Recently bought a saw chain grinder; I thought it best to come talk to you about it asap. Legal disclaimer: I didn't sharpen these in Oregon, though I hear it's nice there. Just covering my search terms. Hope you understand.
"They do say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. But no one ever seems to mention how it chips away at your sanity." This is the real-world experience you don't get on other channels.
Yeah me too. LOL, it has been about a year and I came across this by accident. I didn't even know what the subject was or that it was TOT. But when I saw the "HANDS".. I knew I was in it for a spell.... 🙂 Thanks as always Tony....
Tony, it is actually us who enjoy your company and, in the recesses of our machine oil-stained souls, yearn for it. You've put a caption on the screen for people who want to skip ahead. May I just politely and with all respect laugh in your face? I guarantee you, there is no one who would do that! Yes, we learn about things from you and your videos are full of practical advice and machinist's wisdom, but there is a secret reason we all watch you. We love your company and we want to hear your voice and laugh and forget our worries for that short time we can spend with your virtual self. Thank you for all you bring to this world, Tony!
No. While your viewership and enthusiasm is very much appreciated, Tony already told you several times, sir! He will not send you a pair of his soiled gym socks. Also, your idea regarding the release of an annual calendar will be taken into consideration, though the pantsless w/toolbelt suggestion may not align with the usual message and aim of this channel. Thank you. :^)
Yes Tony makes us all believe that he is our friend, a virtual friend, but our friend. For all you losers that think you have a friend, try borrowing a tool from "your friend". He's here for entertainment, he is a master word-smith after all, just as is Ave. Don't get me wrong, I love Tot, but I don't think he's going to be a friend of mine anytime soon, and I wouldn't miss a video for anything. Like subscribe and share for my friend Tot.
The "after" and "after" shots really showed the difference between the dull chain and the freshly sharpened one! I almost couldn't believe the difference!!! wow! 😍😍😍 I wonder what the "before" and "before" comparison would be....
On the question of “Will you go through chains faster?” one consideration would be that you’re more likely to sharpen before your chain is dull as a river rock, improving safety and cut quality.
I worked for Oregon Tool in the Machine Design Dept, designing the chain assembly/grinding machines. I learned SO MUCH about chain cutter geometry in the short time I was there and it’s fun to see it talked about again :-)
Hate to admit it but I have an irrational dislike for Oregon Tool only because when i worked at FedEx they were really heavy and awkward boxes to move around since they were so dense
I used to service the little CNC machines they had retrofitted to perform the actual grinding. I was always fascinated by the automation y'all had designed to get the individual teeth loaded into that machine. Hopefully they're no longer using salt-water as a grinding medium...
I have been doing a lot of cutting lately so looked at several videos. I think yours might be the best explanation I’ve seen. And Tony-ism are always great.
Great video Tony. Im a dremel chain saw sharpening guy. The battery operated dremel can also come out in the field with me, so its a lot more versatile. I thought you might take that sharpener and try to adapt it to sharpen your mills.
It becomes painfully obvious to me when I have to touch up a full toothed 36 inch bar and then a full 30, then a full 24. Under 15 minutes easy. This is the present and the future. Dont have to take the chain off. USe diamond barrel bits. Diamond doesn't get smaller like stone and stone is too aggressive.
30 or more years ago when I got my first chain saw I thought there had to be a better way than filing. I didn't know Dremel existed but I did own a pneumatic die grinder and assorted diamond burs and one round diamond file. Sharpening blades became a pleasure, as long as I was in reach of my airline.
Just sat through 29.52 minutes of a chain saw video and I have absolutely no intention of ever owning one or even borrowing one. But then again, it is TOT!!
Even though I haven't touched a chainsaw in twenty years, I really enjoyed this video. And the after/after comparison convinced me that I need an EDC chainsaw.
