After having replaced or sharpened nearly every cutting edge in my wood shop in the past week, I'm reminded more than ever how much more I need to keep on top of my sharpening. Everything is fairly effortless with sharp edges. Everything is a struggle without them. BobL, I know you've stressed how easy it is to dull edges in a heartbeat in dirty wood and steps to avoid it, but it really sunk in during my last round of mesquite milling. With all my types of wood cutting/planing, I've had a bad habit of going by "amount of use" to gauge when it's time to sharpen an edge, rather than admit that the edge needs sharpening if the machine is struggling to make a good cut, even if I just sharpened it yesterday. Mesquite has such dirty thick bark that you're guaranteed to dull chains quickly unless you debark it, as much of a pain in the ass as it can be to do so. Also, mesquite tends to contain a lot of dead spots of rotten wood that will dull the chain quickly and you never know where you'll find them. I checked out all the opinions on winches out of curiosity, which would certainly come in handy when I'm pushing hard with a dull chain, but even in a really hard wood like mesquite, I've found with freshly sharpened chain on my 880, it just wants to eat it up and I only lightly guide it, I don't have to push it. That's kind of a standard I think I've learned for when to sharpen. If I'm having to push, sharpen the chain.
I was also reading this whole thread and others for thoughts on rails/ladders on every cut or just the first cut. I've gone back and forth, but have much preferred the results using them on every cut. When I don't use rails, I struggle solo with my 880 at keeping the mill level as I first initiate the cut and end up with unevenness in the first six inches, and tend to get the same at the other end finishing the cut.
I had some terrible washboarding issues when my son helped me one day who has no familiarity with milling, and he tried to attribute it to the chain loosening up. I've almost never had washboarding issues on my own. I was thinking it mostly had to do with him pushing too hard on his side - every time I've ever had a novice help me I've had to tell them to stop pushing so much - and also him cantilevering his push by holding the vertical post up high and pushing. But even more so, I think it was him knocking in wedges behind the cut way too far and lifting the wood too much so that it was tilting the mill from the back end and always pushing it to dig in. I had not even been putting wedges in behind me with mesquite most of the time because it didn't really sag and close up at all. When I went back to milling on my own, I had smooth results again. I haven't really seen it warned about or mentioned that in milling you only put in wedges to keep the cut open to the width of the cut. Some people treat wedges like they do when felling and drive them in and open the cut way too much and tilt the angle of attack of the mill.
What should be a bit of a game changer for keeping myself working more steadily is that I got my two old 87cc Stihls back from my place in Mexico, only one of which I ever expected to work. But I did the ignition fix on the 045 successfully and now I have three big saws to choose from, and can start milling with 3/8" chain some on smaller hardwoods. I remember you saying, BobL, that you didn't see much of a difference between a 660 with 3/8 and 880 w/ .404 in narrower hardwoods, but you also mentioned my 045 and 056 Supers were considerably lower revs than the 660, if only marginally less powerful, so I won't get the higher chain speed benefit so much from them that I would from the 660. Even still, it will be interesting to do some direct comparisons of the two setups.
