I suck at sharpening chains.

[beenthere]

 

[Firewoodking]

I just received my timberline sharpener, man this thing works really well. An idiot can sharpen a chain with this thing.

Thanks for the tip

[addicted]

I was given a timberline sharpener for Christmas and found that my chain wasn't lasting nearly as long as when I payed to have it ground. So I decided to be a little more aggressive in my sharpening , more resistance on the file by tightening the rear screw, as well as a few strokes with the file across the rakers. Well....... It cuts better right up til my bar gets stuck in the cut from the hard left turn it makes every time. Why is it now cutting a curve to the left? I've even put zero force on the bar during a cut and the same thing happens. Hard left curve. A lot like my golf game. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
I hope this is the correct place to post this. If not please advise.
Thanks
Rust

[beenthere]

Sounds like the Timberline Sharpener isn't set up with the same angles for both left and right.
Or all the teeth are not getting the same degree of sharpness due to the settings.
But not knowing how they work, can't say if that is the problem. Something to check out.

http://www.timberlinesharpener.com/

I use a 10x magnifying lens to check the teeth to be sure they are sharp. Sometimes the eyeball can be deceiving if one doesn't know what to look for. Buddy of mine who cuts a lot of wood always said he filed his chains regularly. On one occasion, I had his saw on my bench and couldn't believe the condition of the teeth. He didn't know what "sharp" was. He filed, but stopped short of "sharp". Partly because he didn't like filing his chain away too soon. ;)

[ChopperDan]

Can you post a good pic of the chain. Do you have 1 set of angle glides or 2 sets. I would check the glides that are inserted in the jig. I'm thinking you have 1 that is 25 degrees and the other at 35 degrees. If that's the case the opposing cutters will be at different angles. I have sharpened many chains many times without issue. It could be me but I think they end up sharper than when they are ground.

Dan

[scottmphoto]

I grew up in a chainsaw shop and I have been using a grinder since I was 5 or 6. My dad did a LOT of business for the loggers around here and he hardly ever used anything but a grinder. You just need to know what you're doing. I always carry a file in my bag, although I much prefer to just throw on a new chain out in the woods and sharpen when I get home.

[Firewoodking]

Ive got the hang of it now. Practice makes perfect.

I have found that it is bad to use the chain till it will no longer cut. It is better to just touch it up occasionally with the file, every 2 or three tanks of gas or so.

[ancjr]

My inspiration for sharpening came from the first time I took my first dull chain for its first sharpening and had it returned with the cutters reduced to useless 1/16" pins.  I use the Carlton plate, start with the dullest tooth and count the strokes, repeat same number of strokes on all cutters.   Also helps if you take a marker and color a tooth as a starting/stopping point.  Goes quick once you get a rhythm going.

[SwampDonkey]

Well all I know, if a fellow has trouble cutting his beech wood as he has admitted to on this very forum, his sharpening skills need some honing. Steel is harder than wood my friends. ;D ;)

[John Mc]

Ive got the hang of it now. Practice makes perfect.

I have found that it is bad to use the chain till it will no longer cut. It is better to just touch it up occasionally with the file, every 2 or three tanks of gas or so.

The best description I've heard about sharpening chains (from a GOL instructor): 
You don't sharpen your chain because it got dull, you sharpen it to keep it from getting dull.

[John Mc]

My inspiration for sharpening came from the first time I took my first dull chain for its first sharpening and had it returned with the cutters reduced to useless 1/16" pins.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of folks out there who seem to think that buying a chain grinder makes them good at sharpening. I prefer hand sharpening, but regardless of the method, the results depend as much or more on the operator than on the equipment.

How much training do you think the kid at the corner hardware store had at sharpening chains before they set him loose and said "have at it"?

I use the Carlton plate, start with the dullest tooth and count the strokes, repeat same number of strokes on all cutters.

One of the advantages of the Carlton File-O-Plate (and other similar sharpening aides), is that if you use the depth gauge tool properly, it's far less important to have all identical-length teeth.  Since this style of depth gauge tool customizes the height of the depth gauge for each tooth, making the teeth all the same doesn't provide any noticeable difference in cutting (though I still don't let them get WAY out of whack... I'll just eyeball them from time to time and give an extra stroke or two if the cutters on one side are getting noticeably longer than those on the other.

[ancjr]

How much training do you think the kid at the corner hardware store had at sharpening chains before they set him loose and said "have at it"?

Sadly enough, the place I took it to does not allow any of the help to do any repairs - only the owner and his partner are allowed behind the service desk.  I no longer live near this shop.

Good news is that since I've moved, I'm just a short hike away from professional chainsaw shop that is the rave of every logger I know.  Although I've not had them do any work for me yet, and I'll likely never need a chain sharpened, they surely know how to grind a chain.  I'll have them make me a chain some day.

One of the advantages of the Carlton File-O-Plate (and other similar sharpening aides), is that if you use the depth gauge tool properly, it's far less important to have all identical-length teeth.

This may well be fact, but there's another fact to take into consideration: I'm obsessive about my chains.   

