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Changing Chains

Started by nativewolf, March 09, 2020, 06:57:26 PM

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nativewolf

Just curious how often the hand fellers on here will go through chains? Maybe better put, how many chains do you buy a month?  The white oaks we are on now are just hard on the chains, today I ripped 4 guides off a stihl 32" skip, it was a 45" tree at the base and "pow" gutting the tree and had the blade buried and tilted a bit i think.  Anyhow, I am noticing that I'm buying two every week, I buy both stihl and oregon skip tooths, for my 362s I have an old stash of nice stihls and I am still sharpening those.  It is the felling and bucking chains that are getting stretch, popped, dull (soil is a bit rocky/sandy and I am cutting no more than 4" off the ground).
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Firewoodjoe

By guides do you mean the drive links? Are u cutting hardwood? If I use one a week I'd be surprised. If your cutting hardwood run full comp not skip and go to a .404 chain maybe. But anything under a 90cc don't need 404 in my opinion. I'd say your making them to aggressive and asking to much of the chain your using. 🤷🏼‍♂️

Skeans1

Skip is only good for one thing long bars 50"+ range, two throw the round in the garbage, three quit boring. If a chain and saw is setup correctly you won't have any issues with it keeping up or cutting faster then it can pull wood.

Firewoodjoe

If a saw is set up right u can cut any wood in any direction including boreing. U can cut a 4 foot tree with a electric chainsaw if done right. Skips are cheaper but suck. And I did see you said white oak. My bad. 

Firewoodjoe

Skeans what do u mean by round. Round tooth? Are u using square ground? Round is all you can buy here and square I thought was more of a soft wood west coast thing. 

Skeans1

@Firewoodjoe
When cutting timber hard or softwood all I use is square, it's faster and smoother to run plus you can get semi skip.

Firewoodjoe

Interesting. I tried semi skip when i bought my last 390. Didn't like it. Nothing like a full house hand file. The dealer wanted me to try there new husquvarna chain also. I did. Yeah it cuts faster but that's because they grind them right from the start. I can make the old chain cut faster than the new style chain and it's $4 cheaper. 

Skeans1

28" on down it's all full comp
32" to 50" it's semi skip
50" on up is full skip
I'll change how I grind the teeth depending on wood and saw I'm running. All the round I've ever run is slower vibrates more and is harder on the power head in the long haul.

nativewolf

@Firewoodjoe -yeah white oak.  Old tight rings, 200 years in most cases.  I'm not the largest, thickest guy out there, a bit twig like perhaps so using the large 90cc saws is just not going to happen.  I'm stopping at a 462, 72cc, and find that in white oak it bogs down with a 32" bar unless it is a skip tooth.  We're boring these WO on slopes...frankly we're doing everything we can to stop fiber pull, barber chairs, and trees going the wrong way; a couple of really big mushroom canopies today that I just had no idea on where they would go..none...none.  Nice butts though, wo rift veneer in half of them today.   I know many better hand fellers but in my experience even they would be scratching head on some of these.  So you do what you can to make sure the butt is salable no matter what. 

Actually had a really good handfeller on site for 3 days.  He dropped more than me per day but he was hanging trees up quite a bit, split a couple (just like me).  We knocked over 2 save trees in the last 7 days, just hard to find holes to stick a big white oak canopy.  

  
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nativewolf

Quote from: Skeans1 on March 09, 2020, 08:33:00 PM
28" on down it's all full comp
32" to 50" it's semi skip
50" on up is full skip
I'll change how I grind the teeth depending on wood and saw I'm running. All the round I've ever run is slower vibrates more and is harder on the power head in the long haul.
Yeah this is semi skip on the 32".  
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Firewoodjoe

😆 I'm only 187lbs. You get use to a big saw and it's actually less work in big trees. I never run longer than 24" and that will cut a very large tree. 48" dbh has a lot of bell that needs trimmed off anyways. But I sure love my 371s and 72s!

BargeMonkey

 I dont know to many guys around here using full comp chain ? Everything for us went skip 10yrs ago and I prefer it, rarely use a bar over 24", I've got a 3'-4' but they rarely come out. Hand cutting and topping 2+ chains a week. 

Skeans1

When I was hand cutting all the time I was only 115lbs running 60's if need be.

@Nativewolf 
Was that round chain? Have you tried a full faced Dutchman instead of boring?

chevytaHOE5674

Nobody uses square chain around here. Cuts great in clean wood but dull and useless at the first sight of dirt. Skip tooth full chisel on a 24" bar is all I use. Cuts nearly as fast as full comp but half as many teeth to file. 


SW Oh Logger

Native  Wolf:  Don't take this wrong, please, but I didn't get the impression that +you are exactly a twig LOL!  Seriously, can't believe you're cutting 3' to 4' foot stump white oak with a 462  and  a 32" bar, much less a 362--great saws but with big, tight grained WO a 390 Husky or 661 Stihl with a 28" bar with full comp round chain 050 or 063 would get the job done very well. I know that square is fast but not as widely available in the Midwest and in many parts of the Southeast. Full skip pulls slower in very hard wood although quicker to file and self-clean in the cut. This is not the same kind of timber, must be bored for good veneer/and or prime saw logs. The timber and cutting methods are not the same all over the country--not trying to  insult anyones'  area , equipment, or methods. Iv'e cut for nearly 40 years now, many , many big white oak and burr oak jobs. Sharpen your chain little by little as you go along, and keep lowering the depth gauges with a readily available tool. Shearing off depth gauges and sometimes drivers will happen boring in hard timber. Cutting low like that, which is also how I cut, sometimes requires an axe to clean around the stump for any grit or moss and dirt present. 
Snellerized 390xp,stock 395

nativewolf

SW Oh Logger, 145 is about all I rate and before I started shrinking I was 6'.  Thanks for the post and info.   661 would be the saw to use, no doubt.  Just too heavy for me.  I'd starve if I was a production cutter :D.  The 362s are there for topping. 

We've actually moved to the stihl sharpening guides so the rakers are getting filed constantly, just a touch.  

I may start cutting the bark off some really low trees, especially stumps on a slope.  Good advice.

@skeans1 -we still have to bore if we want to be absolutely sure it won't misbehave.   Now a traditional veneer cutter here is doing a spur cut, interesting to see in action  
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nativewolf

Quote from: Firewoodjoe on March 09, 2020, 08:54:43 PM
😆 I'm only 187lbs. You get use to a big saw and it's actually less work in big trees. I never run longer than 24" and that will cut a very large tree. 48" dbh has a lot of bell that needs trimmed off anyways. But I sure love my 371s and 72s!
I find that on the big bells on these WOs that I do a better job preparing a notch with a longer bar and for gutting out the center, just being sure.  I then switch to the 25" bar to do the sides and back.  I wish these were 48" dbh, the money would really be there for that.  I've got a couple of Ohioans showing up today and tomorrow to buy stave and veneer.   
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Russ_l

I usually can make a chain last about a week. I use Oregon EXL chain it is full chisel full house and stays sharp way longer than regular Oregon chain . 

mills

I normally get about two weeks out of a chain. They get somewhere between four to six hours of cutting before sharpening... that's not accounting for screw ups on my part.  :)   Keep in mind that I'm mostly a one man show, so I'm not getting the volumes that most of you get. "Mileage may vary."

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