Inbred, I hear what you are saying and I won't argue with your statement that chisel cuts faster and smoother than the semi chisel and round ground chain. I used to run RS full chisel on all my saws except the climbing saws. When I did all the saw sharpening and most of the cutting it made sense for me to run chisel. As time went by I shied away from the RS because of the safety factor when I had more people working with me. I watched an over aggresive 028 almost fly out of a guys hand from a wicked kickback. Thankfully the saw had a chain brake. If someone had been in that saws path it would have gone right through a leg or a persons chest. Another factor was the sharpening factor . I can sharpen chisel but it was hard to teach someone. The saws that deal with the bottom end of a tree cut nice and fast with RS but as we all know once that working corner gets dull from dirt and tramp metal or a dead pice of wood like a dead Elm you are putting an extra work load on felling and bucking saw. I gradually went back to the regular RM over the years.
No it doesn't take much to sharpen saw chain but I don't get a thrill out of it either. I got cocky awhile back and tried something a little different with an RM chain. I filed it the regular way till I was satified with the look of the cutter. On the last stoke I tilted the file in line with the working corner and with an authorative push on the file gave the tooth a look similar to what a chisel cutter should look like. I was very pleased with the way it cut in a test cut. Very nice looking chips. Out on the job was a little disappointing but cutting off and trying to level a large dirty Willow stump that someone else failed to do wasn't exactly a good field test. The saw didn't exactly cut straight either but I before had trouble with this bar and chain since the day one because it it came on a part saw I bought. I can make my own stuff perform really good but everytime I get used stuff from some unknown source I have trouble with getting the chain really sharp or the saw to cut straight. I don't know what it is about it either.
I have been meaning to start a little milling thread because I bought a chainsaw mill attachment but I don't how interested you guys would be in that. There is a definate learning curve to this milling. I will say that much.
Since we are talking semi verses square chisel chain in how it performs against hitting tramp metal. I thought I would throw this in as it seems to fit.
For my first milling I used my 650. As we all know milling is hard on a saw and requires a very sharp chain. I spent the better part of an hour sharpening the chain on this 650. I got down to the nitty gritty and used a protrator to check the top plate angle and finally tried a trick Magnus had mentioned by putting a flat pice of metal over the cutters on the level part of the bar and using a automotive feeler gauge with the .025 blade to check the clearance for the depth gauges. This is way more accurate than the common depth gauge tools you can buy. I found some of those tools can be a little off playing around in the shop.
Finally after getting the chain sharp we are ready for the first cut which is to cut the milling log to length. Wouldn you know it I hit a nail broadside:roll::roll:. I didn't know I had hit the thing till I rolled the two pieces apart. The saw still wanted to cut so I prepared for the first milling cut with the slabbing rails. The saw was still cutting very good on this American Elm log. Everything was fine till I got to the last foot of the log. Another nail
. Finished the cut but this nail did the saw in.
If I had chisel on this saw instead of semi chisel it would have torn the chisel up really bad. Almost to the point of throwing the chain out or some very serious filing to get it back right. I resharpened the RM chain on the back of the truck and went on to produce two nice slabs for my little bench project. That same saw with no resharpening has cut down and bucked a couple of very large trees this past week and is still sharp and cutting smooth. My guys were impressed with how fast and smooth it was cutting. Magnus's little tip is what made the difference. I think. I would not have gotten that kind of performance out of a chisel chain
Ripping chain is the best for milling but this was a first time experiment and I didn't want to file down a chain that is going to be used in our tree service just for this. I have another saw a 076 lined up for this milling but it is on the repair list for the moment.
Here is a pic of the nail I hit broadside. Nice :roll::roll: Typical chain destroyer tree service log.