Thread: Electric chainsaw sharpener..

Originally Posted by montiee

In the end file or not you are going to have to have it ground back professionally at some point.

Not so. There are many pros and competent weekend warriors that do not ever use a grinder.

As for the file being sharper than the grinder that seems to be an urban legend quite frankly. The grinder will produce the sharpest time and time again since it's setup at the correct angles. A file may match it but it certainly won't beat it in terms of sharpness.

I don't worry too much about having 100% correct filing angles, or the exact same filing angles or exact same cutter lengths because they usually contribute very little to maximising cutting speeds. Provided a cutter has enough hook and no cutting edge glint, a cutter will cut at any reasonable angle. A more critical angle that determines cutting speed is what is called the cutting angle which is determined by progressive raker height and has nothing to do with cutter filing angles. Unless progressive raker heights are used the perfect filing angles on a cutter are largely irrelevant. This doesn't reveal itself until about 1/3 of the cutter is used up. By then people who do not know this get frustrated with the chains and throw them out and buy new ones, much to the delight of the chain companies.

I can't tell the difference between my grinding and hand filing but the consensus from the pro chainsaw racers on the Arborist site is that they can sharpen better by hand than any progrinder can sharpen their chains using a grinder. Some well respected members also can sharpen sharper by hand filing than factory sharpened chain and they have the cutting times to prove it. Razor sharp edge on cutters are only relevant for CS races because a razor sharp edge on a cutter only lasts for some 10's of seconds anyway. After that its the chrome plating and cutting angles than make the cut. Once the chrome plate starts to roll over and form a glinting edge its only the raw power of the machine and the cutting angle working until the cutter is totally rounded over and is too blunt to bite into the wood.

Originally Posted by BobL

Some well respected members also can sharpen sharper by hand filing than factory sharpened chain and they have the cutting time differences to prove it. Maybe the pro saw doctor can comment?

That's most likely down to cutting a more aggressive profile than default though. Nothing much to do with grinder vs file but more experience on what angles work best on what wood I would imagine. If you put the same setting on the grinder you'd get the same result. Stands to reason.

Originally Posted by montiee

That's most likely down to cutting a more aggressive profile than default though. Nothing much to do with grinder vs file but more experience on what angles work best on what wood I would imagine. If you put the same setting on the grinder you'd get the same result. Stands to reason.

It is not about angles montie it comes down to how file leaves a finer cutting edge than a grinding stone, and also how much heat is developed by a grinding wheel. I have sharpened more chains than most would ever imagine seeing with higher quality grinding wheels than are available to the general public especially if you are using the cheap one that would obviously have come with a cheap chainsaw grinder.

I only file my chains despite the fact that I have a grinder, and usually will get up to 3 tanks or more without even touching the chain in clean timber, and still be acceptably sharp. The only time the grinder comes into play is when I have hit steel in the heart of a tree or used my saw to grind out a stump. (not something I recommend.) As I have said previously a grinder removes a lot more metal no matter how good you are at using it, and would reduce the overall number of sharpens by at least 1/3 if not more Plus you would not get as much cutting each sharpen so you are losing again. If you feel grinding is the way to go then that is fine but personally i find it a hell of a lot quicker to file a chain on the bar than have to pull your saw down and change a chain and then find an hour later to set up the grinder and grind all of the blunt chains.

oh and while i am thinking of it what do you use to dress and refresh your grinding wheel? Or do you just keep using it glazed? And frankly if you cant maintain a chains angles with a file you wont be able to dress a wheel to the same radius time and again either.

Originally Posted by Travis Edwards

oh and while i am thinking of it what do you use to dress and refresh your grinding wheel? Or do you just keep using it glazed? And frankly if you cant maintain a chains angles with a file you wont be able to dress a wheel to the same radius time and again either.

Travis, your pitching to the wrong gallery, you need to look at it from a sporadic, output focussed, process disinterested, patience lacking, users point of view. What they generally are after is the quickest, cheapest short term solution to a problem - I'm not knocking that - I do it myself with some things.

If I don't have much patience about or worry about thinking too far ahead in some area I'll buy cheap gear on ebay or from bunnings and that gets me by till things start to get too hard. Then maybe I buy another replacement of different cheap bit of gear to try and stay in the game but eventually I hit another wall that can't be solved so I solve the problem in a completely different way eg buy fire wood or a reverse cycle airconditioner, flog the cheap gear and get into another "hobby". That's just the way it is for me, if I'm not interested in the process, don't see it as value for money, no matter what anyone else says I'll justify to myself what I'm doing is right and anything a pro says doesn't apply to me.

