Small filing tip

[Magnus]

Usually on laminated bars it is not worth the time, but solid or more expensive bars is often worth having a look at. Usually bar rails are short enough as it is...
Closing rail often show it is too wide in bottom and chain(s) are worn on drivers side. Then tie straps alone is what hold it steady and for hose not running low riders or hooked tooth this works ok but for some it makes excessive wear on chain.

 

[cory]

Makes sense.

 

[TINYHULK]

Help a green guy out. What would be the give away for whether it’s a laminated bar or not? I know most light bars are laminated but what is the giveaway for other bars? Also I have the hand held bar rail conditioner and I feel like it doesn’t file the bar down evenly on both sides. Is there a technique that I’m missing or is that something that just needs the big electric rail conditioner?

 

[lxskllr]

Removable tip is solid, most(all?) others are laminated. That's excluding hardnose bars which I believe will all be solid. Good light bars will be solid, but will have pockets milled out and filled to shave weight. Again, removable tips.

I use the hand file thing for the bars, and it seems to work well. Pay attention to geometry and steady pressure while using it.

 

[Nutball]

Help a green guy out. What would be the give away for whether it’s a laminated bar or not? I know most light bars are laminated but what is the giveaway for other bars? Also I have the hand held bar rail conditioner and I feel like it doesn’t file the bar down evenly on both sides. Is there a technique that I’m missing or is that something that just needs the big electric rail conditioner?

No replaceable tip on laminated, laminated usually have signs of rivets. Looking at the tail of the bar you will see 3 layers. Many light bars are solid other than light weight inserts, but Stihl has some little laminated light bars, and Oregon has some medium size light bars that are glued together laminations or some scrap design like that.

 

[Magnus]

Laminated bars that are spot welded is easy to see. Not as easy with glued but a look in end of bar often show what it is.
Replaceable tip is a good way to see although there are and have been laminated bars with replaceable tip.
Weight is a good sign to tell too.

Many is worried about weight. And so much focus is given to it that the bars are often up to 100g lighter.
If you then look at saw it is often easy to take 150g off in dirt and crap...

Bar rails thickness is another thing often ignored. There is a reason solid bars last longer and thicker rails is one thing.
There are laminated bars that are as thin as tiestrap or even less on rare occasions. These often wear down fast and are not very sturdy.
If they are glued they often seperate if used a bit more.

 

[Al Smith]

I don't think I've ever bowed a bar but I have repaired several . Those were bars from my buddy's tree service they must have used for pry bars .I was still working at that time and used a hydraulic arbor press at work .He only buys Stihl stuff and most of my Stihl chains came from him .I repair those too but I have bought a few myself .Good chain although a tad more money but it lasts a lot longer .

 

[Magnus]

I have bent some bars over the years. Mostly after felling. Pinched even more, shot many sprockets until I quit greasing...
Stuff happen.
Fixing bars is fun and often it saves a buck or two if it gets right. If not it is time wasted you could be making money on.
Running bad bars can be costly in repairs and even dangerous.

 

[cory]

The last time I ordered some 16" chains for my 201, I got chisel chain (square corner, round filed) from Arbsession, chain made by Archer who I've never heard of.

The good news is the chisel cut like crazy compared to the chipper chain I'm used to (rounded corner, round filed), the bad news is the chain broke when there was at least 50% tooth life left despite always being run razor sharp and never having been pulled on/stuck in a cut. So I was very surprised it broke.

What doth you all say- fluky break or poor quality chain?

 

[flushcut]

Never ran the stuff. I prefer Oregon and Stihl flavors. Carlton is good too.

 

[cory]

Me too but all they had was Archer, iirc.

 

[Trains]

Archer like any chinga made chain, can be a lottery, some good, some bad, but it tends to be on the better side of bad than most others, sounds like you got a bad link in there somewhere, did you get it spun back up into a loop again ?

Ive messed around with a few different chinga chains, but have settled on rolls of stihl, then if I can find the old carlton chain in rolls ( I think back when they made chain for husky), happy to use that, but its much softer than the stihl chain, but on green wood its ok, and not as hard on the files as the chrome is not as good as the stihl stuff. The newer stuff from carlton has had a much larger variance in hard/ soft, stretch compared the the older rolls I had, I guess there can be a bit of variation, but this was more than I thought ok.

 

[cory]

I tried to find out what chinga means, no luck!

 

[Bermy]

Chinese
?

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Yup

 

[pigwot]

Has anyone used the Husky X-Cut chain? I mostly ran Oregon and Carlton. My current reels are Oregon.

 

[lxskllr]

The only Chinese chain I've used is Trilink. It looks like saw chain. Looks like someone gave an engineer a verbal description of what a chain should look like, and he did a pretty good job of making it happen. I expect better than "pretty good" for saw chain though. Kind of ugly when you look close, and the steel has very uneven hardness in the same loop. I'd never buy it myself at any price, and the loops I have are for garbage duty.

edit:
I think Mike just got some Xcut chain. You can checkout his.

 

[BlackSmith]

I use only Stihl chain. One less thing to bitch about. Buy two get one free at the dealer. Three chains last me about ten years tho, lol.

 

[lxskllr]

I'm a huge fan of Stihl chain. It's worth a premium over over other brands, but my old dealer was list price for everything, so a $35 84dl loop gave pause. I explored other options and settled on Carlton for beater duty, and Stihl for good stuff. My new dealer is much better, and it's only slightly more than hardware store Oregon, and a reel is $340. Worth using it for everything. I also scored a couple reels of RM2 off ebay for $240 each. You can't get Chinese chain at those prices.

 

[Maximalist]

I have an X-Cut chain on 540ixp. A very good chain.

 

[SeanKroll]

I run all Stihl chain. I bought a reel so long ago that I don't remember. I'm getting down to the end of the loops, sorta.

If I had employees dirting chains all the time, I might consider softer, cheaper chain and files.

 

[BlackSmith]

“If I had employees dirting chains all the time, I might consider softer, cheaper chain and files.”

I’d consider better employees.

 

[lxskllr]

I'd spring for the files, but they'd damned well better learn to sharpen themselves. I got enough going on keeping after the chains I screw up.

 

[Trains]

I tried to find out what chinga means, no luck!

aussie slang for china

 

[cory]

Yep, I guess my trial of Archer has come and gone. Stihl or Carlton etc from here on, which btw is what I normally use, I'd run out of loops for the 201.

Yeah if that unabused and relatively young chain had broken in a critical cut, that could be very bad. Fug dem chinga chits.