# Skip tooth regular round chisel for ripping



## woodshop (Nov 11, 2006)

Just an observation. Today milling 20 inch wide cherry with a 36" bar/csm, forgot to bring a sharp ripping chain, and the thing was really bogging down because it was dull from a previous days milling. Did one pass and started to mutter not nice things :censored: at the saw (as if it was the saws fault!!). Hard on my patience AND my saw though, had to do something or put away the csm for the day and get by with the Ripsaw only. All I had was my skip tooth regular ground chain I swap out when I need a bigger saw than my 28" 365 for felling or bucking a huge tree. So... popped it on and milled with it, and was surprised at how fast the thing zipped through that 20 inch wide cherry. Never timed both side by side, but I can almost swear it went faster than my standard ripping chain, even when that ripping chain was new right off the spool. I have milled with standard round ground chisel chain before in a pinch with good results, but not skip tooth. This was definitely fast. Only complaint was the huge difference in smoothness of cut. The regular ground skip tooth chain really chewed up the surface of the boards, even tearing some of the wood a little at some places. Nothing major, nothing an extra pass through the planer won't fix, but not half as smooth as the standard ripping chain ground 10 degrees.

Now I'm thinking, for quick and dirty jobs where finish isn't as much of an issue, might just use that skip tooth if it goes that fast.


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## stonykill (Nov 12, 2006)

I HAVE MADE SIMILAR OBSERVATIONS WITH THE SKIP TOOTH. FAST IN THE SMALL STUFF, A LOT ROUGHER, BUT DEFINATELY FAST. I PLAN ON TAKING A SKIP TOOTH CHISEL CHAIN AND REGRINDING IT TO 10 DEGREES AND SEEING HOW THIS WORKS, JUST HAVENT TAKEN THE 10 MINUTES YET TO DO IT. MY HOPES ARE IT IS AS FAST, BUT SMOOTHER.:rockn:


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## oldsaw (Nov 12, 2006)

Yeah, I've done it. It is faster for a cut or so, but it dulls faster, and then slows down to a crawl. Then the finish, as mentioned, is much rougher. I converted the chain to rip, but haven't noticed a big gain in speed due to the skip portion in hardwoods.

Mark


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## woodshop (Nov 12, 2006)

oldsaw said:


> Yeah, I've done it. It is faster for a cut or so, but it dulls faster, and then slows down to a crawl. Then the finish, as mentioned, is much rougher. I converted the chain to rip, but haven't noticed a big gain in speed due to the skip portion in hardwoods.
> 
> Mark


Interesting, so it doesn't last as long, makes sense being not ground 0 or 10degrees. Well I only made 5 cuts, about 20 inches wide, and bout 5 ft long. I guess I didn't cut enough for it to get dull yet. Of course, being skip tooth, only half as many cutters to sharpen on the spot if doing that in the field. always stuff on both side of and issue ain't there?


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## aggiewoodbutchr (Nov 12, 2006)

I used 30 degree skip micro-chisel quite a bit before I had multiple ripping chains for my 72" bar. There wasn't a huge difference in finish quality compaired to a ripping chain but it was faster. The downside I noticed was it vibrated and jerked pretty badly.


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