to depth gauge height. Alot of trial and error for different powerheads. Most common error in stock to stock modified class racing is depth gauges too low.
 
On that a lot of times the rakers are only set for 22 thou .

What that does in effect is roll a thin chip which because the gullet goes clear to the tie strap thusly holding more chip before the tooth rocks out of the cut .It's still a big chip just thinner .
 
On that micro on the 200's I've got a little 12" I run on the super bee .To tell the truth though I don't see it as being much faster than standard 50 thou chain .I think it's Carlton chain .
 
Drive link thickness usually have little to do with how wide the cut is.
If it is a worn chain or not properly filed, that wiggle sideway's the cut will be a lot bigger, power loss more and risk of damage higher.

If you take the Oregon Super 20 chain as example the 20 (.050)and 21 (.058) cut just as wide.
The 95VP cut thinner though...

There are lots of other things that improve cut more than saving 4 hundreds of width in the cut.
Once all those other things are done this might be considered, but I bet there is little to gain on it.
 
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  • #341
Dang Williard! You've tried some STUFF!! Know a thing or two also from how things look.

So the consensus view is that the narrowest cut that the chassis will hold is always the fastest?
 
Huge is only a west coast thing .We in the midwest have large but not huge .

On that though ,just like the left coast,either slice and dice or in our case in the heart land it becomes part of fine furniture or fine trim for houses .--the rest is fine firewood .
 
So the consensus view is that the narrowest cut that the chassis will hold is always the fastest?

To a certain extent narrowest is fastest, but if the chips can't be cleared from the kerf efficiently enough the chain will cut slower . Too many chain modders make the mistake of thinning out and reducing the size of the cutters too much which in turn slows down the chip flow. Reduced chip flow hampers chisel cutting action. You need "meat" in the right places.
A sawchain blowing chips out of the kerf in the log is kinda like comparing the action to the fan blades on the disc of a disc chipper.
 
Just found this vid ... DOES ANYONE DO THIS? :?

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/aVPyV336Fnc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 
All the time.
I just plug it into one of the electrical outlets that grow on trees in the forests in my part of the world.
 
I'd seen that side grinder deal before .Maybe they term that "free hand grinding " or better termed how to ruin a chain twenty seconds or less .
 
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