1/4" pitch

Brian is right about learning to sharpen the 1/4 chain, it takes a bit more finesse, also the tension needs to be a little bit more slack than what I would do for chains on the 200.
Talking about stihl chain and the narrow nose bar on a 150
 
Wearing the rails and blowing the nose's sprocket come usually close in time for my 150T. One or the other, but when one goes, the other is very short behind. For example, it isn't worth the time to dress the bar as the sprocket is near to its end anyway. Or the reverse.

What I noticed, is that the bearing doesn't blow suddenly for no reason, but there's a precursor clue showing up progressively :
The inner race of the bearing is just a small steel washer held in place by the aluminum rivet, which one holds tight too the two flanges of the bar. When new, the external ends of the aluminum rivet are very slightly domed , easy to see on the nose's sides. With the use, the rivet's ends wear flatter and flatter, until they look almost concave. You would argue that there's no reason to become concave just by wear in the wood's kerf and you would be right. What's going on here is the rivet's edges become too thin to stand the side load of the flanges/ side plates. Under the pressure, the rivet's edges begin to fold toward the outside. It's like a lip of less than 1 mm wide around the rivet, showing at first at the tip, giving this concave look. That means the rivet comes a bit lose and the flanges start opening slightly, giving more side play to the sprocket and its bearing. Not good, as it increases the side load. Soon after that, you will be abble to turn the rivet between the thumb and the index finger. The end is in the near future. Insist a little more and the tinny lip on the rivet starts separating by an arc cut. Next thing you know, is the flanges spread apart and send away the tinny rollers of the bearing. Dead.

I thought to replace the aluminum rivet by a steel one. It should hold way better, but it hardly worths the trouble, as the bar's life is very limited by the rails wear.

Oh, I still can't post a pic, sorry.
 
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I need to go look at the 150 bar I replaced lately, see if that was happening, cool.
 
I keep the tiny .043 1/4 chain extra tight because it takes less slack to derail easily having smaller drive links and several rivets, which in my opinion increases stretchiness.
 
I need my 150 back. It had an oiling issue. I dropped it off at the saw shop since they needed the work at the time. First they found a stripped out bolt hole on the case. Offered to replace the crank case, gave me an estimate that seemed reasonable and also included fixing the on off switch. This was August of last year. Hoses for the oiler were back ordered until about Christmas. All but one came in. On a feeling I had them pull up the IPL while I was there based on a question I had asked about Christmas time to see if a piece of regular hose might work. The IPL showed that the hoses that had come in were the special formed ones. The one BOd hose looked small and straight. Again I went in this week after a couple tries to get an answer and looked it up with their better tech. Immediately, he says, "shit, all that is would be a chafe sleeve. Of course a regular hose would fit. We got into the box storing my poor little saw and double checked. Found a hose that would fit over the hose it needed to and into the slot molded for it.
So yeah. Happy I will finally get my little pruner laser back. Miffed at idiots that blew me off.
 
Stephen- Let me guess, the stripped bolt holds the ground wire for the kill switch. I had a couple that loosened up and stripped. And the oiler issue is something in the oilers. I can blow air back into the oil tube and get them working again, but need to pull the side cover to do so. About half of mine had that issue. I also had issues with the bar stud being loose in the case. If you got all three issues resolved, they are great saws. not worth $550 with the issues though.
 
It was a broken oil pick up hose. It had cracked. The stripped out bolt hole held on a plastic cover on the bottom of the saw.
When I could not just clean the oil reservoir and blow some air to unclog it, I knew there was a deeper problem or the pump itself. Since I favor this particular shop, and they have employees to pay, I figured, let them do it for 1/2 the price of a new one as quoted, and I did not have the time to mess with it as I have been too busy. Usually I work on saws, rebuild them and such, on rain days or snow days. We've had shit for rain or snow. Soooo.
The unfortunate thing that happened was that they gave the job to the lessor tech. Oh well.
Also bought another 2511 while I was there. Not like I needed the saw right away. But damn. Supply chain issues and then a non thinking employee = 8 months
 
Once the sleeve suffers from rubbing and vibration, it can crack the hose. The sleeve (listed as a hose) keeps the hose on a molded plastic spot on the internal cover. And prevents rubbing the hose directly.
 
