Why Sharpen?

Ok, this is a question that has bothered me for quite some time now. Why do you sharpen a chainsaw chain? It seems to me like the time and effort spent loading up a fixture on your bar and then hand filing each cutter while sitting on a log in the woods is not cost effective compared to turning a couple tensioning bolts and removing the entire chain and then putting on a fresh one. I can understand having a bench grinder set-up at the shop and maintaining a dozen or so chains due to the fact that they aren't really worn out, just dulled, but the on the bar style just doesn't seem useful (maybe for fixing an individual cutter if you hit a nail or bullet? I dunno!)

Dave

Cant afford to keep replacing, gotta get as much out of it as poss.
Them electric grinders rule, one at work, take about 2 mins to do a chain, well it takes me about 3 hours because there are too many knobs to twiddle first

I have seen loggers use a file and do it by eye. It takes them less than a minute to do a 24" bar, or so it seems. Nothing worse than trying to cut with a dull chain. I keep a few sharp ones handy and change them when they dull. Faster for me to do that than to sharpen with a file. I am a slow filer... my desk proves that.

Dave, I agree with you and I put on a new one. Then again, I only use a chain saw rarely so unless I try to cut a rock or a steel fence post, a chain will usually last me for one or two summers. For the minor cost I incur, I just toss the old ones. I suppose if I cut wood regularly and went through a couple chains each season then I'd have a completely different outlook on it.

I bet you are, especially if you are trying to sharpen your chains with a filing cabinet of filing papers into a file

I don't have the patience.
I remove it and put on a sharp one.
Every once in awhile (probably 7-10 chains), I grab all the dull ones and take them to get sharpened. For $3.00 each, they all come back nice and sharp.

Anymore, if I have a relative who wants to borrow my chain saw, I just make it a point to pick up a new chain. I'm yet to have one come back that wasn't really dull. Oh, the bonus, about half of the time I get it back with a bent bar to boot! What a deal!!

Hey, what a coincidence. My log splitter just came back...with a large chunk of catalpa stuck on the wedge. As explained to my wife: "we know how picky he about his stuff, so we didn't want to tie a chain around the log and jerk it off with the other truck".

How pleasant. I'd just buy a spare chainsaw and log splitter and give it to relatives, but they would still come back to get me to fix it when they broke it. Gees. At least it came back...

Dargo said:

Anymore, if I have a relative who wants to borrow my chain saw, I just make it a point to pick up a new chain. I'm yet to have one come back that wasn't really dull. Oh, the bonus, about half of the time I get it back with a bent bar to boot! What a deal!!

Click to expand...

You mean it is not an approved function to use the bar to pry open the wedge to get the tree to fall in the right direction?!

Dave

I carry three chains each for each chain saw.

Since I lack the skill or patience to file them, I take them to the sharpening guy around the corner when they are all dull and he does all six of them for $18.

Dave we normally pull the dull chain off and replace it with a sharpened chain. Filing in the field can be done but it's next to impossible to get all the cutting teeth the same length when hand filing. We use an Oregon bench grinder and the chains are sharpened with the same results time after time. You can get a lot of use out of a chain if it is properly dressed. Take off only as much material as it takes to sharpen the teeth.