I used to sell Chain Saws, and this video its a really good way to teach someone new to it for sure... Thanks Tony (please, next time you're on the market for one, check out the Echo brand... it is made in Japan) ;D
I am absolutely chain grinder curious, and I’m very happy to see this kind of video from a RU-vidr who has the same kind of humor as I do. I need to consider chain grinding as I have 10+ 6 ft logs of California coastal oak to mill into boards, and my new ripping chain is already showing some signs of wear. A lot of filing is fine, but can also be tiring when you are already breaking your back lugging around 1000 pounds of logs. So I’m seeing the potential of a Oregon chain grinder in my future, and possibly a tormek as well… any day now.
That line on the top of the tooth at the correct cutting angle is also the maximum life of the tooth marker. Can't file or grind any further than that because the root of the tooth is too weak and it'll just snap off in the cut, which makes for a fun time trying to pick it out of the cut before you go at it again with a new chain.
There are aftermarket wheels designed for this size of machine. They say should last up to 10 times longer and give a more consistent grind for each tooth. I bought this machine and intend on looking for the wheels after Christmas. Thanks again for another great video.
Love your stuff. The fastest way to sharpen a chain is with a Dremel, or similar, tool with a new cylindrical diamond bit of the correct diameter. With a little practice it's more controllable and accurate than a file, and faster, and many times faster than any other sharpening device.
Yeah buddy! Seems like a lot of people ignore the rakes no matter how they sharpen. I cut a lot of softer wood and even some blades right out of the package have an overly conservative rake height for how much bite I want to take. With a 2 in 1 file, they are always right!
If you think a chain saw grinder is fun, wait until you see an automatic saw blade grinder. My dad had one in his shop when I was growing up and it fascinated me. It could take massive chop saw blades and sharpened a left tooth, than a fight one, etc etc. Still can remember the sound after all these years.
I got a whole four seconds in before I discovered a tool accessory I now desperately want. That little block for holding the wrench &c looks awfully handy.
the little pawl and the spring for the head were the wear items for the machine, along with the discs. we'd always have em on hand. would have loved to use your little device there to straighten a few wheels out over the years! LOL. But many days i'd be grinding along and all of a sudden the spring would break and the head would drop and scare the shit out of me!
been a lumberjack for 65 years, i never even bother sharpening the blade on my chainsaw - i just run it in reverse and give the chain it a nice buff in some gravel, followed by a sand polish.
I cut mostly hard, dead oak, and I agree with you: a little more hook seems to work better. I like to think it leaves more gullet to clear chips with, but who am I to know? Typically I'll test a new grind style for about thirty seconds, drop my bar in a moment of weakness and dig an accidental trench through a hunk of sandstone, and go back and try some other mostly random grind.
I've burned through a fair amount of chain, but it wasn't until this video that I noticed that, at least on your chain, not only does the top plate have a helpful angle suggestion engraved across it, but the side plate also has a marking suggesting a gullet geometry. And on yours, the suggestion was deeper than you got, either with the grinder or with the hand file. Gonna need to try that, when firewood season returns.
That was actually very useful. I certainly don't need a grinder, but my pole saw definitely needs sharpening, and I think I can handle a file pretty well.
For sharpening 'out in the wild' you can modify a vice to fit on your tow-bar or if you are using a trailer to gather wood, weld it to one of the pull braces of the trailer.
watching this again, I find it interesting, like hmmm, that anyone would have a preference, or favorite chain saw cuter tooth shape. That is something has never entered my mind in my entire life. TOT is in a different league!
the point of sliding the base in and out is to center the chain under the grinding wheel. the third angle adjustment is rotating the chain so that it’s no longer 90deg to base.
