Need Help from the "Big Saw" Guys

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My first few years learning to file as a teenager I too used the Oregon file holder.
Only way to properly learn how to file:)
 
Hey guys, good info here as always and yes it is only good info if it is applied :) I am not very good with saw chain but always trying to learn so I will be. Can someone post a link for this guide the Oregon? I have been using the Pferd ones for full comp chain. Of course this device isn't designed for skip chain. Thank you gentlemen for taking the time teach green horns like myself!
Mark
 
Now for me it took near 12 years to gain confidence in my saw chain sharpening. Minding not only how sharp it was, or how well it could cut, but also with how my skill at sharpening related to wear and tear on the drive train components; bar, rim, clutch. Funny, the first time I had a bar wear out I thought it was my sharpening that was the causing all the problems with the cutting. You can imagine the comedy of trial and errors that followed until I learned were the real culprit lied. By the time I began falling timber professionally I had the skills fine tuned for keeping my chain and drive components in top notch condition. It's the only way you were going to make any money.

During my right of way clearing years, twelve to be exact, we were cutting stumps, logs and slash routinely every day. Cutting in the dirt most of the time, and through the course it wore out our chains and drive chain components fast. Now the chain saws the company supplied us with were pitifully worn out to boot. I'll tell you, if we had a real tree to have to fell and buck the odds were a company saw would not be able to it. So I kept my personal saw on the truck just for those occasions, and left the company saws for the dirt work.

My first foreman would not let me sharpen a saw chain because he was afraid I'd screw it up, and he was right about that. 5 years later when I became foreman I give my apprentices their own company saw that was theirs to sharpen, maintain and work. One kid filed away a chain in just two days in a worthless attempt to keep both sides of the cutters perfectly even.

When there was good clean wood to cut I'd pit my chain against theirs in a challenge. They were always a few seconds behind, but over time they started getting better and one day I got beat by my crew. They really enjoyed that day, I recall.

We always had little competitions on the job, spur climb up to the first limbs was always a popular one. But rope climbs, throw-line and work access was a always a good part of our competitions, too. It was all on the job training of course, and a wonder if we really got anything done some days. Ha!
 
It does sound like a long time huh, Butch. Now I could sharpen round chain as good as any green horn could in my early years. Going through the motions, paying attention to cutter angles, setting the rakers just right for what I was cutting, and all the rest of it. Round chain was easy. But in all honestly it wasn't until about 6 years into this that I began to really understand the finer points about round chain. Looking back at it it was simple really.

After moving to Ft. Bragg, where the real pros were cutting, I wanted to learn how to sharpen square chain. It's a whole new gig, and to do it right doesn't come to anyone over night. There's more relative angles to consider with square filing over round. In a few years I got good enough with it that my filed square chains could match any ground chain a timer faller put forth. Then I bought a chain grinder and started learning how to sharpen chain all over again.

Yes 12 years might sound like a long time, but each step of the way to learn how to sharpen saw chain has a learning curve and time required to pick it up. Some people learn with round chain and stick with it through their career. My desire to learn new ways made me a better saw chain sharpener, and the learning took time. Today I could sharpen any style of chain in complete confidence.
 
2 awesome posts:thumbup:

And I like how you addressed teaching the new guys, giving them a company saw to use. Gerr, if it were your company, would you do it the same way, knowing the saws are gonna get beat up alot until the operators learn what they are doing over time? Is there any other way? It sucks if you don't have any beater saws to let them beat on.
 
Having taught or tried to teach various people to file over the years, I find the biggest problem is with them not being able to see if the cutter is sharp or not. If you can't see it, then be able to feel it. I think the best way to do that is if it will bite on a fingernail, probably not advisable to run your flesh over a cutter if you don't have certain experience. The angles are more a discipline thing included with the physical skill. Age seems to often be a factor when first learning to sharpen, older guys tend to not have such an easy time learning with their bodies and physically orienting to the work so they learn naturally, plus eyes may not be so good. Having the strong desire to overcome difficulties seems to be a big point of departure for success or not, thinking of an older neighbor of mine that never much used his body for learning anything out of the ordinary, and now after four or five years at it, can do a pretty good job with chains. I had to also get him to think about what he was doing and why, no point in sharpening rakers. ;) He is a firewood cutting fool.

Someone or another has come up with a device to help sharpen just about any cutting edge, including plane blades and chisels that will hold the tools at a certain angle to the stones. Looking at the overall picture of sharpening, I generally don't like those jigs or what not, for chains either, or think that they are the only way to learn. If there is no other means of success, then by all means they have a place. Personally, I'd rather see a person try to learn without them, just to acquire the physical dexterity required on their own, or at least a part of it. If at some point they want to go to a holder or something because it does a better job or makes things easier, I think that order of approach is better. That way they don't have a dependency right off the bat, and the exercise of physically learning on their own takes them to some point, hopefully beyond frustration. It's a great thing about acquiring many physical skills, you can get to your goal just through a lot of practice. Almost uncanny how it works. If someone is just an occasional saw user, I don't see the problem with shortcuts, or even taking your chains to a guy like me to get sharpened for six bucks, ha! It also gives me a chance to talk to people about their saw use as well, which I enjoy doing. Yesterday a guy like that brought me grapes. remembering his promise from many months ago about when his harvest comes in. Every now and then he brings his chains. I encouraged him to learn himself, but he doesn't want to tackle it. He grows good grapes though.
 
