Hit a Nail Today

[tande]

I was cutting up a downed maple in town today and run through a nail, but not the second one. It did a number on my chain. I know this is hard without pics, but is it salvageable? Can I just grind the cutters back beyond the damage? Would this be worth the work? Never hit anything that didn't just destroy my chain, this is a first for me.

 

[Cut4fun]

I have broken cutters plumb off. just resharpen and you will never know it happened. Dont even notice the missing cutters when cutting either.

 

[B_Turner]

Once I was working a fairly large maple yard tree on a bowl commission that was used as a tree fort. I should have aborted the job immediately, as I removed over 50 nails before I finally quit harvesting.

I estimated that I only worked half the area with nails, so 100 nails is certainly my record for a tree. Luckily I found most of them with a metal detector and dug them out, but these days as soon as I start finding nails out comes the splitting maul making firewood.

With nails I generally try to have a light enough touch that I stop and prevent extensive damage as soon as I hit one, but I have had trees full of concrete that ground off the cutters in a heartbeat.

That is why I always bring a bag of chains to the site and do my sharpening at the shop with a grinder.

 

[PES+]

Be sure to check

Be sure to check all the tie straps for cracks and drive links for twist.

If the teeth catch I have seen tie straps crack at the rivets. Even then if you replace the broken pieces you can save the chain though if any pieces are broken it is safest to toss the whole chain.

Grinding back is not a problem with no other damage.

 

[tande]

Thanks guys, that was my thought, but just wanted to check to see if I was on the right track.