Sharpening pictures

[davidwyby]

Durable cutters. Generally formed by the file being larger in diameter and or higher on the tooth.



On a used chain I bought, someone messed up with the grinder, too vertical, wouldn’t cut.

 

[davidwyby]

1/4” is only good on newer taller cutters.


Oregon switched to more durable angles when they went from LGX to EXL

 

[davidwyby]

Fast, delicate angles

 

[davidwyby]

The angles high lighted with red, area circles in green, and height difference shown in blue are most important. Also, the foremost “working corner” or point is what grabs the chip and must be perfectly sharp, not blunted or rolled down. If the leading edge is blunt or rolled, or the outer chrome plating damaged, it must be ground or filed back to new metal.


Re: raker height - blue lines. Some say all cutters and rakers must be same height and length. Some say as long as each raker is set correctly to each cutter, it is ok.

It depends on how hard the wood is mostly. Very hard dry wood like I have here I keep them pretty even or I get chatter and vibration. I have cut softwood with sloppy hand filing all over the place and been fine.


Cutting straight - if I’m in the field and saw is cutting crooked, I eyeball the cutters. If they are not damaged, I take one file swipe off each raker on the opposite side of the way the saw is trying to turn. If it’s curving right, I swipe the left rakers. Generally gets it good enough until I can completely address the bar/chain.

 

[davidwyby]

You can easily gain or lose 25% of your cutting speed in the chain.

 

[davidwyby]

Kinda new stihl hexa and husky Xcut flat faced top plate cutting edges. Can be sharpened with a raker file.


Here is one I made as durable as it gets. Bashing thru dry hard brittle Euc. .404 on a big powerhead.

 

[Nutball]

Can be sharpened with a raker file.

Is that the raker file for your hand saw? Cuz chainsaws don't normally have rakers. The tooth is a combo cutter/raker. The point up front just gauges the depth of cut.

Just a pet peeve of mine. I knew a guy who called them "drags". Can't argue that, but they suck at raking.

And in the last pic, you should file the depth gauge slanted to a point. The point will give you some feed rate control as it resists sinking into the wood while having a small enough surface area to let you force it in deeper if needed. This way lets you still have an aggressive capable chain with higher DG's for controlability instead of one feed rate.

 

[chainsawer4741]

Thanks for taking all the pictures and taking the time to make the post, always good to see what others are doing with their chain sharping.

 

[BlackSmith]

Just my opinion for what it’s worth. If you can see the edge you don’t have an edge.

 

[lxskllr]

A dull edge shines. You can see it on a knife also.

edit:
you can see where my knife needs touching up...

 

[Dave Shepard]

If you can see something, you've got nothing. If you can see nothing, you've got something.

 

[davidwyby]

There’s sharp and then there’s angles

 

[BlackSmith]

As long as the angle of the dangle corresponds with the mass of the azz.

 

[Tree09]

I haven't heard that in years!

 

[BlackSmith]

<~~~~~ Chithouse poet

 

[BlackSmith]