eyehearttrees
Active Member
- Location
- Tampa-Area
I've watched hours (cumulatively) of videos on sharpening, have probably gone through half a dozen files sharpening the many chains I have for 5 bars, always thought I was OK....then it happened.
Last week I was bucking-up a large Oak I'd felled and had just 'got the saw's chain ready' the night before. I found my saw wouldn't cut at a straight downwards angle, I'd hold the powerhead that way but it'd cut leftward as it went through the wood, if I tried to man-handle it to cut straight it'd even give sparks from pushing chain-into-bar too much. When done I found I'd actually bent the tip of the 18" bar.
The "got it ready" work the night prior was 2-fold, am still trying to figure-out which was a bigger culprit:
#1 - sharpened the hell out of the teeth, aiming for the most-aggressive (35deg) angle (I usually go 25 or 30deg, for cutter-sharpness-longevity), this was like the 10th sharpening for this chain I mean the teeth are getting quite small lol. I was very happy with the look of the chain, thought I did it well.
#2 - filed the rakers, was more aggressive than usual -- I expect this amplified uneven right//left cutter issue...
Made me wonder "If I brought rakers lower on my other chains, would they all cut this crooked too? Is my sharpening way off-point, and I'm only *not* seeing it because the rakers aren't allowing a large-enough variance?"
Any 'remedial' sharpening tutorials? Have seen all the common ways, just rewatched a few of Billy Ray's videos (oh that reminds me, do you guys all support ditching the file-guides?)
What about rakers? I can't figure it out but my guide for the raker-filing is faulty, it has never once allowed me to use it to sharpen a raker (even on my 18" where the teeth are almost done from too many sharpenings, according to my cheap raker-guide the rakers still didn't need to be taken-down, that's why I just took a hand file and 'free handed' it, was intentionally aggressive but think I brought them a good 50% lower than intended, unsure if that may've been a bigger contributor to crooked-cutting than the teeth IE crooked/irregular-heights on the rakers, they were definitely not homogeneous/consistent :/
Last week I was bucking-up a large Oak I'd felled and had just 'got the saw's chain ready' the night before. I found my saw wouldn't cut at a straight downwards angle, I'd hold the powerhead that way but it'd cut leftward as it went through the wood, if I tried to man-handle it to cut straight it'd even give sparks from pushing chain-into-bar too much. When done I found I'd actually bent the tip of the 18" bar.
The "got it ready" work the night prior was 2-fold, am still trying to figure-out which was a bigger culprit:
#1 - sharpened the hell out of the teeth, aiming for the most-aggressive (35deg) angle (I usually go 25 or 30deg, for cutter-sharpness-longevity), this was like the 10th sharpening for this chain I mean the teeth are getting quite small lol. I was very happy with the look of the chain, thought I did it well.
#2 - filed the rakers, was more aggressive than usual -- I expect this amplified uneven right//left cutter issue...
Made me wonder "If I brought rakers lower on my other chains, would they all cut this crooked too? Is my sharpening way off-point, and I'm only *not* seeing it because the rakers aren't allowing a large-enough variance?"
Any 'remedial' sharpening tutorials? Have seen all the common ways, just rewatched a few of Billy Ray's videos (oh that reminds me, do you guys all support ditching the file-guides?)
What about rakers? I can't figure it out but my guide for the raker-filing is faulty, it has never once allowed me to use it to sharpen a raker (even on my 18" where the teeth are almost done from too many sharpenings, according to my cheap raker-guide the rakers still didn't need to be taken-down, that's why I just took a hand file and 'free handed' it, was intentionally aggressive but think I brought them a good 50% lower than intended, unsure if that may've been a bigger contributor to crooked-cutting than the teeth IE crooked/irregular-heights on the rakers, they were definitely not homogeneous/consistent :/