People that are inherently interested in the process and longer term thinkers on a topic will commit to purchasing quality gear and learn the processes needed to optimize their overall output in the long run.

All that aside I still reckon whether you own a $50 garage sale CS or $6000 race CS it's still worth learning how to hand file.

While I agree that hand filing is potentially capable of giving a sharper adge than the machine, as Bob said, this is a matter of practicality.

I am a very impatient man and i simply can't be bothered hand-filing. I can do a passable job and if I get caught short on the job I might do a touch up, but usually I just swap out as soon as it starts to drag in the cut. I always have spare sharp chains and they rarely get so blunt that a light grind won't bring them back.

The Oregon grinder is a completely different kettle of fish to the cheapies. Mine is reversible, so you're always grinding toward the side plate, just as with a file. The cheapies only run one way and so they don't put a good "burr" on the edge on one side of the chain. It also allows adjustment of the top-plate cutting edge angle (hook). I follow the Oregon recommendations for their chain, although I do sometimes run a "sharper" edge, especially if I'm cutting soft stuff like araucarias or silky - down as far as 50 degrees sometimes. She certainly bites hard then.


Another advantage for me is that I can teach a mug to machine grind in about 5 minutes, whereas hand-filing can take years to properly master and ruin a lot of chain in the process. That means that the casual labradors I get in to tail out can be doing something useful when we're not milling or stacking.

As well, the mill chain really responds well to the machine grind. With such a square grind it is really important to get the angles right and the grinder does that better than I've ever managed.

For Travis, I have a dressing stick which I use on the wheel as soon as it starts to "slide". It's quite obvious when it needs to be done. A bigger problem than glazing though, is profile on the wheel. If the edge gets worn it becomes "pointy" and the hook angle becomes unreliable. I check and reprofile the wheel about every 20-30' or so of chain, depending on how hard it's been used in between..

hi i have an oregon 12v grinder for my mill and bought a cheap grinder from ebay to run on 240v in the shed at night for $60.00 its magic,but i use a dremel or file for touch up mostly, the chains are sharpened with grinders when new,and find on the mill chains they cut really well with the ground finish

Originally Posted by Travis Edwards

oh and while i am thinking of it what do you use to dress and refresh your grinding wheel? Or do you just keep using it glazed? And frankly if you cant maintain a chains angles with a file you wont be able to dress a wheel to the same radius time and again either.

I'm honestly perplexed by this. I sharpened my entire chain from so blunt that it couldn't cut bark. Not once was ANY cutter even remotely warm. The sharpening disc is definitely not glazed in any remote way and to be honest I cannot ever see it getting glazed. Glazed discs usually occure when subjected to heat. Given my own experiences grinding I just can't understand where you would ever develop enough heat to glaze it over with one exception. The only way I can see it happening is if you are grinding a shitload off each cutter because you've been free handing with the file and screwed the angle big time requiring you to grind a hell of alot more off than you should. Since I didn't use a file it was trivial grind to get a sharp edge without building heat up. The disc that came with it wasn't your typical angle grinder grinding type material either. It's very fine grained for lack of a better description.

I think you guys who are going on about glazing and bluing chains while grinding probably created the problems with your filing to the point you are forced to actually take so much off that it does require quite a bit of grinding and hence heat. It'd be interesting for you guys to not pick up a file buy a few chains and run till blunt and just grind and see how it works out.. I think you'll find you just need to "nick" it and it's sharp as new.

Anyway I'm happy with my bench mounted grinder. Chains actually sharper than the new chains that I bought in addition so I wouldn't have to file for future firewood duties. I also got them at a good price so went for it.

maybe the guys are cutting sappyor gummy wood high speed steel wheels white or pink shouldnt glaze up if they are any good, mine havent cheers

Originally Posted by Exador

Another advantage for me is that I can teach a mug to machine grind in about 5 minutes, whereas hand-filing can take years to properly master and ruin a lot of chain in the process. That means that the casual labradors I get in to tail out can be doing something useful when we're not milling or stacking.

You must be employing "good mugs"
The "mugs" at the so called chain saw shops I used to take my chains too took off way too much.

For people in business (output focussed) I fully understand that they can't afford the time to teach casuals to file and that once the chain is off the bar a grinder is faster than hand filing, but I also don't agree that it takes years to learn how to file by hand and certainly it doesn't take anywhere near that long to learn how to just touch up a cutter.

