Sharpening with Dremel vs. File & Chain Breaking

[Rodney Sinclair]

I've been thinkin' more about it to Ted, and the truth is you may never know. You might have bent your bar so it might even dip with a new chain. It might be best to start over with every thing new on your powerhead.

Rodney

 

[woodshop]

I'd be willing to bet, assuming your bar is not bent, that a new chain will not dip for you. When it did dip, were you cutting anything out of the ordinary? I ask because I have noticed that some situations, like the triple crotch piece of an oak log I sliced up yesterday, often give me trouble no matter how sharp or how tuned up my setup is. Just hard sawing, simple as that, tough to keep the thing on track. Once I got away from the crotch end of the log, the board milled easy as pie. Today I started to mill a 36" dia pecan, and that was tough going also. Some woods just give ya more trouble. Tomorrow I'll be milling some poplar raisedbywolves offered me, and that should go real smooth, as poplar cuts like soft pine, only better because its often without the knots.

Dave

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

The picture of the chain shows it ripped apart at the drive link, which indicates it was just overpowered. It's a small chain and a strong saw, and I understand you want to use the smaller chain to make a thinner cut, but know you are at the upper limits with this chain.
As to why you just started having trouble, I suspect it's a combination of factors. As mentioned, different wood will cut differently, along with the possibility that you were getting a little heavy handed, maybe pushing a little harder?
Another possibility is bar wear. As you put miles on a bar, the grove gets worn which increases the play between the drive link and the bar rails. It's also important to dress your rails and flip your bar frequently, are you staying on top of this? Also try sticking a feeler gage all along the slot on your bar, how close to .050" are you?
You take a lousy picture by the way. Try using more light, hold the camera a little farther away, make sure your set at close up range, and hold the shutter button down half way until the camera focuses, before taking the shot.
What I can see looks like the the angles are pretty good, although it almost looks like the cutters on the far side are a little different than those on the close side of the chain.
Look at the close ups. Mill saw chain 1 shows what looks like too much hook, while Mill saw chain 2 looks perfect.

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

I've been thinkin' more about it to Ted, and the truth is you may never know. You might have bent your bar so it might even dip with a new chain. It might be best to start over with every thing new on your powerhead.

Rodney

A bent bar is easy to diagnose, set it on your kitchen counter (best done while the wife is out shopping).
A bent bar will not cause crooked cutting, it will just cut along the curve in the bar, which would have to be very bad to cause trouble.

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

Ted, you didn't say if the dipping was intermittent or continuous, and whether or not flipping the bar solved the problem.

 

[oldsaw]

The picture of the chain shows it ripped apart at the drive link, which indicates it was just overpowered. It's a small chain and a strong saw, and I understand you want to use the smaller chain to make a thinner cut, but know you are at the upper limits with this chain.
As to why you just started having trouble, I suspect it's a combination of factors. As mentioned, different wood will cut differently, along with the possibility that you were getting a little heavy handed, maybe pushing a little harder?
Another possibility is bar wear. As you put miles on a bar, the grove gets worn which increases the play between the drive link and the bar rails. It's also important to dress your rails and flip your bar frequently, are you staying on top of this? Also try sticking a feeler gage all along the slot on your bar, how close to .050" are you?
You take a lousy picture by the way. Try using more light, hold the camera a little farther away, make sure your set at close up range, and hold the shutter button down half way until the camera focuses, before taking the shot.
What I can see looks like the the angles are pretty good, although it almost looks like the cutters on the far side are a little different than those on the close side of the chain.
Look at the close ups. Mill saw chain 1 shows what looks like too much hook, while Mill saw chain 2 looks perfect.

Too much power, too little chain. Chain designed for small wood in a low powered saw isn't a good match for a CSM. I've used only 3/8 rip chain with zero problems. When I've caught nails, the cutters bent and/or tore off, the chain stayed intact. That makes me feel good. If I get a lot of excess play in the chain, it is immediately "retired". Safety first.

Mark

 

[Rodney Sinclair]

A bent bar is easy to diagnose, set it on your kitchen counter (best done while the wife is out shopping).
A bent bar will not cause crooked cutting, it will just cut along the curve in the bar, which would have to be very bad to cause trouble.

If I had a woman causing that much trouble, I would change woman. Done so in the past.
If a bent bar dosen't cause problems, why the hell spend money on a new one?
Rodney

 

[Rodney Sinclair]

Ted, you didn't say if the dipping was intermittent or continuous, and whether or not flipping the bar solved the problem.

Sure he did. You just didn't read it before typing.
Rodney

 

[clearance]

A bent bar will screw you, this I know well. The kitchen counter idea isn't good enough, I use a quality 4' builders level. If its bent, even a bit, chuck it.

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

We will have to agree to disagree on this one (add it to the already long list), but I suspect you had other bar problems and noticed the bar was also bent, so you blamed that, not knowing the rails were uneven or spread, or the grove was worn.
Any flat serface will work, as well as eyeballing down the bar to see if it's bent. I'm not sure I own a bar that is perfectly flat, but they all cut straight.
If your kitchen counter isn't flat, I have to ask, who installed it?