One thing you didn't mention (and first time I heard it was only a few weeks ago) if the cutters are not the same height the saw will cut curves instead of straight. Seems it's very common as most weekend warriors like me don't use chain saw very often and have only seen the 'stock' type of sharpening, get the angles close either side. Putting a straight edge along top of chain shows if the teeth are level. I've bought new chains when after a few sharpening's they star going left. Now I know what the problem is, I'll be taking a look at what I did wrong and hopefully fixing it
Hey mate, I've been using these grinders since I was about 8 years old, helping mum out in her small engines shop. Not sure how much you've put on for the video, but she taught me to lower the wheel while it's off, then adjust the chain up to it. When the tooth slightly hooks on the wheel as you lift it back up, you've got it taking the right amount off. Not too much, not too little. I also tend to go 30/30 for the degrees on semi-chisel chain, but that's subjective and your mileage may vary when not cutting dry Australian hardwood. Edit: oh bugger, I don't know how I'd go using the hydraulic chain clamp. I guess I only set the cut once per chain, so loosening it up while the wheel is down wouldn't be a big deal. Edit 2: I should just finish the video before commenting. Great video, mate! Dad always told me to tap by hand; one turn forward, half a turn back. It's slow, but I've never broken one ...from my good quality set! 😋
Here for nigh on to 50 yrs, the most complicated I ever got about chain sharpening was keeping track of where I started on the chain. But, I have been IN Oregon the whole time, so maybe it goes w/ the side of the mountains I'm on. (Figure that out, & you're ahead of me) GeoNOregon
I’ve got the 620, I went for that model because it had the auto clamp. I figured on a 12” or 15” loop, hand clamping wouldn’t be soul destroying; but that hand clamping on a 25” or 36” loop would be. As you say, setting up the length of grind, is a trial & error sequence due to the auto clamping. I think it takes me longer to setup that one parameter, than it does to setup all the other angles combined. If I had the same decision to make again, I’d buy the 520. If I used just one brand and all my chain was set at the same angles, the 620 would be worth it. Buy the chains are different and I occasionally sharpen chains for friends, (who can blunt a chain but are incapable of sharpening a chain). My advice, if you only ever run two chains at a time, save the money and continue hand filing. I do 95% if my sharpening by file, only resorting to the grinder, if I’ve got several mashed chains to sharpen at once. Then I do all the .325s at once, then all the 3/8s, then any pico chain, each chain requires a different wheel. I once tried taking down the depth gauges with the grinder, figuring they’d be a uniform setting. But never again, there’s just too much inconsistency in the auto clamping and it’s much too easy, to remove far too much material. So grind the teeth/cutters but take down the depth gauges with a file. Great review - thank you.
Had a similar machine at work but it had hydraulics and a simpler vice that stayed tight. Was a good machine. In all the years I used it I never had tpo true the wheel. It did tend to wear on one side and I always reversed it whenever I was changing from one to the other. I also found that cheap cutoff wheels for angle grinders did a good job too even though they are quite coarse.
I have a harbor freight chain grinder. Once you get past the cheap hinge slop, you get some relatively great repeatability. I've used chainsaw files for 40 years, and I got quite good at hitting that chain of lick with a file. Very tedious when you have seven chainsaws. No longer, now I just carry four or five sharp chains with me in the field, it's much faster to change the chain out than it is to sharpen that damn chain.
On camera you can see there is another matching hole where that pawl is mounted. Just below the black screw. You may have missed it, don't know how visible it is from where you're standing. Looks like a perfect spot for a spring to hold onto :)
Great Video Mr. Tony Try adding a bicycle 🚴 hand brake lever to the chain vise cable on the power unit side of course by the trigger so your hand can do both at the same time It will make measuring the cut or grind a bit quicker. How do I know you ask? Yes I did that for a living for STIHL & please make that a part 2 if you plan on doing that.?! Love your channel Your humor makes my day better Your a riot Thank You 🙏 Btw- STIHL has a similar small battery chainsaw pruner 🦾😎👍
For most cuts, the side plates are cutting across the wood grain, so you need to pay more attention to their sharpness. The top plate of the cutter is just flowing through the grain, so uses very little power to move along. One thing in the file's favour is that it can sharpen just the three cutters that hit that nail, or stone, in the wood.
