Interesting thread, I’ll add my limited experience. When I first started out I followed my father’s example, run that bitch until it won’t cut, put on a new chain and do it again. My first saw was a Husky 350 with 18” and chains were cheap, still have a ton of them. A buddy had a hookup with a CNC grinder, I’d rock out 5 or six, send them in and still have spares to keep going. The CNC grind was every bit as good, or better, than a factory grind. When I bought the MS390 w/25” chains weren’t cheap so I bought the Harbor Freight grinder, the 2x4 in a bench vise is the only way to go. I had to learn to go through the chains and find the long tooth, then work them all, gently, back to the shortest tooth. That doesn’t work harden the teeth, but takes a lot of time, and patience, but creates a good chain. Not factory, but it cuts decent. You also have to work both sides of the chain back, evenly, if you rocked one side worse than the other, you’ve got to work them both back or it cuts to one side. It works, but you’ve got to do your part.
When I got the 046 with a 36”, things got really expensive, I got some file guides in a deal and learned to use them, but not well. Yes, they work, but they are very tedious to setup and use.
After reading lectures from Jeff (fishhuntcutwood) and Gary (Gasoline71) about how easy it was to handfile, I figured I’d try. There’s a few caveats with this, don’t rock out the chain, as soon as it slows down, STOP! Sharpen the chain, it’s so much easier to follow what’s already there than to rely on muscle memory to get your angles correct. If you hit something and rock it out, grind it out even then hand file it. I’ve never been able to handfile a rocked out chain to cut evenly in a timely manner.
Use your old bars! Yup, cut them down a few inches longer than your vise and clamp it in your vise for a guide. This gets you at a comfortable work height and helps with muscle memory, file a tooth, move the chain and hit the next one. It sounds silly, but it really helps.
No more than I cut anymore, last time I checked my saws wouldn’t even start (I need to fix that) I just file on the saws.
