Carbide slabbing chain?????

[hatchoil]

Ive been thinking about taking an old ripping chain and replacing the teeth with Rapco Terminator teeth to slab walnut logs that I know have metal. Has anyone tried to do this? I know that it will be a large kerf and dont really care because the logs are free? ??? ???

[terrifictimbersllc]

No experience with carbide ripping chain but I would not expect anything good with carbide cutters hitting nails.  Carbide is brittle and breaks easily. Think hitting nails with your table saw carbide blade.

[Seaman]

They are going to shatter me thinks.

[Kbeitz]

Our fire company uses them... They told me that they will cut right through tin roofs and nails.
They also said cutting wood is very slow.

[sawguy21]

I can think of better things to do than take a chain apart and replace all the cutters ;D

[Waterford Woodworks]

So..... I work at the Fire department full time and Saw on my woodmizer part time(hopefully I can make that change to full time sooner than later). I maintain our chainsaws and have had a lot of experience with the carbide tipped chains. They definitely have pros and cons. While they will cut through metal debris it seems to always come with a cost of several of the teeth(I suspect it would be just about all of them if each tooth was hitting some metal). For the cost of the carbide tipped chain, I have determined it is more cost effective to use a normal chain and throw it away each time it is used(we don't throw them away, I can normally get a few sharpenings from them and put them back in service). If you have the ability to assemble chain, you can buy it by the roll cheaper. 
I also have sawn several semi loads of telephone poles. I spend 2 days pulling metal and scanning them with a metal detector for one days worth of sawing. Even with trying to be careful to find every piece of metal, I still miss some. So I decided to try a carbide tipped bandsaw blade. It was sharp and sawed really well until it hit its first piece of metal. At over 5 times the cost of a normal blade I again come to the conclusion its more cost effective to just buy regular blades and risk throwing away a few. I hope this helps you and you're able to find a great way to salvage the good lumber without costing you an arm and a leg. 

[mobile sawmill services]

the only problem with carbide chains is sharpness, you can not get carbide as sharp as normall steel chains, one of the main problems with carbides in woodworking

[hatchoil]

I was looking at using the terminator tooth which is suppose to be be impact resistant. Looking at the pics it does look like it would be alot slower thank you guys for the advice.