[Al_Smith]

Well all I know, if a fellow has trouble cutting his beech wood as he has admitted to on this very forum, his sharpening skills need some honing. Steel is harder than wood my friends. ;D ;)

Oh now here we go again great wisdom from a guy who doesn't even cut his own firewood . :D

Let me enlighten you my doubting Thomas friend about hard beech since you've never seen any .Oh 8-9  or so years a group of us attacked a beech log at a GTG of saw enthusists .That hard as granite log bogged them all down including 090 Stihls .As a rule a dried out beech is hard but that one will go down on record as being the toughest old thing anyone had ever seen .

Really I don't cut much of it just limb falls from a half dozen 100 footers in the woods next to me .Real good firewood .

[SwampDonkey]

I leave the firewood processing to the professionals, I just feed the furnace.    When your beech and maple are the size of broom sticks on your woodlot you often have no choice. Won't be no 20" maple for another 100 years on my woodlot. I did however buck up a 3 cord maple last spring, if that counts for anything, still got a cord of that to burn. ;D

The biggest, smoothest beech I ever saw up here was in a hardwood grove surrounded by 200 acres of potato fields. It ended up being one of the plans the land owner used as an estimate for the next available logger to flatten. Anyway, those beech were about 40 inches at breast height and smooth as smooth could be. Hardwood does not grow real tall up here, but I would say they were in the 80 foot range. And you can't beat the soil type as far as what is available up here, since it was later turned into more potato fields. About 50 acres if I recall.

[Al_Smith]

It would depend on the existing canopy how tall they would grow .In our location that would right at 90 to slightly over 100 feet .

The ones in the woods abutting mine are around 3 feet in diameter and right at 100 along with the big oaks .I don't have any large ones in my woods .12 inchers maybe by 60 feet .Fact I've got one right outside my house .

You get a mature tall tree woods the younger growths look about like weeds before they get tall enough to get into the sun .I've got 80 footers that aren't any larger than 8-10 inchs in diameter growing under 3 feet diameter oaks .No I'm not going to thin them ,let mother nature do that .

The way I look at it if they die or get wind blown they are firewood .If they make it and the Lord tarries my great great great grand children will still have giant trees to look at .It takes over 200 years before an oak and beech gets really large .

[SwampDonkey]

Soil and site are the biggest factor , when your talking about being over topped and held back that's just consequence as would having a moose or bear come along and break the top off when it's a sapling, but a factor. Bears have broken down a couple of my oak saplings so now they will grow like a great big archery bow.

Your right, 200 years at least for a 40" incher in the forest. But I got a 36" incher in 90 out in the yard. ;) It takes 60 years here to grow an 8" maple in the woods, and that' if it's not over topped. I tell people that and they look as me like I'm nuts. Been thinning a while in maple woods and it's been going on since the 60's and I never yet have seen one of those sugar maple thinnings with trees big enough to tap yet. ;D The trouble is, there is never, or rarely, an intermediate thinning done around here. As they grow, they need thinning.

I have a yard beech as well, limby darn thing, I planted it when it was about 2 feet tall, it was a transplant actually from the back of the yard. Some blue jay musta dropped the nut when roosting in the spruce, because it was under some 26" diameter spruce. Anyway, that was about 30 years ago, not quite, but it's only 22 feet tall and the diameter is a bit exaggerated because of the limbs, but down low it's 8 or 9 inches. That's what you get for open grown, limbs and they get fat quicker, but no height. Have a white oak about 10" now, 25' tall and been there 30 years. Like that tree in the fall, scarlet leaves. The new neighbors thought it died because it holds it's leaves all winter.

One thing I learned on the forum was that earthworms are not native here. The neighbors are organic farmers and I told them that and it was like I was telling a lie or something. They didn't know about butternuts either, when I told them we eat them, until he went and tried them. He thinks, because someone told him I guess, that walnuts are no good to eat now. Had to educate him on that to about small orchards of black walnut or yard trees that some folks grow in the US for eat'n. :

[Al_Smith]

You have no earthworms .What it the world do you fish with ?

[SwampDonkey]

We have them around the gardens and lawns and such, not out in the deep woods. Fishing up here when I was growing up was for Atlantic Salmon which could only be angled for with artificial fly. And for brook trout we always fished with flies....sometimes the fly was worn to the bear hook when the water was boiling alive with trout for that fly. :D

[Al_Smith]

sometimes the fly was worn to the bear hook when the water was boiling alive with trout for that fly. :D

"Bear" hook ? You fish for bears too?

Now come on now I've heard of some fish stories but never of hooking a black bear on a fly rod . :D Imagine the size dip net that would take .

[SwampDonkey]

I bet you never heard tell of hooking a ruffed grouse with a fly hook neither. I was fishing along a small stream for trout with my grand father and there was a grouse up a birch tree. He said, watch this. Yup, snagged him in the feathers enough to drag a little line out before it let loose. :D

[Al_Smith]

I caught a sea gull once in KeyWest .That was a mistake .

[bandmiller2]

One of the first things a machinest/mechanic should be taught is how to handle a file.Rocking a file is the reason many have trouble sharpening a chain.Thats pushing the file in a curved arch not straight.When that is done just behind the edge hits the wood first and cutting is poor.If you master moving the file in a straight line at close to the proper angle you got it. Frank C.

[cuterz]

The Pferd chain sharp is about the easiest, plus it does it all.