For the most part they were all beat up saws anyway, Cory. In the long run what those young fellows learned far out weighed any cost to the company. They learned fast and the company ultimately benefited by it. Now any young man that came on my crew either learned the skills or I pointed a new direction for them.

It all honesty it was very tough to train skills to young men on the job. It takes time. And that cuts into production. Some foreman never trained their crew members in anything other than how to use their backs. I expected more.

They called me the Drill Sargent, too, btw. Behind my back I'm sure a few used some other choice words. Some of the kids washed out, but more went on to becoming foremen and running their own crews or going out into the woods and falling timber. Later on the ones that stuck with it and become foremen told me they were called the Drill Sargent, or asshole, by the crew. The ones that went to the woods were prepared. In all it makes me feel proud to see that they learned a skill and became teachers themselves.
 
Sometimes the lineage of a**holes goes way back. It's a beautiful thing! Someone once told me, don't blame me for being an a**hole, blame my teacher. Some guys for their own reasons are more notorious a**holes

though. :|:
 
Well done, Jerr, that is definitely something to be pround of.
 
Jerry, your expression that made you a great teacher goes well beyond what you did in the field with the employees. It is a worldwide thing.
 
True words.

Fundamentals has been instrumental in my success. You have probably been a teacher to more than you can imagine.

As always. Thank you, sir.
 
Thank you all.

The Wisdom's, tips and close calls that are shared between the members of this forum makes us all teachers to the young'uns visiting it.

Collectively you would figure that a young person visiting these forums would get on the right track fast. Some do, but invariably it seems that there is no replacement for practical experience, and so many youg'uns repeat the same mistakes in the learning process and learn the hard way. Despite that they were advised otherwise.

I have come to the conclusion that there is no changing this fact of life.
 
I recall in Fundamentals that you mentioned the large turnover in the tree work industry. It seemed to me that as an educator, you were saying that with regret. That has always impressed me, the connection between the desire for skills and continuing with a certain line of work. That staying power is a thing in itself. It just might be one of the harder things to teach, holding on to the wish to get good at something when the going gets tough.
 
Very true, Jay. It broke my heart every time a young fellow washed out. Time wasted in all the training it seemed to me. Then on the other hand some of them went on to pursue careers that were better suited for them. In that regard I wished them all the luck in the world.
 
gf beranek said:
It all honesty it was very tough to train skills to young men on the job. It takes time. And that cuts into production. .
Click to expand...
How true that is Jerry. No matter whether it was ultility work or logging , training on the job has a price and that's production. In my later years at the cut and skid logging camp I worked out of, it seemed like I was the only one to take a trainee under my wing. All the other guys couldn't be bothered so I guess I had the patience and the generousity to help someone out.....and my foremen wasn't allowed to work the equipment.:)
I only trained when my regular logging partner was sick or off for sore back reasons. But today as an arborist I still have the training bug, only thing is I don't want to do it full time......not yet anyways.

Yes the Stihl file holder works just as well as the Oregon model, the Stihl holder has a nice designed tightening nut versus Oregon's cheap wing nut. ha ha.
It's no secret how to judge when a sawchain needs to be touched up or sharpened. Just look down at the front edge of the cutter's top plate cutting edge, if you see a band of shiny light along that edge that means it's dull, if it's sharp there is nothing to see .....unless you are looking through a magnifying glass then only then can you see the sharp cutting edge contour.
My experience is after past age 45 I need reading glasses to properly "see" the cutting edge...... so you gotta do what you gotta do, to do it right.

I found fallers who swapped chains throughout the day were not good hand filers and relied on the bench grinder at home, they messed around carrying pre sharpened chains that eventually through out the day got dull from the cutters rubbing against each other.
They could have touched up a chain faster with the file then the time it takes to swap a chain loop. And not being good hand filers, when their last sharp loop slowed right down they would resort to the flat file to lower the depth gauges to get a little of the cutting speed back....put a sharp edge on that chain later....over bite and severe kickback potential.
Learn how to touch up your chain at the stump before it gets "dull"!
Another tip to save your knuckles, always file the right hand cutters first, because when you should slip your file out of the right hand cutters gullet ...you won't have a sharp left hand cutter to make contact with your index finger knuckle which would slice you to the bone, even right through a heavy leather glove.
 
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