Guide Bars Damaged Before their Time

TreeLogic · Nov 25, 2014

I have an MS460 that got beat up a little by a falling tree trunk. Nothing major, still runs fine, but I replaced the handlebar.
So, this thing seems to go through new bars and chains pretty quickly, cutting great at first, but then starts to bind up in the cut like it's curving. Is it possible I've bent something I'm unaware of? Maybe the bar retaining bolt or the dogs?
Thanks in advance.

AmericanArborist · Nov 30, 2014

take the bar off and put it next to a straight edge such as a brand new bar or a level. see if its crooked

TreeLogic · Nov 30, 2014

Appreciate the advice and I'll do that again. But it seems to happen so quickly and without much abuse. I have a good bit of experience with saws and understand well how to fix and true a bad bar and sharpen a chain. In that sense I can get it cutting again. But this one has me stumped as to why it happens so quickly. Can a bar retaining bolt get bent or out of square?

monkeylove · Nov 30, 2014

Any bolt can get bent, and any mating surface can get damaged or just be bad from manufacturing. That goes for everything, not just chainsawsas in this case possibly. Take a good look at the mating surfaces and make sure they are flat and blemish free. Chainsaw bars by default have very little locating area as compared to the bar length, maybe 10 to 20%. That means that even something as tiny as a paper thickness (0.003") could be pushing the bar (20") as much as 1/16" out of center. If you mount the bar and can measure it from the table and then flip the bar over and remeasure do you get the same size? If so I would look at the saw area if they are different then I would check the bar.

islandarb · Dec 5, 2014

Put the damn saw in a box and send it to Barbados....I will get that sucker working again and make some money off it.....something is fishy but your abuse of it has made it mad