Race Chain News

[Gypo Logger]

Hi Ed, it has been my experience that when you chase parked cars in Canada, you get brain damage, not from getting your head run over by the rear tires, but from getting off on the exhaust.
John

 

[ehp]

So that is what happened

 

[Crofter]

One thing to be learned about filing race ready chains is that someone else will disagree with your methods. What worked best for you under one set of conditions will fall on its face under different conditions. There are many variables that can make a huge difference. I can understand perhaps why Dennis C. and others are reluctant to give detailed info only to have it knocked down because someone else says it didnt work for them. That person could have problems nothing to do with the chain or perhaps had a personal grudge. We have perhaps seen some of that.
Dennis Cahoon and Tommy Fales have said that the quality of the filing is more important than all the fussy angles. Art Martin said that the filing must be done with no file rocking or tooth chatter which amounts to the same thing. It makes the difference in having a cutting face and edge that shines like the facette of a gem, or one where the surfaces are like a washboard road. Big difference in the amount of friction as the tooth slides under and thru the wood. I have seen chains by the previous people as well as Ed Heards and they all have absolutely crisp edges and are consistent and slippery looking. I'd bet that if they were given the exact same wood, saw, and operator and a bit of time to experiment, there would only be hundredths of a second difference in cut times.
There is a heck of a lot more to winning a race than the chain. I have been able to mimic some of their work and get decent cut times but there are mountains I don't know about it. If you are still interested after you have put in a few hundred hours of filing maybe Dennis will figure you have paid your dues enough to start giving you some pointers! Lol!
I,m not sure I have got to the part where I am having fun yet!

Frank

 

[ehp]

Crofter one thing i have learned is if the chain is on backwards it does not cut worth sh$t, and i bet Dennis and Tommy will agree with me one that one

 

[glens]

Another factor, Frank, is that the teller and the tellee may <i>think</i> they're each understanding the tale the same, yet we all know that happens far less frequently here than it does in Shangri-La.&nbsp; "I did exactly what you <i>said</i> and the result sucks, so you don't know nothin'!"

Glen

 

[Dennis Cahoon]

Crofter, detailed info has been given. Have you thinned a chain from the inside yet? Have you tried grinding off from .010 to .020 or anything in between, from the inside of the cutter? Have you geared your saw up with a 9 or 10 even an 11 pin sprocket? Have you tried polishing your gullits? Have you played with your raker height, down and up? Did you stone your cutters? There is enough info right here to keep all you chain builders busy for a long time. If you have tried to build a race chain from the old threads here, then your going to have to build a chain thinned from the inside to find out if you can make one run faster. You have info!, and building chain is not that much fun, but it sure is fun when you see your competion walking away with there heads down, because you just smoked there a$$.
Crofter, at least your trying. Keep it up!, because it does take perseverance. Tom Fales has the most I have ever seen. Also, keep this in mind, it doesn't matter if people disagree with your methods if your chain wins. If it does, they'll soon be wanting to know them. LOL Dennis

 

[royb]

Hello
Mr Crofter I can make a chain that can beat all of you Girl's.. And if you put all chain's on a dog of a stock saw it would be even worse

 

[royb]

Crofter you have never seen one of the chain's that THEMAN has filed.

 

[rmihalek]

Where can I purchase stones for honing cutters?

 

[jokers]

I am "The Man"

Originally posted by royb
Crofter you have never seen one of the chain's that THEMAN has filed.

royb,

Since I have decided that I am "the man" when it comes to filing race chain, for you to have any credibility in your claims you should send several of your best filed specimens in this configuration, 60DLX3/8x.050 or .058 to me for evaluation. If I think you are any good I`ll be sure to let a few guys know. LOL

Russ

 

[Crofter]

Chain from the Man

It is possible the chain purported to be Fales was not. I have found you can indeed thin too far and have the chain start to bind and also bend cutters. Have not gone the route of disassembling the chain to grind cutter mounting surface as has been described here often. That is not new. Doing more polishing is something I have to approach. Mechanizing each part of the operation is important or you get to hate the amount of time you spend by hand to do it. Especially when you find you have explored a blind alley. I can understand Dennis Cahoon saying you have to do it to learn it; nothing sticks in your mind like personal experience. I just find his advice to be a little bit in the spirit of trying to discourage: Rather than being a mentor, he is a bit of a tormentor! Lol!
There are books that also help on the theory of cutting edges and the dynamics of cutting wood. If you can combine this with the manual dexterity necessary to do it and the judgement to match saw and wood conditions, it will be fast. I can at least now beat the pants off most local kids with bucksaws, especially since Ed reworked my Husky. I now have a better vehicle to test drive my experiments. I hope we can explore sharpening without tearing each other up. It keeps the ideas flowing.