My friend the chainsaw carver who uses the tiny chain and narrow nose bars was the one to tell me to run the chain a little more slack than what we would consider normal. I can count on the fingers of one hand the derails I've had in all the years I've had a 150t.
 
Doesn't have the carving bar an hard nose instead of a sprocket?
If that's, it makes sens to run it a bit loose.

But in fact, I run the tiny chain loose on the 150T because of the systematic oiling issue, even if the oil pump works well. By design for compactness, the engine sprocket is very deep inside the carters, soo deep that the muffler comes a bit under it. The chips coming with the chain can't just fall off when ejected like with the big chainsaws. Insteed, nearly half of them go straight in the recess where the sprocket is and have no other choice than going forward and out with the chain. Problem, the chain catches some of them and forces them into the top bar's groove; clogging easily the tiny oil hole. If the saw is running at full speed, the oil pump delivers enought flow/pressure to blow out the plug of debris. But if the chain is a tad tighter than not tight at all, the saw can't reach its full speed due to the friction. The oil flow is a bit weaker now, so the dust plug stays in the hole, starving the chain in oil. Soon, the chain freezes and some cussing may occur. Loosen the chain completly to free it, 2 or 3 seconds reving at full throttle, the chain puckes some dirty splash. Retighten the chain, a little less than initialy, and you are good to go.

Bucking a spar is the worse because the saw chews constantly even more chips. An heavy blip on the throttle after each cut helps it running. The 200T has the same issue, just a tad less. At least, it's what I see.
Back chaining helps a lot on this subject, but it isn't practical in many cases.

I agree on the derails, very few, always during a speed cutting through a mess of loose brushes. Maybe once with failed peel cut.
 
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My dcs2500 popped the chain the first day with its 1/4in set up. Set the chain tension like I would any other saw. My first assumption would have been to run it a little bit tighter so it wouldn’t have enough play to pop out of the bar rail. Gonna have to try it both ways now. Can’t wait to run a 150 one day but atleast my echo doesn’t have oiling issues (yet) flows more than enough with a 12in bar for even pine wood. One battery lasts me 2-3 trees so with two batteries I’m good for the whole day
 
I've never run a ¼" setup, but my ⅜"lp saws with the oem small nose bars, I find I have to be careful how I attack wood, or the chain will peel off the bar. Loose, tight, doesn't really matter. Cuts that aren't perpendicular to the stem are where it happens most. That's a big reason I went with the WoodlandPro bars. The nose is much broader. Easier to bore, and it holds onto the chain better.

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Standard A06 mount consumer bar...

IMG_20191201_120432.jpg
 
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Took down three pine trees yesterday, about 75-80ft high and while exiting the final cut on setting my notch to blow the top out the chain kicked off the bar. Probably angled the saw just enough to drag on the exit and kick off. My little saw has a 12in panther bar. After the first day I realized I had to turn the oiler up. Did that and touched up the panther chain and increased the gullet size just a bit. The saw wasnt struggling at all in 14in pine wood and I did a bore cut just to test it and it was one of those “head shaker” moments it fell through so fast and easy. The 3/8lp did great on the saw but it wouldn’t discharge the chips well enough to keep up and struggled a bit in bigger wood. Going to 1/4in was all the difference that saw needed
 

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My 1/4" gets a workout and stretches noticeably.

You may have had extra stretch since it's new.

1/4" requires good cutting technique more than larger chain, which has more forgiveness.
 
Yeah normally I’ll get one “retighten” with my normally 3/8 and 3/8lp chains. Seems like I got 3-4 with my 1/4 chain til it quit stretching. One thing I noticed was not being able to use the bar to “twist/lift” the wedge of wood from a notch to make it fall out when the cuts don’t perfectly line up. Definitely gotta be more accurate and patient with the notches
 
I've never had an oiling issue with my 150s, and they get a workout.
If I'm noodling some firewood, it will clog up more quickly than bigger saws but that's to be expected
 
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