The people that take years to learn how to file are usually those that use and file a CS on a very occasional basis or the type of person that picks up hammers from either end. My dad could teach almost anyone to file a mangled chain completely free hand pretty well over a period of about 3 weeks but they had to practice 2-3 hours a day in their own time. He used to give them mangled chains to take home every night and they had to bring them back the next day. When they bought back perfect chains 3 days in a row they could stop! Most people took between 2 and 3 weeks to get there but some did it in less than a week. These guys had to learn how to file they were falling 8-10 big karris a day and had to touch up after every tree They had no grinders back at the mill and had enough to carry around the bush (two CS with 42" bars, fuel/oil, and a box of steel wedges and an axe) without carrying extra chains.

Whether you have/use a grinder or not, I still think it's worth learning to touch up manually (even using one of those 12V sharpeners) because eventually it's faster to touch up on the bar than continually swapping out and grinding. I can teach someone the basics of touching up using a file guide in about 15 minutes, and how to file a very blunt chain using a file guide and how to set the rakers in about an hour. But then they have to practice and try out their chains and get feedback from someone that knows something about it. If they practice on filing old chains they then don't mangle new ones.

Like power v hand tools, it's each to their own but I don't believe there is any mystery or years of work involved in learning how to hand file a chain. Like sharpening a plane blade or riding a bike, if a person learns by intense practice they never forget.

This poll had nothing to do with me - it just popped up on the ArborsitSite yesterday.



There is of course no way to know who voted what on this poll. Like I have said before the folks on ArborsitSite represent a wide range of pro-arborists -millers and fallers, saw racers, saw modifiers, collectors, serious amateurs, through to weekend warriors . I'd say the poll is indicative rather than conclusive.

[Edit - poll updated 9:50 am WST 1/11/09]

Originally Posted by bobsreturn2003

maybe the guys are cutting sappyor gummy wood high speed steel wheels white or pink shouldnt glaze up if they are any good, mine havent cheers

All grinding wheels will clog, the sharpness of the aluminium oxide crystals will dull, and as pointed out by exador they will change in profile. Merely grinding steel chains impregnates the "pores" of the wheel with fine oxidised steel particles and the disintegrating aluminium oxide crystals in the wheel. This in turn gives a smoother looking almost glossy grind instead of a more dull satin look which is what you should be trying to achieve. Even diamond wheels used for grinding Tungsten carbide chains require dressing to remove the ground tungsten from clogging the pores of the wheel. In the case of the diamond wheel however you do not dress to shape the wheel as this is vurtually impossible. As I have said previously If you find it economical to spend an hour grinding 5 or 6 chains at the end of a day and like the idea of having to pull your saw apart in the bush after every tank of fuel you put through it by all means use a grinder. personally I do not consider the extra wear and tear on the parts of my saw and the time envolved to pull my saw apart to refit a new chain to be warranted. I can file my chain on the bar as quick as most would spend changing chains and setting tension etc. and get longer running time out of a chain than if It was ground.

I feel that Filing is something that everyone should at least learn to do even if their regimen is not going to include it as their major form of sharpening. There are many reasons for this one being that it teaches the true principles of what makes your saw sharp.

When I was working for a saw shop doing my trade i would see chains which would come in which were near new but had been used that poorly that the wear extended halfway down the top lands of the cutters, and Then when the wear was removed the customer would complain that the chain had had too much stock removed. At this point they would be advised that cutting bricks, stones and dirt is probably not a good thing. However this said I have seen butchers that do remove excessive amounts of material without reason and most of these work at chainsaw service centres and use chain grinders. Most of these people are not trained in the finer points of sharpening but more in tuning the powerhead of your saw (and some of them are poorly trained in that!!)

Originally Posted by BobL

This poll had nothing to do with me - it just popped up on the ArborsitSite yesterday.



There is of course no way to know who voted what on this poll. Like I have said before the folks on ArborsitSite represent a wide range of pro-arborists -millers and fallers, saw racers, saw modifiers, collectors, serious amateurs, through to weekend warriors who just cut a couple of trailer loads of fire wood a year. I'd say it indicative rather than conclusive.

I believe that it would be close to the general conscensus bob

Originally Posted by Travis Edwards

personally I do not consider the extra wear and tear on the parts of my saw and the time envolved to pull my saw apart to refit a new chain to be warranted. I can file my chain on the bar as quick as most would spend changing chains and setting tension etc. and get longer running time out of a chain than if It was ground.

Actually this is a very good point but probably doesn't matter for an occasional user.
But over time I do notice The bar nuts and studs loosen and the sprocket/clutch cover suffers some wear. I have seen some saws where the alloy holding this cover on is so thin it's a wonder it's holding anything on.