Frank

 

[Dennis Cahoon]

Crofter, the chains you saw were Fales chains. The chains were refiled by me, because one was thrown and damaged and had to be shortened, and alot of the teeth were dinged. The other chain just needed refiling. I feel I'm a good filer, but Tom is better at it than me, and if he refiled them, the chains could of been even faster.
I'm not trying to be a Mentor, and I'm not trying to discourage you either. If fact, quite the opposite. Go for it!, You have plenty of things to try. I'd also like to see these guys that talk a good game just try and build one! LOL Good luck. Dennis

 

[jokers]

Who`s talking a good game except the BS`ers like myself?You could run my "race" chain inside out and backwards and it wouldn`t make a difference, LOL.

Russ

 

[Gypo Logger]

It is funny how even a woodchain will cut exceptionaly fast, then when I try to make it faster it becomes slower, such as when I took the rakers down too far on my new fangled square chain off the modified round ground grinder. No biggy though, I will just take the cutters back or go to a smaller gear.
John

 

[ehp]

Dennis i ran both of those chains and they cut very fast but you already knew that\


I have seen 2 of Tommy Fales 1/2 chain , well they told me they were from Tom , one was on Mike S. rotax and the other was on Dave Jewett;s rotax , both cut real real fast and cut easy to operate which is a big thing with bike saws and i know my 1/2 inch is not as good in my eyes or in my mind , now my 1/2 inch chain has won some big shows but i believe it had more to do with the operator than the chain, i am glad NBLogger is on my side and not against me, is he that good . YES
i guess one of the problems is i donot get that much 1/2 chain to file , mostly 3/8's or .404 ,
now it didnot take long to figure out what i was doing wrong and that was to thin of a under plate so when i corrected that it made a big difference but if you are using 1/2 inch chain and you got the coin send them west and you will be happy.
the MAN is that good

 

[Gypo Logger]

Hey Dennis, eat your heart out, I'm really catching on quick since I have been calling Meat Loaf.
John

 

[046]

bump for a good ole thread on chains..

 

[820wards]

"I've spent over 40 hours often on racing chains. I used to completely dismantle a chain. Then with a surface grinder that I made, I would remove .020" from the inside surface of the tooth. That is the flat side where hole for the rivets are. The purpose being to narrow the kerf for a total of .040". The gain was so minimal for the time expended, that I felt it wasn't justified. I then tried another approach and made an adjustable grinder that would remove the chrome and change the angle of the outside of the tooth. I found this to be much easier and accomplished a better end result." This was posted by Art Martin on 9-7-02.

Now for all you race chain builders out there, this style of making race chain might not of worked or been to labor intense for Art Martin, but this is how the fastest race chain is made and for quite a long time now.

I just saw this thread and post and thought I should bring this post to you race chain builders attention. This is not an attack on Art, but why would the best chain builders in the world use this technique if it did not work? If your making race chain and don't try the inside thinning of a chain, you'll never know for sure. The race chains that I have seen that ran fast were all made this way. Dennis

Dennis,

I've been to Art's shop and had him explain how he builds a chain from scratch, we're talking hours.

jerry-

 

[Crofter]

I have noticed that people do not always give the same advice in regard to thinning You definitely can go too far; probably more likely the larger or knottier the wood. Dismantling all the cutters and grinding their mounting surfaces is a lot of work. If you also thin the outside of the cutter side plate and/or come too far back where the tooth is narrower you definitely wind up with something worthless. It will bind. Chrome makes a durable cutting edge but will never be really sharp. There are a number of ways of getting it out of the picture.
Some other lessons learned. A stock saw does not beat a saw with basic mods that you could still call a good hard working saw. Putting a race chain on it wont make it a winner either so we get our saw woods ported and are pretty puffed up until we run against someone with a stock appearing race saw. oops! no joy there. Then we gear up with a bit better chain and take the saw as far as it still qualifies as stock appearing and we think we are pretty fast until we come up against an all out race saw, piped and running nitromethane and alcohol and again you are blown away!
That is just equipment: now a good operator in cold start can hit the wood in less than .75 of a second and make switchovers in close to a tenth of a second! Just try it for fun and see how far you are off that mark. It would take a lot of time, money and dedication to get yourself there. It is not easy to buy top notch competitive hardware either; people with the capability of making it have earned the right to be pretty choosy about what hands it falls into. You will pay your dues before you start to win consitantly.Usually a person has no idea what it all really takes.
Somewhere along the line reality set in; I was not going to be a chainsaw racer. Some aspects of the game I still find interesting though.

 

[Mr.]

If someone can explain why all the fast chain comes from MI, CA, Al, and LA then I would appreciate it.

More than one way to skin a cat I guess, but yall need to be catskinners like Marky first.

Fred