Narrowing bar groove

  • Thread starter Thread starter Nutball
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A trick I learned in the mold building sector, that works well on bars, is to use a file that has cutters on the side, then run the file parallel to the face of the bar and use the side of the file to cut the burr off the bar. This eliminates the angle that you would normally cut on the bar, and keeps it from thinning the bar rail. We used it in the mold industry to prevent "flashing" of plastic when it was injected into the mold. It leaves a sharp edge, but removes the burr.
 
If you have a table saw, a metal cut off wheel does a very good job of truing the bar edges back to square. I don't know if a cut off wheel is prone to breakage when running metal along it's side, but light passes don't seem to be a risk, and if you epoxy a piece of plywood on the other side, it must surely eliminate the risk and also adds stability to the wheel to keep it from deflecting. You can also take off the burr that way with a very light pass with the bar at an angle. I've trued up many bars that way with a wheel taken off a cut off saw that was worn down to a smaller diameter, probably better than a new wheel that might not fit in your saw anyway. I have to remember to clean out the wood dust from the base of the saw before, with sparks from the bar shooting down there. A cheap portable table saw seems like it would work equally as well, as long as the wheel is square to the table. You probably need to make a metal or wood insert for the hole in the cut off wheel, table saw arbor sizes are generally different from a cut off saw's setup. You can reshape a bar profile that way as well, grind out nicks if you have the groove depth. The sprocket teeth on the end don't like hitting the wheel, but you can get close up.
 
There is a couple different things we talk about here. Burr on the rail is one and wrong shape/hight on rail is another.
Burr is easily removed with file or these tools they come up with to do it as not many seem to know how tto operate and take care of a file.


If the bar is worn wrong and rails are out of shape they need to be set straight.
If chain wore bar wrong from bad filing or damages its same thing.
Also if rim caused damages to tie strap and rails.

I have depth guage cutter and planer to correct rails on solid bars..
 
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I found my cheap bar exactly what I was looking for. http://www.ebay.com/itm/281962884759?ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&fromMakeTrack=true

The bar I mentioned from the start, and being the first one I ever used plus being cheap and laminated it did last 5-10 cords and went bad long before the chain would have, but being the first time I used a chainsaw I stopped using the chain shortly before I stopped with the bar because I was unsure of how far it could stretch without breaking, so just to be sure, can a short 18" chain be stretched to the max of the tensioners length without becoming unsafe? I'm sure it probably would be fine. Hopefully with my experience now I will get a much longer life out of this bar.
 
Bump.
I had an issue with my 36" 088 bar, when milling it tended to cut down and caused the mill to get stuck. I sharpened the chain, closed the rails in a vise and back to milling straight.
 
Straighten and closing rails is important.
You can tell on the drive link, rails and underside of tiestraps if there is something to correct in filing and depth gauge etc. You also see if rim/sprocket is bad.
If the chain has damage on drivers/tiestraps or uneven wear it won't help to just fix bar up.

Oregon used to have a very good guide how to do maintenance on bars and chains to avoid unfixable damages.

A bad rim cause damage on chain that create excessive wear on bar.

Best is to rotate several chains per bar and rim. This creates even wear on all of it. I have customers rotating up to ten chains on one bar/rim.
 
Bump. Servicing my 48" hardnose milling bar today. Had some shitty cuts when milling. I had this contractors table saw dropped off for repair, I thought the armature was burnt and the customer didn't want to wait for parts, so he left it. Turns out it was only a bearing and brushes. Perfect to use outside. I had it for probably 4 years or more.

20220902_121035.jpg
 
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