Hyperskip ripping chains....do they suck??

[burdman_22]

So...after reading all the hype on hyperskip chains, I decided to buy a couple for a milling project I had this weekend. I had a red oak log that range from about 32 inches wide to just under 6 ft wide, making 20 ft 6 inch long cuts.

The first 4 cuts I made with a single normal ripping chain...normal amount of cutters. Cuts went as always, same speed that I normally get our of my cuts (20-30'ish minutes per cut). In the 4th cut the chain was starting to slow down a good bit, and about 2 feet away from the end of the cut we shot ourselves in the foot and hit a screw (our own screw). We removed the screw, then decided to try to finish the cut with the damaged chain....nothing.

So chain swapped to a woodland pro hyperskip ripping chain for the last three feet or so and it took about 10-20 minutes to finish it out. So ok...I thought it must have been a fluke, and decided to make the fifth cut using the hyperskip chain. It took nearly 2 hours and 4 fill ups to complete 1 cut with that chain! What gives? Either we had a crappy chain...or we had a crappy chain...

Probably never going to use a hyperskip chain EVER again unless someone can convince me otherwise (also, I wasted like $300+ on chain that I doubt I can return since it was a custom loop).


ARGH!!!!! 

[ladylake]

  
 I'm never going by internet hype again, every time something new come out it gets a lot of hype which turns out to be just hype.  Steve

[Don P]

It runs a good bit faster through the cut than full comp for us. It's almost always the chain, sharpness, raker depth of bite. If you do some ciphering I'd bet that was cutting in the ten thousandths per bite. It sounds like something isn't set up right.

[burdman_22]

The only thing I can figure is baileys sent me an ubsharpened chain

[Al_Smith]

From past practice Baileys in the past has hyped up chain that really failed to hold up for what it was supposed to do .I think I still have a few loops I don't use except for root cuts .It was like 10 bucks for a 20" loop of round chisel so I got just about what I paid for .Live and learn . ;)

[burdman_22]

All of Bailey's chains have been fine for me in the past, but they've all been non-skip chains. (I've used about 15 chains from Bailey's)

[Don P]

What was it throwing out and how much? Was it overloading its ability to remove dust, or was it not getting enough bite per tooth. I'm guessing sharpen and lower the drags till it starts to get more aggressive.

[burdman_22]

Seemed like not enough bite...but still, shouldn't have to adjust drags or sharpen on a brand new chain (if that is even what was happening). 

[Al_Smith]

This subject of ripping is another topic often debated .By using just standard old chisel chain instead of rip chain it will cut a lot faster .You need to hit it at about a 45 degree angle so it's pulling chips, not noodles not saw dust .It will be a little rough but not as rough as a circle mill .Besides that if  it's to be used as finish lumber it's going to be planed anyway .Most rip logs really would usually end up as firewood so a little bit of kerf really would not be a big deal .My 2 cents on that subject 

[charles mann]

Iv thought about giving a skip tooth a try, esp running a bar over 30". Just havent hit the order button. As for bailey's, iv purchased 15 or so chains, both ripping and standard cross cut and havent had an issue with any of them cutting as advertised. But, you could have a chain built on mon or fri. 

[Don P]

I look at it the same as any other saw, they do best in a certain bite range. The number of full sized bites you can take per rotation is dependent on power available. When running my circle sawmill with the little tractor on light power I ground every other tooth down, a skip tooth. My craftsman tablesaw had their crappy little "develops 3 hp" one horse motor on it. It couldn't swing an 80 tooth blade but can pull a 24 tooth through the kerf pretty well. The Lukas has 5 teeth run by a lawnmower engine. The CSM to me is the same problem, ripping on light power, so we tried the hyperskip and for what we have used it for that analogy seems to hold. Doesn't mean I'm seeing things correctly, just one way of looking at it.

[Al_Smith]

Table saws are another subject .I too have a Craftsman but it's circa 1968 12" direct drive around 4 HP .On a start up it will dim the lights so I know the HP is about correct on a 40 amp breaker .Cast iron top but with a 12" carbide rip blade will rip a 4 by 4 just about as fast as you can shove it through .Matter of fact I've got a few Freud 10" finish blades  that cut like it had been planed .So just like a chainsaw chain the blades have a lot to do with it .

[burdman_22]

I think I'm going to give up on hyper skip chains and just stick with normal ripping chains. I've got an 84 inch bar on my chainsaw and it chewed through a 68 inch section of red oak just fine when using a normal ripper (the hyperskip was 4 times slower)....maybe Bailey's just sent me an unsharpened chain or something, but its not worth the $90 to try again with hyper skip.

[Don P]

At the end of the day, what works is what matters 

[barbender]

So have you tried sharpening the chain, to see if that corrects the problem?

[burdman_22]

nope, havent sharpened. Might try that, but honestly I dont sharpen my own chains. I wait until I have about 14 or so needing sharpened and then drop them off to get sharpened.

A business down the road has a stihl rep with a machine that costs like $20k-$30k and they sharpen each chain for me for about $12...my chains take me about 45 minutes each to sharpen by hand.

[barbender]

Gotcha. Not that you should have to sharpen a chain out of the box, but to rule that out.

[btulloh]

Seems like checking for sharp and measuring the raker height would be a first step. Not time consuming or hard to do.  Did I miss this from earlier in the thread?