Sprocket nose tip lubrication....

[mrcaptainbob]

What is recommended for lubing the lub-able (is that even a 'word'?) sprocket tips? I use the hand held push-to-grease type greaser. I have seen mention of 'oiling' the sprocket tip. Was told by the Stihl shop guy in town to not grease the tip on a new bar. The bar oil will keep it lubed enough. If it is grease....is there a better type of grease to use?
Grease?
Oil?
No grease, no oil?

[barbender]

Every time I have greased a tip, it failed in short order. Maybe coincidence, but 3-4 times? It's really not necessary, bar oil keeps them lubed in my experience.

[sawguy21]

The oiler should keep the tip adequately lubed but if you start greasing don't quit. The sawdust and dirt needs to be flushed out.

[Ed]

If its greaseable, it gets greased. When I clean the saw at the end of the day, a few shots of #2 grease, nothing special.

I look at it like sawguy, flushes the crap out.

Never had a problem one way or the other.

Ed

[dougtrr2]

I used to grease the tip on my Stihl O32.  I usually cut until I run out of gas.  Take a break, fill the gas, fill the oil, grease the tip.  Never had any problems.  Last time I bought a new bar it didn't have a place to grease the tip.  I asked about it and was told they changed the design so the bar oil kept it lubricated.  My dealer said most people didn't keep the tip greased so this change was for them.  I haven't had any problems with the new tip either. 

Doug in SW IA

[John Mc]

I greased the tip on the first bar on my first saw, but have never greased one since. I've not had a problem with the tips on any of the bars. I've found that using good bar oil, keeping the chain sharp, and keeping the chain properly tensioned has a much bigger impact on bar and tip life.

However, as Sawguy noted, once you have greased the tip, you should keep greasing it. As the grease expands from the heat, it will squeeze out a bit. Dust and dirt stock to it. When you stop the saw, the grease cools and contracts, pulling that crud back in to the tip. The easiest way to get that crud back out of the tip is to grease it again to flush the old stuff out. The oil from the bar is not able to push the old grease out, so if you don;t grease again, that old stuff with all of the crud in it just sits there.

If you never grease it, you don't have that problem: The oil does not pull back in when it cools, and fresh oil can flow into the tip if there is no grease blocking it.

[Real1shepherd]

This is an age old argument for as long as I can remember. It would be nice if someone had done some real research on this and not just left it up to user comments.

As a pro, I greased the tips every morning of use....no more. But I met plenty of people that said they never greased their sprocket tips, so I don't know what the answer is. I've also met people who have never greased their clutch drum bearing either which I personally think is saw suicide.

So I dunno on the sprocket tip issue.....I feel like the holes are there for a reason. And I don't believe grease is exacerbating the problem of wear. I've only had to replace tips because they had wear divots....never had a tip fail outright.

RPM's could be a factor too....saws running over 14,000 versus saws running 12,000(or less) unloaded. Also a function of pressure on the sprocket tip;folks who push onto cuts with a dull chain versus folks who stop and sharpen or change chains often.

Kevin

[ehp]

alot of the new big money bars have no hole to grease the tip, I myself I never grease the tip, on a brandnew bar I soak the tip in chain oil then off to work she goes 

[mike_belben]

Every time i pull the bar off i wipe it down and do or dont dress the rails up as needed, then clean the kerf and oil holes out fully and blow the rubbish out of the sprocket bearing real good with cheap brakleen or ether then air.  Dunk the bar nose in a open top tin of hydraulic oil, spin it a few times each way to ensure silky smoothness with no grit drag.. Then drip and wipe the excess off with a old tee shirt.   I have never greased.  I think its tacky enough to keep trash in that would fly out better with oil.  



Never wore out a tip which i think is pretty good considering the severity of chainsaw milling. 

[moodnacreek]

I only grease them when the bar has been starved for oil. What I mean is you gas up, unscrew the oil cap to find it did not use much oil or worse. This is when I remove the bar, clean and run and observe. [if no oil coming through I dump the oil and put gas in there to flush, dump and start over] Any how dipping the bar tip in oil is just as good but the little greaser may be in reach]

[Blueknife]

I've made my living running chain saws for over 20 years. I've never greased a bar sprocket and haven't had an excessive (as far as I'm concerned) number of tips blow out. Maybe 3 or 4 in that time. The bar rails normally wear out long before the tip does if you're using factory or cheap-ish/Oregon bars. If you're using some of the better bars like Tsumura, Carlton, GB or Cannon, you'll stand a decent chance of needing to replace the tip a time or two before the bar is done.