 

[aggiewoodbutchr]

After studying the picture closely, I have to agree with those that have said this chain is simply too weak to withstand the stress applied to it by that saw. I would recommend a new 3/8" .063 bar and ripping chain. A slightly smaller kerf is really not worth the safety risk of broken chains I.M.O. As Mike pointed out, the hook angles are in fact quite inconsistent. All the right hand cutters are 5 to 10 degrees and left hand cutters vary from 30 to 45 degrees. This may or may not be the actual cause of the bar wandering but it's not helping either. Sharpening with a Dremel is tricky because you can get things way out of whack before you realize the damage is done. I took one of those cheap guides and modified it to produce less hook and scribed a 5 deg line for the top plate angle. With a light hand and proper technique, I get better results with the dremel than I have ever gotten from a hand file (I know I'm about to get blasted by the hand file purists). It takes practice but it worth it i.m.o.

 

[TedChristiansen]

All,

Thanks to Martin Hall at Logosol, the dipping bar problem is solved.

Turns out the clutch cover is not a high tolerance die-casting, so the surface where the extender nuts are installed is not parallel to the bar. This meant that the bar was not parallel to the guide rail - see attached picture.

I put a 4' long straight stick on the bar as shown in the picture. The leading edge of the bar was 1" low over the 4' span! No wonder the bar was dipping! This was the same for both 24" and 16" bars. It is clearly the clutch cover.

I shimmed the carriage to make the bar parallel to the guide rail. I was cutting the same white oak today that had the bar dipping/chain breaking two weeks ago and it worked great. No bar dipping (at all), and there was no gap between the bar and the log at the end of the cut.

I had the broken 24" chain repaired and used it today - no issues.

Regards,

Ted

 

[woodshop]

I had the broken 24" chain repaired and used it today - no issues.
Ted

Glad you got your mill back on track (no pun intended)

As per the chain issue, I have to agree with aggie on this one, if only for safety sake, and piece of mind going down the log, if I were you my next bar/chain would be a standard .375....050 or .063. Difference in kerf is negligible, and you would have a much stronger chain that would better take the rigors of milling.

 

[Rodney Sinclair]

That's great Ted. I will file this one away for future use. Did Logosol have your chain fixed or did you have to and who did it?
Rodney

 

[TedChristiansen]

Rodney,

I had the chain fixed at a local shop - cost me $5.

Woodshop,

The kerf loss isnt a concern, but milling speed is. The pico chains cut quite a bit faster than "regular." And since the only time I have broken chains was when I had the bar dipping problem, I am assuming that I shouldn't run into chain breakage. This means of course revisiting this paralellism again when the clutch cover is replaced, and replacing the rim sprocket as new chains are commissioned.

Ted

 

[manual]

All,

Thanks to Martin Hall at Logosol, the dipping bar problem is solved.

Turns out the clutch cover is not a high tolerance die-casting, so the surface where the extender nuts are installed is not parallel to the bar. This meant that the bar was not parallel to the guide rail - see attached picture.

I put a 4' long straight stick on the bar as shown in the picture. The leading edge of the bar was 1" low over the 4' span! No wonder the bar was dipping! This was the same for both 24" and 16" bars. It is clearly the clutch cover.

I shimmed the carriage to make the bar parallel to the guide rail. I was cutting the same white oak today that had the bar dipping/chain breaking two weeks ago and it worked great. No bar dipping (at all), and there was no gap between the bar and the log at the end of the cut.

I had the broken 24" chain repaired and used it today - no issues.

Regards,

Ted

Glad to see you r problem is fixed.
Sounds like your were cutting wood on an angle, more then dipping.

 

[woodshop]

The kerf loss isnt a concern, but milling speed is. The pico chains cut quite a bit faster than "regular."

I know that the larger .404 chain takes more power to pull through wood, thus cuts slower than .375 same powerhead. I know from my woodshop, that thin kerf blades on my tablesaw, which are 3/32 wide don't take as much power to plow through thick wood than standard 1/8 inch saw blades. However in the case of the table saw, if you have a large 3HP cabinet saw, that's really not an issue. I wonder if that same analogy holds for chainsaw mills. Regardless, logic (at the very least) dictates that the thinner pico chain takes less power regardless of what powerhead you run, thus goes a bit faster. Can you get as many sharpenings in that milling situation from a pico chain than 3/8 I wonder? Just being curious.

 

[TedChristiansen]

Woodshop,

I have a 36" inch .063 3/8" chain for cutting big logs. The 24" pico chain cuts a lot faster, even if you factor out the 12" less bar!

The teeth on the 63PMX chain are quite long. I probably went through 4 chains (2 24" and 2 16") in one year, and cut about 1000 board feet with them.

I have been very happy with the setup and speed of milling. I have more than enough wood for my own use, and need to spend this winter using some of it to clear out my "drying area."

Ted