processor bars

[Randy88]

 I'm working on a log roller bed saw of sorts, and am in the process of trying to pickup out a bar and chain for it, what's the difference between a solid, RSN and jet fit bars?   I'm thinking they are all oregon bars, 404 chain and for some reason I can't access oregon's website that describes the difference in them.   

Also I'm thinking that .80 harvester chain is the pitch and size I'm wanting, never run anything harvester related before so this is all new to me, any recommendations would be helpful from anyone running bars or chains on harvesters before or familiar with them.    Thanks in advance

[deastman]

I have a Bells firewood processor that runs 404 and does a great job. The 3/4 pitch chain on my Fabtek head is rugged but takes a bigger kerf and more horsepower to turn.  The 80 gauge 404 should work the best for what you want to do

[Randy88]

Any recommendations on the bars themselves, if I understand them right, a solid has a roller nose that's not really replaceable, a RSN has a riveted on roller nose so you have to only replace the nose when the bearing goes out and a jet fit is just a RSN with a slotted bar mount so you don't have to take the bolts off to replace the chain or remove the bar, is this the jest of it, or am I not understanding it at all??   

Does anyone make a hard nosed harvester bar, so in freezing weather I don't have to wonder if the sprocket nose is frozen up or in really dirty wood I'm not constantly replacing the roller nose?     

What's the life expectancy of roller nose's in a harvester situation, for me in chainsaws we go through roller nose bars about 10 to 1 compared to hard nose bars.    We've all but gone away from roller nose chainsaw bars, they just don't seem to last long enough and by the time we get a new nose riveted on, I might as well go buy a new bar and toss out the old one.     Is this about the same with a harvester?   

[glassman_48]

Randy,
For whatever its worth, my bar is usually shot long before the bearings in the nose go bad.  I have never had that happen. To get more life out of my bar now every time I change chains, I file all 4 sides of the bar to get what little bur is on it and only occasionally do I have to grind the bar to even it up.  I use a .375 chain on my processor.  The guy that built mine said he cant tell much difference between that and a .404. 

[Randy88]

Glassman, I'm constantly dressing up bars on my saws, with roller nose bars, the new one's that come with new saws I don't think any of them have lasted much more than a year or so.    The last hard nosed bar I put on my stihl 660 must have been about 10 years ago now and I just finally replaced it this past winter, the slot the chain ran in was so shot it wouldn't hold the chain straight anymore and dressing the bar didn't help, actually we wore the whole hard surfacing off the hard nose as well.     

I just bought a new stihl 362 this winter and it came with a roller nose bar as well, the paint is hardly worn off the bar and I can see we're already having issues with the roller nose, I still have my old hard nose bar off my 361 which was bought new 10 years ago too, so when the rollers go out, we'll put the old hard nose bar back on again, which should be before winter or at least that's what I expect it to be.     

We have tried greasing them at every gas tank fillup but that didn't seem to matter any either.   I know I'm in some of the most harsh conditions you can put them through and they can't take any tip cutting at all, if I'd do that they'd not last long enough to accomplish anything other than buying new bars.   

I'm not sure its accurate or not, but we generally wear out between 700-1000 feet of chain through a hard nose bar before its worn completely out, unless we bend the bar before that, which is considered a hazard of the trade around our house.

Anyone know the life expectancy of a harvester bar if its not bent or damaged, do you guys have chain footage you go through before the roller nose needs replacing or the bar is worn out?

I've seen a few of the processors that run an adjustable roller nose, where you can literally adjust the chain tension from the roller nose end of the bar, the downside is you can't run that through the wood, it has to stick out past the log, anyone have any experience with those, I've seen them on some cut off saws over the years as well.   

[glassman_48]

Randy88,
I forgot to mention that I also grease everytime, the bars are lasting longer now that I keep the burs down and I also clean the groove each time I change a chain.  I think on a couple of those bars my oiler hole was getting plugged when I first got my processor so that could of had something to do with bar life.   

[johndeerkiwi]

Randy88,
             Just thinkin' out loud... but what type of grease are you using for the bar? I do firewood commercially using a sprocket nose bar and get good mileage out of the nose sprockets(Oregon). Some years ago in a previous life as a farmer we were disappointed with our grease because of high wear rates on our farm PTO shaft universal joints and such like....To cut a long story short we made up a machine to test the effectiveness of different greases on the market at that time. The results were a shock! Many greases were hardly fit for a horse drawn wagon!
As a result of those tests, I will only use  Castrol LMX grease since, which, in the tests, stood out from the rest by a country mile! Because it's in my grease-gun,  I simply use LMX on my nose sprocket too,  once or twice a day (and no, I don't have shares in Castrol!).
I also use a nice tacky chainbar oil, (either Gulf or Castrol) and have the oiler turned to maximum flow. I get through a bit more oil, but the chain & bar wear is low, and the bar doesn't get hot( friction= heat= wear). I have tried other runny chainbar oils and the bar just gets hot, very quickly.
With the tacky(er) oils, I can normally hold my hand on the bar after use(after stoppin the motor of course!) 8)

[Randy88]

The last couple of new saws I've bought [stihl] don't even a place to grease the bar anymore, as for bar oil, we used to buy the cheap stuff at walmart, then we progressed to stihl bar oil, just because it was handy to pick up, I've been told it really didn't matter what brand we used, chain oil wasn't the best quality anyhow, it was all cheaper oil blended out, not sure if that's true or not, I know for quite a while walmart was using recycled oil and selling it that way.   

As for the grease, that's been years ago now, since we last did that, just came across the grease gun for it yesterday still in my tool box for the saw supplies, we ran lithium based grease at the time, can't recall what brand or viscosity, but my then fix it guy for saws told me what to use, that had to be when I was running homelite saws yet, and we had them for almost 10 years or so, had a poulon pro way back when too for a few years as well, so in about the last 30 years, I've run roller nose bars maybe three years, otherwise its always been hard nose bars.   

I just noticed yesterday, my new 362 still has the roller nose it came with new this past winter, and somehow we ended up with a roller nose bar on my 460 and I asked my wife how come we had that yet, she said my new hard nose bar wasn't in yet when the original roller nose went bad for the 460 and we had to buy a new bar so we could keep running, and the roller nose was the only thing in stock.   I'm thinking we've had that saw about three years now, give or take and this bar even has the paint worn off it, which really shocked me for a roller nose bar.  She told me my new hard nose bar is hanging in the shop along with the rest of the spare bars but we were going to use this till the roller went bad on it first.