I bought a cheap chinese grinder and went through the same processes and discovery as you and then threw it out and went back to my file. A file is simple and quick and you don't need to remove the chain.
Not sure about going much finer than (say) a 180 grit wheel. As a woodturner, it's possible to grind HSS tools on (what is, in effect) a linishing belt & you can get belts up to 2000grit. However, the manufacturer specifically says not to use these belts for wood turning tools because, once you go above 180grit, you're grinding through the individual grains that make up the steel. These half grains that you leave behind at the cutting edge might be thin enough to slice through an overripe tomato, but are so weak that they will crumble away the very second that they come into contact with wood. I'm aware that the teeth on a chainsaw are not likely to be HSS, but I imagine the principal still applies.
I do fine with a hand file on the job. When I first started i was asked to use a viced chain grinder and the results were sub par at best. Sure all the teeth were at the exact same angle, but they sure weren't sharp.
I find I can usually get a more repeatable file by hand. I run a mechanical harvester, so I do anywhere from one to three chains a day. The oregons are decent grinders, although certainly not top of the line. My problem with most grinders is that they are not 100% consistent in angle, depth, and being centered under the wheel. There is one grinder on the market, the Markussen Autogrinder, that supposed to be very precise and accurate, but is also close to $6k i believe. I would like to try one of those sometime.
The supports weren't tough to get off because the filament was old, they're tough because you need to make the support-to-model gap slightly bigger in your slicer.
I think the grinder is not supposed to be used for every sharpening, if i'm not mistaken mine said something like "one grinding every four hand-filing" It's used to correct the mistakes we make by hand filing, not necessarily sharpen each time, because they remove way more than the file would for the same re-sharpening effect Also i can guarantee my cheap knock off brand sharpener has way more movement in the hinge than your oregon one ^^
The third factor in going through chains is novelty. Hand filing a chain is a pain in the ass, a chore to be put off, so your chain lasts longer because you just don't sharpen it as much as you should. Meanwhile, new toy? I'd be inspecting chips to find ONE that wasn't exactly the right shape and taking that as a sign to go use the nifty power tool. Probably triple the amount of necessary sharpening, which is like 6x as much sharpening as gets done by hand 😂
At 18:30 when you are showing the two side profiles you can see that the chain has the same reference marking like it does for the top angle to show what it should look like. I didn't know anything about chains before this video so i thought that might be worth pointing out!
I always stayed away from sharpening chain for 2 reasons.. 1…I had a file handle but no files B…I broke down and bought a $12 Dremel grinding jig that laid flat on the saw tooth. Now, whenever I need to sharpen a chain I either can’t find the Dremel or I misplaced the dull chain, which means the little grinding stones last a long time & the Dremel is in a secure space somewhere
I quite like the 2 in 1 chainsaw sharpener (either Stihl colors or the company that makes them Pfeil). It's a file guide and raker file in one and it automatically keeps the rakers at a consistent height. Keeping the right angle is super obvious as it has multiple large indicators on the angle (much larger than the small line on the teeth or even a regular file guide). I could even give it to my gf and after a few tips, she sharpened the chain just fine by herself. Only take 2-4 strokes per tooth unless your super lazy at sharpening and keep wondering why the chainsaw doesn't cut at all. Or if you like reprofiling chains then obviously machines save a ton of time. But just maintenance sharpening, taking the chain off and doing all the setup work on your grinder, it's pretty much already done with a 2 in 1 sharpener and the rakers are done without you ever even thinking about them. Still, can't blame a man for getting new tools.
Same here. Sold my file jig and my grinder after I bought a Stihl 2 in 1. I think a lot of people ignore the rakes and all the chains I've used come out of the box with pretty conservative depths, especially if you are cutting softer woods or have a powerful saw. The 2 in 1 always keeps the rakes at a good height.
